Welcome to the exciting world of Mantrailing and finding people with a dog !
A truly amazing fact about
mantrailing is how quickly most dogs’ take to this type of training and how
quickly the dogs find people. Dogs love to use their nose to find people. The
fun part of mantrailing is that we follow the dog and allow the dog to lead the
way without our interference. We, as handlers, literally become a part of the
dog at the end of the leash. We go wherever the dog takes us! Which is
completely opposite of how we handle and give dog’s commands in obedience and
tracking.
Over the next few months, I will be posting articles to help you get started on the exciting journey of finding people with a dog. The information is suitable for training a dog and handler team to work actual missing person’s
incidents or for sporting dog events as well as a fun activity that will amaze
you and anyone who watches a dog use its nose in the most incredible way.
I
encourage you to ask friends and family to participate by using the exercises I will be posting here at Family Disaster Dogs . Every post is put together
for all dog breeds from working dogs to family pets.
Let's train!
The lessons in the follow weeks will give search dog teams a great start and foundation to continue training
towards certification as call-out ready and pet dog owners a great way to
exercise and have fun with dogs of all ages.
This training is not hard to do or
as strict as most dog training methods are. This fun outdoor adventure will
have you and your dog looking forward to the next big search.
The time-tested step by step training
method was passed down to me by Master K9 trainers who helped set
the standards in Mantrailing many years ago. This method will teach you how to start
training a dog and handler team (you and a dog) to find one living human being
in a crowd of other human beings.
Mantrailing dogs pin point and find the
person whose scent the dog is given at the start of the search. The dog will
ignore all other people and distractions to find only that single person you
are looking for.
Mantrailing is one of the most
amazing abilities of scent work with dogs.
For the most part, mantrailing has
always been in its own category of K9 Search and Rescue (K9SAR) training and
work standards as the way to use a bloodhound’s natural and bred-in trailing
ability to find people. Due to different dog breed’s natural traits and the complexity
of missing person’s cases along with the science of scent K9SAR has different
training and working methods that are utilized to produce reliable and
successful search and rescue results. You will learn more about this in the
following weeks.
Here's my dog and I looking for a hidden person.
Mantrailing has a come a long way
since I began in 1996. Like most things, due to the advancement of the internet connecting people the world over, slowly but surely more people are learning that mantrailing is another way amongst an array of disciplines used to work a Search and Rescue Dog or K9 to find people. And, it's one of the oldest ways used for centuries to hunt people with dogs.
Pictured below is a few of my search and rescue dogs in 2000.
Until recently, there have always
been only a handful or so of qualified mantrailing dog trainers and handlers spread
around the world because actual search and rescue operations are handled by law
enforcement, fire departments and emergency management agencies who recruit
volunteers to train and assist when the need arises. Bloodhounds have always been the mantrailers and other breeds the tracker or area search dogs but now other breeds of dogs are learning what bloodhounds know. Bloodhounds taught me how to find people and I'm passing the knowledge on to you.
This type of dog training was not
often offered to the general public until a few years ago. Before then for anyone to learn
how to train a search and rescue dog the person had to volunteer with a
responding agency and receive training from the agency. Which is still true in many parts of the world.
If you want to be
active in search and rescue with a dog you will most often have to join a local
emergency response agency in your area to qualify and to be on a call-out list
of resources. I was fortunate to be asked to learn to train and handle search
dogs by the fire department I volunteered with because I was already a well-known
dog breeder and trainer with years of experience.
With mantrailing becoming popular with
other breeds of dogs in SAR and as a recreational and competitive dog sport I
noticed a need for a simple to understand training book that is suitable for
beginners and experienced handlers who want to start on the exciting journey of
Mantrailing.
I spent most of last year writing the book and now I want to share with my loyal followers and visitors here how to get started by including parts of the book so the lessons come right in your email and are online here for people to refer too.
Over the next few months I will cover the basics of training to be a mantrailing team for work, sport and fun.
You and your dog will be finding a
subject person from the first day of training and beyond.
The dog will find the
person every time using the methods I will outline.
Each training session thereafter
will be a building block for solid reliable success on the trail.
If you want to get a head start then head over to my Start Mantrailing Step by Step book's page for the new book which was published Sept, 2020 and is available on bookshelves worldwide and amazon/ kindle.
Sign up at the pop window (refresh this page for the pop up) to have these posts delivered to your email or bookmark this page and each posts will have a link to the next article and lessons.
Use the contact page at https://familydisasterdogs.com to reach me about in-person training.
Stay safe out there!
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