Sardog

Have a bucket of water down next to the fence plus a stand for you to climb on and when they start barking quietly go down the back and let them have it. BEEN THERE....DONE THAT.....It worked with 2 pitbulls we had next to us meany years ago! It's a very frustrating problem - good luck!

He has elevated his position up the ladder from the couch to the table

Herding guy: Yank is now home with Lablover and quite comfortable sharing the couch with the other Labs......! Cheers

MAN - O - MAN.....What an awesome import...! We paid Lablover and Yank a visit yesterday arvo, left late evening Yank has such presence, interest and... dare I reiterate on this forum ....DRIVE He will do both countries proud with his achievements I'm sure!. Go Jules......

Hi Gillian, Are you going to the workshop with Steve on Friday May 26th? I cannot remember if you said you were going or not! I will be there to "supervise Steve"....lol - with refreshments etc so I can speak to you at length about search & rescue and the requirements etc. (I had a feeling you may be going!) Julie

I have posted relevant information on the thread "Search & Rescue Dogs" in answer to all Gillian's questions. Sarda has been 12 years in the making with the first 5 years dedicated to cadaver and then area/wilderness followed in the last 4 years by Usar - Urban Search & Rescue. Long process........enjoyable (but sometimes frustrating) process! When Australia finally has their own uniform standards, accepted by all sar k9 groups and recognised by the relevant authorities, then we can only progress to become a volunteer k9 rescue resource equal to the rest of the world. Very pleased with all the interest....keep it coming

Hi Gillian, If you decided that a Labrador was the "one" for you (no bias here!!! lol) then there would be no problem with your GD- you would be living in the pack environment. The new puppy would need to spend most of its time with you in the first 6 months for example - leaving a pup with an older dog tends to develop the bond between the pup and the older dog rather than the pack leader (you). We train at weekends and most of our members can only offer that commitment. The training through the week would be in the initial stages and that would only require 10 minute puppy runs etc. Depending which discipline we have scheduled (area/bush, disaster (rubble) or building searches) we train in 4 week blocks. Travelling to sites is not that far - mostly Melb. metro area but if we have weekend away camps this can be in country Victoria. We do try to accomodate members and find mutual areas if possible. We will only train on either a Saturday or Sunday - but depending on how the training is progressing, one day is sufficient. What area do you live in? We are all volunteers and we all have a life away from the sardog training :p .

