Working Dogs

In today's world, working dogs are a fact of life. These dogs selflessly provide a service to their masters and their communities and are rewarded with adoration and praise. Police dogs provide such an important service that, in some areas, the killing of a police animal is just as serious an offense as murdering an officer of the law. That in itself is quite a tribute to the work these animals perform.

But what goes into the training of one of these fine animals? Have you ever taken the time to think about how many hours are put into sorting the working animals from the common pets? How much effort is placed on teaching these animals how to do their job in protecting and serving their masters either in official police form or as an assistance dog, such as Seeing Eye or Hearing Ear dogs?

The training of Police dogs alone accounts for many hundreds of man-hours spent for just one animal. Trainers spend many hours researching, locating and acquiring suitable breeds for service dogs and then the dogs must fall within the correct age bracket being neither too young nor too old for service with most dogs ranging between ten months on the young side and two and a half years on the older side. The dogs are then given complete physicals including blood work and X-ray pictures to be certain that they can withstand the stresses and situations the job throws at them.

The dogs are required to do pre-tests to determine eligibility for the program as well as aptitude and the pre-tests include such things as whether the dog is approachable by strangers without extreme shifts in behavior, retrieval behavior and foreign object acceptance, such as horses, umbrellas and objects not encountered daily. These tests are used to match the dog to its specific line of work as in patrol, cadaver, narcotics or explosive training.

There is much rigorous testing of the animals before any true training ever begins and matching the animal's temperament and personality to the correct trainer is one of the biggest criteria to effective training. If the two personalities clash then the whole training process can be disrupted or, worse, destroyed beyond repair. Dogs are matched to trainers and allowed to bond with their trainers before the earnest training ever begins, thus establishing a trust relationship between the man and the animal that will be crucial in the field later.

Now the difficult task of training begins, with each trainer customizing the lessons to their own style in addition to the age and abilities of the dog. There are classes in different tracking methods, aggression behaviors, environmental dangers, gun conditioning and protecting the handler. The dogs must learn and qualify on these procedures before moving on to the next lesson. Each of these lessons requires many hours of skilled and consistent training just as does any other form of specialized work.

Besides these basic lessons, there are also the specialized lessons such as small item retrieval, explosive and drug location, obstacle avoidance and circumvention, along with how to handle a combative subject and escalated force routine. These animals must also learn to deal with distractions, large crowds, tracking in rural, urban and suburban environments and unusual objects, such as umbrellas and weapons.

Remember that there are many hours spent on each of these lessons and that the average dog/handler team is in the field for a year before they become effective and you have a huge amount of training going on. What happens to the dogs that just can't learn all the behaviors? While some are qualified enough to be accepted for other programs such as the Seeing Eye or Hearing Ear programs to assist the physically challenged, most become ordinary but very well trained house pets. For those accepted into the other assistance dog programs, a whole new line of training begins which utilizes their previous training while involving such things as leading the blind thru obstacles using a specially made halter or learning to recognize environmental threats such as smoke, fire, vehicles and tripping hazards and alerting their handlers to the presence of these things. These lessons alone count for many more hours of training.

What does the dog get from all of this? A reward you could never imagine... The love of a trainer and handler that is served well. The affectionate hug of a child whose daddy came home tonight because a well-trained dog put its life on the line. The caress and praise of a blind child who has new freedom because of an animal that leads them where they want to go and protects them from danger. These dogs are rewarded for what they do and rewarded well because they serve well. Think about that the next time you see one of these dogs on the street and remember all the training that goes in to making sure they protect and serve with pride.

Search And Rescue Dogs

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Despite all the technological and scientific advances, such as GPS, satellite images and robots, dogs are still one of the best tools of any search and rescue (SAR) team.While the victim of a disaster undergoes an almost eternal nightmare hoping that somebody finds him, SAR dogs are... just playing a fun game. These game-obsessed dogs live to play the "fetch the human" game. Their reward is a funny tug'o war game. Being alive is the victim's reward.

SAR dogs are capable to save hundreds of human lives because of their powerful sense of smell, their exceptional hearing, a rigorous training and the amazing bond between them and their handlers.However, not everything is joy in the world of SAR dogs. Although these canine specialists are trained by means of games and rewards, they could be retired before time because of physical fatigue and damages caused during their noble task.In tragic situations, like the one happened on September 11, 2001, both the dogs and their guides got to undergo emotional problems because they were unable to find people alive. In the middle of death and desolation, dogs do not only feel bad because there's no reward, but they feel the pain, frustration and sadness of their guides and other members of the rescue team.

There are other situations, nevertheless, when the goal does not consist in finding people alive, but people who have passed away. These are the right situations to use cadaver dogs; dogs trained to find human remains. Although these dogs can't bring back a son to his mother, their work helps to solve crimes and to give honorable burials to those who had the misfortune to perish in a disaster.

Tracking Dogs

Tracking dogs follow a lost person's path from a starting point to where the person is. These dogs are able to seek lost people because they are trained to discriminate human scents. In other words, they don't seek for any human scent, but for one particular scent.There are two main types of tracking tasks: wilderness search and urban search.

Urban tracking is usually more difficult for the dogs because the tracks have every kind of odors, including other people scent, pets scent and other scents. In addition, odors don't last long on artificial surfaces like pavement. And, as if it wasn't difficult enough, there could be lots of distractions while the dog is tracking: several people walking around, other pets nearby, etc.On the other hand, wilderness search seems to be more amicable to dogs because tracks tend to have less people's scent and natural surfaces retains odors for longer time. In addition, natural surfaces could provide dogs with a potential second source of information: the contact or disturbance odor.Since these dogs discriminate odors, they need two things to begin tracking:A starting point, also known as the Point Last Seen (PLS)
An uncontaminated odor sample
PLS could be the last place where the lost person was actually seen or a place where that person was known to be. For instance, tracking can start in the place where the car of a person is, whether the person was seen there or not.

