How to Train Your Dog to Search & Find

Certified search and rescue dogs are treated as service dogs in most communities.

Search dogs are trained to locate people or objects based on the scents associated with the object. Trainers usually start with dogs as young as three months that have basic obedience training skills. When the training is complete, the dog can be certified as a search and rescue dog. Though time consuming, the training uses many of the same processes as other dog obedience training specialties.

Things You'll Need

• Dog leash
• Dog harness
• Dog treats

Instructions

1. Start doing short searches with the dog on a leash. Have the subject handle an item and shuffle his feet on the ground to create a scent reference. This person then moves about 20 feet away while dropping dog treats every step of so.

2. Bring the dog to the starting point and allow it to sniff the item handled by the subject. Give the dog the find command. Praise the dog when it reaches the subject.

3. Continue the short distance training with fewer treats until the dog quickly and efficiently finds the subject with no treats on the ground. Use the command "Find" every time and but the dog in a harness. Over time the dog will identify both these things with the work of searching.

4. Add difficulty to the search. Start with the person out of sight around a corner. Over time add multiple corners and changes in direction. Introduce heavy vegetation or other natural obstacles. Increase the difficulty in increments but do not introduce a new obstacle until the dog is finding the subject despite the training obstacles.

5. Final training actions include finding a person with the trail 24 hours old and covering trails of up to 2 miles in length. When the dog is accomplishing these tasks, consider applying to take a tracking test for certification as a tracking dog.

Tips & Warnings

• The training steps of the early training may seem simple but lay the ground work for the more advanced training. Make sure the dog accomplishes the basic tasks before adding difficulty to the process.

• The process of training a dog for search and rescue takes as long as two years with multiple training sessions per week. Pet owners not willing to undertake the commitment may want to seek other dog activities.

References

• Ohio Valley Search and Rescue: Dog Training
• North Alabama Search Dogs: Training a Search Dog