Latisha, you obviously learnt a lot from the workshop last weekend, excellent overview of the requirements for the search & rescue canine - elephant stamp for Kristy :p I will maybe just expand a bit more...... You need a breed with strong prey drive, good nerve, solid/ biddable temperament. Agile (not too small and not too large breed) and consider the coat - not a heavy coat and not a thin coat as weather in Australia can be severe - both heat and cold. The sar teams in Australia ar few - at present the Sarda team has the only Internationally accredited dogs in Australia in both area/bush and disaster. There are other teams but don't have full accreditation. At present Emergency Management Australia is viewing the necessity of having the qualified volunteer sar teams accredited to an Australian Standard. Attending the Sydney workshop last weekend was the Deputy Manager Rescue of the NSW Fire Brigade who is intending to standardise Australian qualifications for the volunteer sar teams for disaster. His attendance was really appreciated. The commitment for the training of the sardog from puppy to Level 3 "Full Search Dog" is intense. Starting at basically 7 weeks of age and teaching all aspect of the search and rescue discipline until approx. 9 months, then the training is expanded. Our two dogs were fully qualified at ages of 22months and 19 months. The average age is 3 years but if the dog is taught correctly in the formative months there is no reason why the assessing/testing/qualification process cannot be achieved earlier. It all depends on the attributes of both dog and handler. I took a video with me to the Sydney workshop of River at 10 weeks old doing a search to verify that puppies learn so much from such a young age. We spend every weekend training, travelling to various training areas. We have a purpose built disaster site, many closed schools have been made available for building searches and various bush sites for the area/wilderness training. During the puppy formative months we would train 4 times a week but that would only be in about 10 minute sessions. Any other discipline interfers with the training of the search dog ie: formal obedience etc. We neutralise the pups from the beginning and give them experience on agility equipment to get them used to climbing and to become comfortable on unstable surfaces and height etc. No toys/play items allowed other than the toy reward which is only produced during training. Bonding with the handler is critical which requires spending as much time with each other in the formative months as possible and taking the puppies and exposing them to all surroundings is essential. Over the years a lot of the volunteer sar units came and went - there have been a few in NSW and at present there are no teams that I know of (if anyone knows then I stand corrected). It is difficult to commit to this as the average person has families to consider, work and travel. We have had so many members come and go through the years and it has taken so much time and effort on both parties to train the dogs and handlers to any succussful level - as I said to the group last weekend : "there's a fine line between hobby and mental illness!" It is an extremely gratifying discipline, we thoroughly enjoy ourselves (as can be verified by the Sydney attendees ;) ) and we are training the canine to use his best attribute (his nose -and brain) to save the life of that trapped or missing human. We campaign all year round for funding as we have to have public liability insurance which is a necessity. With the sponsorship of Nestle Purina ProPlan they supplied uniforms, first aid kits, GPS units and Radios, funds to fly our International trainer from Europe for assessing and testing. Taipan Footwear supply us with necessary footwear for disaster training and area/bush searches. We have sausage sizzles and rely on the generosity of the general public organisations and sporting clubs for their support. A local veterinary practice Frankston Heights Veterinary Centre sponsors the care and attention to the sar dog if he is injured whilst training or on deployment. They also assist in conducting a first aid course for dogs for the sardog handlers. Funding is an on going area which has to be monitored at all times as we get no assistance from any government body. While I am posting here I would like to just take this opportunity to mention a small thanks to a few of the people who helped out last weekend: with the first aid: Nurse Cindy (Winterpaws) - thank you for attending to Andrew's torn calf muscle - he is now able to continue with the housework - you will have to stop loitering near public conveniences as the dog will find you every time:rofl: to Robyn (gillbear)who supplied the necessary bandages : Lia (Kavik) & Fiona (Sidoney) who were bodies extraordinaire; Kristy (Latisha) "for wanting to get a Lab" hehehe. Hope this helps - I could go on and on but if I have missed anything specific, please ask. Cheers, Julie

Hi everyone, Well, what a really great weekend we had with the NSW attendees - to the "Training in prey drive (K9force) and our (SARDA)Search & Rescue workshop. A huge thank-you must go to Steve for allowing us to use his profile and facility to run this workshop and give those who attended an overview of the capabilities of an operational search & rescue dog. We could have gone on for days..lol. Thank you to all who attended and Steve's training in prey drive , complimented our section of the workshop. And thank you to Steve for being the best host and accomodating the 4 Sarda members and two sardogs The first day was mainly theory and small demonatrations, detailing how the dogs locate on scent and choosing the right sardog etc. The weather was superb and the areas Steve has sourced were ideal for our demonstrations, bush. creek, caves etc. At one stage I thought that Steve was going to live up to his reputation and "walk on water"...... Unfortunately, on the second day, on his first search with Gus, Andrew tore his calf muscle and was unable to continue, SO that put myself and River as number one sar team. For the finale, we had planned a large search with both dogs working together! After this setback it put Steve's thinking cap on..... (and what I thought was "payback time".....) He placed the bodies in very good areas to get both the dog's expertise and mine working together. Thank you must go to those who volunteered to body for us as they do not get to see some of the work prior to being found. This final search was full of vigour from all parties and as it was in the later part of the day, the temperature was falling and getting very difficult to define the scent source. We found all 6 victims in nearly an hour - River (aka son of stamp) never stopped working 100% until the last victim was found. Steve is now looking forward to the Vic seminar where his thinking cap is going into overdrive regarding hiding victims ... he might fool me but he won't fool the dog's nose..... :wink: The whole weekend was full of learning, discussion, laughter and cheer and I hope everyone enjoyed the time as much as we all did......we would love to start a branch of Sarda in NSW Cheers, Julie, Andrew, Pat and Chris and big sloppy ones from Gus and River (sos)!

