Brindle + Black

This past weekend has been a huge one for me and my 4 legged wonders, as we attended our annual National Training intensive, along with unit members from around the country. This training workshop is held Christchurch, which is the 'home base' and the largest SDA center.
Lots of first's for young Tama - the airport experience and being loaded into the bowels of the big silver bird, were taken in his stride and he travelled like a seasoned pro. Having big brother close by i'm sure was of huge benefit, as he showed no signs of stress at all. This is a massive plus for SAR dogs, as they need to be ready for action as soon as possible once deployed and landed.
The training workshop is an excellent experience for all the dogs and handlers, as this is the one time we all get together as an entire unit. The dogs range from newbees like Tama and Lace through to experienced advanced operational teams. The logistics of organising senarios to help train and extend all the various levels is huge, so hats off to all the trainers and organisers involved ! - the outcome for those involved was extremely positive.

The foundation of all the training we do is based on positive reinforcement and rewarding to shape behaviour, inorder to eventually reach the required outcome. One of the first tools we use is the bark box in order to teach the alert response - in the case of USAR dogs this is barking on the hidden subject. During this exercise subjects hide in the boxes and elicit the bark response from the young trainee, by calling out and teasing with their favourite toy . The subject then rewards with a big play session, this is what its all about - LOTS OF FUN for the dog. At this stage in their development the subject is hugely important, since they have a major impact on the experience the dog has. The more squealing and noise, the better !!

As the dogs progress through their training, the aim is to constantly extend them. This involves exposure to new senarios inorder to hone their searching capabilities - through buildings, tunnels, abseiling, wilderness environments and the ultimate - rubble piles simulating the aftermath of earthquake or disaster episodes. Just like the handlers though, because the end product is a team effort, they all progress through the training program to become operational units at different rates. The journey is incredibly rewarding - to know in the event of something happening, we as a team are trained to find and hopefully save peoples lives - it doesn't get any better then that.

NZUSAR Search Dog Association is always looking for new people who are keen to help out, either as subjects for the dogs to find or as potential new handlers - so please if you are interested to find out more check out the website www.usardogs.org.nz or feel free to drop by at Concept Botanica Ltd and i'd be happy to tell you more.