As you may have noticed from my recent writing on the POD of a Search Dog is 100%, I have been reading Greg Fuller, Ed Johnson and Robert J Koester’s book Man-Trackers and Dog Handlers in Search & Rescue – Basic Guidelines and Information. One of the reasons I was keen to get hold and read this book was because of the simple, but great idea contained within it’s pages – the idea that it is possible to successfully combine the two SAR disciplines of Tracking and Search Dogs into one field team unit.

I had been toying with the idea for some time for Lowland Search Dogs. A Lowland Search Dog team working as a Team consists of a dog, a handler and at least one support person. I have had some concerns [although this is probably too strong a word] for a while about the under-utilisation of this extra body. In my mind this person is a potential foot searcher who is being restricted from searching fully by having to accompany a search dog and handler [before you comment I am aware they do have a specific role - just that this role takes away search effort!]

I had been toying with the idea of spreading handler and support out more to allow for a “better” [?] search by the support alongside their support role. However, if LSDog support personnel were all trained at a minimum in track awareness [and better still at tracking] this would add a whole new dimension to the search dog team.

Obviously the dynamics of the team would change – but having the support walk the path, with the handler off the track so as to avoid track and sign contamination is not perhaps the most difficult change.

I’d be interested in your thoughts on this one…