Sorry, sorry, sorry.......the pic didn't work! Apparently the host said the pic size was too big but I didn't think they would even put in on the post. Lablover can post some pics when she gets home from the Easter Retrieving Trials :D He's beautiful......

Lablover's new baby has finally arrived on Oz soil..... ;) Since his conception late last year Yank has travelled from USA and arrived at Tullamarine on Tues. and has been transferred to Spotswood for 30 days and will then go to live the rest of his life in pure doggy heaven at Lablover's property. Those who know Lablover will totally agree ;) Welcome "Yank" - he's a beautiful young black Labrador.

Erny said: "news got around about our lunch recently - up to NSW and back" That was me Erny What a great day you both had.....wish I had been there ..lolol

Search & Rescue - the dog is air scenting the rafts of bacteria rising from the body and dispelling into the air. Tracking - the dog is identifying the disturbed vegetation from the tracklayers footsteps. If the track is very new then the scent from the tracklayer rises and then falls alongside the track and is carried by the wind direction, that's why you see dogs casting side to side. If the track is old then the scent from the tracklayer has dissipated into the air leaving the dog to then track the disturbed vegetation. With tracking you need to teach the dog basic scent discrimination very early in training to deter him/her from following the crossovers later down the harder/longer laid tracks. Article alerting is very important also and should be taught very early. I never trained with food under footsteps (too backbreaking)- we always taught the method where the dog sees the handler leave initially with favourite toy or food. The dog must have plenty of desire to want to find - that's the key ingredient. A complete understanding of how scent works is imperative to be able to read your dog properly in both sar and tracking. It always amazed me at tracking trials- when the dog located an article the handler would put that article into his/her pocket. Later, if the dog was getting a bit confused or could not find the track, the handler would try to re-scent the dog with the article that had been in their pocket for the duration since it was first picked up whose scent is on the article now? If we could see as well as a dog can smell - we would be able to see another million colours, their complete scenting ability is untapped by humans. As Kavik said "we can't smell what they can!" Sam, I hope you can make it to our seminar, I'm sure K9 has your information, he's a very busy person at the moment.

Hey Lablover, I'm out of the cupboard again...... With our sardogs, when the bell-harness (for area/wilderness search) goes on or the bell-collar (disaster/usar) goes on, this is an immediate trigger to our dogs that they are WORKING....they are keen but still remain calm. A couple of weekends ago we participated in an open day held at the Southern Peninsula Rescue Squad training centre at Sorrento, Victoria. We are a part of their training team with the dogs being transported in the helicopter, winching etc and we gave 2 demonstrations during the day. We are all volunteers and fundraising is necessary to keep us in existence. The dogs all wore their harnesses without the bells and we conversed with all spectators during the day. The dogs (the operational ones) were quite anxious as they are keen to go in the helicopter and also their harnesses on (without the bells)- they thought they were heading to some exciting search area. Their trigger is their harness & bells and also that day it was the helicopter - they love it!

As Steve posted earlier about the possible combined workshop - I discussed this with him earlier today and we have considered the dates maybe around April - late April, for the NSW seminar then followed by Victoria. Hey Tim, glad to hear from you, stay in touch and hopefully you can come to the Vic seminar. Thanks everyone for your interest in search & rescue - it's a lot of hard work and commitment but a VERY satisfying discipline! No trophy, no title just a life saved! Cheers, Julie

Thanks for your interest in search & rescue , I have received the PM's and will help with them individually. I have had so much interest from NSW - very pleasing. I think we need to initialise a branch there with K9 as Chief Instructor for "Sarda - NSW Branch"- !!! Julie - aka Sardog President

L+P We have two internationally accredited Labs in SAR and we are in Victoria. Sardog

CJ: Horses for courses! We have trained the sardog to value the reward at the end as his greatest achievement. Sardog