The uncontaminated odor sample is an article with the person's scent. Pillow covers and pajamas are great odor samples, but clothes and other articles could be useful. The most important thing is to keep the sample uncontaminated, so it must be handled with pincers and carried in Ziploc or brown paper bags (common waste bags are treated with chemicals to alter odors, so they are not useful for this task).Usually, tracking dogs work on-leash (a 30-feet leash attached to a harness). However, on-leash work is not mandatory and some tracking dogs work off-leash.Bloodhound is the preferred breed for tracking, though any dog can be trained to do this activity.

An Intelligent Working Dog

As the breed name clearly points out, Labradors retrievers were bred originally to assist in the hunt by retrieving downed game. However, as years passed, their roles did not change but rather expanded to include numerous tasks and services.

No service rendered by a dog can surpass the role of Guide Dog. Through the work of these highly skilled animals, a blind individual is able to move in the mainstream of life, guided by the "eyes at the end of the lead." Such a human-dog bond reaffirms the valued place canines have assumed in our modern world. A Guide Dog and his owner share a special relationship, a dog that lives to serve and an owner who is able to live life to his fullest aided by the service of a life-long companion and friend.

The Guide Dog program originated in Switzerland in the 1920s under the leadership of Mrs. Dorothy Eustis. The original Guide Dogs were strictly German Shepherd females, bred by Mrs. Eustis at her Fonunate Fields kennels Over the years, Labradors as well as Golden Retrievers were also recruited into the program. In Great Britain, approximately 70% of the Guide Dogs are Labrador Retrievers, and Australia uses only Labradors for this task.

In the United States, The Seeing Eye was the driving force of the Guide Dog movement. This organization started in 1929 by Mrs. Eustis and is currently headquartered in Morristown, New Jersey. It has maintained its own breeding kennel since 1941, producing 327 puppies in 1986, 117 of which were Labradors. Of a breeding stock of 40 adults, there are 15 female Labradors and four male Labrador dogs. Only the very finest dogs are selected for this special breeding kennel. They must have successfully completed the rigorous training program designed by The Seeing Eye and exhibited stellar qualities in temperament and conformation. Labradors are commended as easy breeders producing large litters.

Air Scent Dogs - SAR Dogs

Air scent dogs are the best-known type of SAR dogs. They are used to find victims of avalanches and urban disasters, drowned people, human remains in crime scenes, etc.Unlike tracking dogs, air scent ones seek in the surroundings for any human scent (except their guide's scent). Therefore, they are the best choice to locate buried people in avalanche and urban disaster scenarios.Since they do not follow a track, air scent dogs don't search with their noses to the ground. Instead, they walk around scenting the air. Thus, these dogs are able to capture human scent present in air streams.

How air scent dogs work:

Experts believe that air scent dogs can locate victims because they follow a scent cone from its base to its vertex. Thus, these dogs just move from an area where the odor concentration is lower (the base of the scent cone) to an area of maximum odor concentration (the vertex of the scent cone). Since these dogs don't discriminate human scents, they can mistakenly follow a non-victim's scent. To avoid such mistakes, the search area is usually divided in grids and each team (dog and handler) works on one square of that grid. There should be as less people as possible in the search area.Air scent dogs need to work upwind, so it is common to start searching along a route that is perpendicular to wind direction. Thus, dogs can capture the victim's scent and determine where it comes from. Then, they can trace the scent to its source and, after locating the source, notify their handlers that someone has been found (yes, they really notify their handlers).

Making Life Easier For The Handicapped

Having proved their love for humans and their desire to serve, Labradors are now being trained throughout the world to assist many types of handicapped owners in the chores of everyday life. You have probably seen a handicapped man or woman being guided by a loving and well-trained Labrador Retriever at some time.  With some assistance, many people who would formerly have been confined in their activities are now entering the mainstream of society. Their extensively trained Labradors are their vehicles to freedom.

Because Labradors have extraordinary sense of perceptions, they are one of the breeds being widely used as Hearing Ear Dogs. After completing a rigorous four- to six-month obedience and auditory awareness program, they are specifically trained to the individual needs of their hearing-impaired or deaf owners. Their primary tasks are  to alert the owner to the noises that most people take for granted such as the doorbell or telephone, the alarm clock, a baby crying, smoke alarms, oncoming traffic, or emergency sirens. The Hearing Ear Dog makes his owner aware of any important sound by running between the sound and the owner until attention is paid, gently nudging an owner who is asleep, or pulling the owner from harm's way.

Aid Dogs are trained to assist physically disabled people with tasks requiring dexterity or mobility. This variety of tasks include picking up items dropped on the floor to bringing in the mail or turning light switches on and off. These skills are taught to a Labrador by building on his natural intelligence, retrieving instincts, gentle nature, and his desire to please. After mastering a battery of advanced obedience techniques, each dog is placed with his disabled owner and taught the specific chores he will be required to perform in the home.

With an arthritis sufferer, for example, the Aid Dog will retrieve or carry objects as commanded. With a more severely handicapped individual, such as a wheel-chair-bound stroke victim or paraplegic, a system of communicating with the dog may also have to be devised to replace vocal commands or hand signals. Aid Dogs learn to assist their owners by performing many of the physical tasks they are unable to handle, in this way widening the owners' abilities to take an active role in the world around them.