Hi again LL, In an addition to my pm I would like to share this with all the DOL'ers regarding the loss of you your beloved Sesame. I read some time ago about a young boys thoughts on the loss of his beloved dog and his acceptance of the fact that dogs don't live as long as humans. His thoughts were: "Everybody is born so that they can learn how to live a good life - like loving everybody and being nice. Dogs already know how to do that so they don't have to stay as long!" such a loving thought. Just remember - a quote, "your dog is your friend, your partner, your defender. You are his life, his love, his leader. He will be yours, faithful and true to the last beat of his heart. You owe it to him to be worthy of such devotion" - unknown. Julie

Hi LL, If I may put my 10cents worth in before the 90cents value from Steve. It is a bit hard for Stamp to ignore the live bird and accept the toy at this early stage in his training - meaning that you haven't trained him for that long with this modality and it's a bit hard to expect him to hold complete value of the toy yet. We have proofed our dogs with live rabbits running across their path while working and they haven't battered and eyelid STS...but they have been training with this since puppies, so they are used to it. Keep at it and don't stress too much..lol...(I think it may be only 8 cents value!) Cheers, Sardog

LL asked: "why corrections (or general obedience) are not part of your training?". We start our sardogs training from 6 weeks with small puppy runs and progress from there, ensuring that each step is cemented into the dogs mind before progressing to the next stage. This is how training of all dogs is done of course but you must be sure that the dog understands each phase and not be too quick to advance. Once the puppy starts making mistakes then you know that he/she doesn't fully understand the concept and this is where problems begin. From the age of 6 - 16 weeks, the puppy has what we call the "will to serve" and given each breed is different, they are eager to please as long as the reward at the end of each training sessions is consistant and I mean CONSISTANT! From 16 -(approx) 28 weeks the "will to power" takes over (aka teenage years). You don't tend to have any problems in this phase IF your training has been consistant. The reward is the most important aspect of training the working dog and this reward MUST come from the handler. Many dogs "fall by the wayside so to speak" because the reward for the dog is not consistant and often handlers take for granted that he has rewarded the dog enough.... not so. The reward is so very important. When we have the dogs come into the program who are older, this is the most common problem, the reward at the end is obviously not stimulating enough and toy reward is not important enough. Our dogs don't make mistakes while they are searching, it is always the handler and we then analyse where the mistakes were made and we learn from them. Quote: (General obedience) does come into our training but not formally, the dogs are asked to stay while wind direction is tested, stop on whistle command and direction. This is also started from puppies, however no correction is needed if this phase is also cemented. There would be nothing worse than having the dog not stop when told, going out and correcting and then expecting the dog to continue to search........the dog would lose focus in prey drive and not continue to use its own initiative. Of course you have to have the right ingredients for a good search dog or any working dog, it is like baking a sponge cake and using plain flour instead of self-raising....you know the results!!!!! The old saying goes LL: "Baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, teach and build then build on what you teach!" Cheers, Julie

Thank you K9 & LL (the perfect hostess) for your positive comments (above) regarding our dogs. Andrew & I enjoyed every minute of the seminar from start to finish and for someone with the expertise and calibre of K9 to reassure us that we have our dogs at the level he mentioned in the above post, is gratifying afterr the sacrifices and hard work we have put in over the past 3 years to get both our dogs internationally qualified search & rescue dogs. K9, we are hopefully heading to Sydney in the New Year to train with the NSW Police Dog Squad at their purpose built disaster site and we will definitely meet again. Otherwise, catch up with you when you are coming south...... Thanks publically for your PM - you know what I said in my PM reply... and.... BTW again....did you know that River is a son of Stamp? lolololol. Cheers, Julie

K9: huh? can you explain? Sorry K9, just my warped sense of humour.!!!!!! lol. This topic has been discussed at length for quite some time now with varied opinions from both genders.....! I was just interested in your opinion regarding that theory and I agree with you - ...OF COURSE, I am female handler with a male dog. Looking forward to your workshop. Julie

Thanks K9, Now I know where I stand at your seminar on 19th & 20th....lololol.

A question for K9... What do you think of the theory that a male dog sees the male handler as the leader but a female handler of a male dog only as an equal?