My Puppy Finds Santa 2020

 

The Story Behind the Family Disaster Dogs idea, books, blog and lessons

Interview With Author Amber Higgins on NFREADS.COM

Please introduce yourself and your books!

Hello,

I’m Amber Higgins, the author of three books that tell dog owners how to use the family dog to find missing loved ones and help during disasters. I’ve also self-published a short story called, “A Squirrel Planted an Acorn”.

I always was a writer and dog lover. My work was first published offline in the 1990’s in magazines and newspapers, including a weekly herbal health column that ran two years. I set writing aside for about fifteen years to volunteer with my bloodhounds and German shepherds I raised, trained and placed nationwide for search and rescue work. I’ve worked with pets since 1976 as a professional master groomer, dog trainer and pet business owner until recently semi-retiring to spend more time writing.

What is the story behind your book(s)?

When the earthquake and tsunami hit Japan, we were awakened at 3 am by tsunami sirens and evacuation phone calls on the Oregon coast where I was living writing other books. As I was watching the event unfold on television because we lived on a hill and were safe, I looked at my bloodhound Daisy who sat next to me and the idea for the Family Disaster Dog books dawned on me.

All of a sudden I thought of the many ways our dogs can help us! Family dogs can learn how to help their owners like search dogs do! Our own dogs can find us! They do this everyday when they want to play or go outside, our dogs are always wishing to follow us so why not ask them to find people they love who may be lost or trapped after an earthquake or tsunami ? Dogs can carry evacuation bags for young children, seniors and disabled family members who cannot carry the weight themselves!

That night, I began writing the “Family Disaster Dogs” book and lessons tailored to fit any dog’s household and family. Every dog can do something ! One simple skill may save a life. I knew that writing a book and publishing takes time so I started a blog to reach dog owners as I wrote the book. Right away, people online loved the idea!

Today, there are over two hundred Family Disaster Dogs articles online and the site has daily visitors from all over the world. The original Family Disaster Dogs book was published in 2015 by a publisher who went out of business 2016. I added 50 more pages of lessons and self-published the second edition in 2017 along with a small but helpful book called Evacuate with Your Dog’s Help-Survival Bag List.

My children’s book with illustrations by UK dog cartoonist, Scotty King, was recently released by Waldorf Publishing (2019).

What were the best, worst and most surprising things you encountered during the entire process of completing your book(s)?

I was surprised that dogs and owners as far away as Scotland and Australia were learning from what I posted on the blog! This encouraged me to keep the lesson ideas flowing, they were learning valuable skills with their dogs and what to do in emergencies to help themselves and communities. The best thing was that people wanted to know more. The worst experience was my first publisher going out of business a year after publishing the book.

What are your plans for future books?

I have two more children’s books in this genre planned and three other children books in draft I wrote years ago, along with a novel almost completed.

Tell us some quirky facts about yourself

I once lived on a mountain top 4 miles to the nearest electric pole and wrote by the flame of an oil lantern. I wrote my young daughter children books for Christmas on an old royal typewriter under the glow of the oil lamp. One day I will self-publish those books I have carried around in draft for thirty years.

Amazon author page is  https://www.amazon.com/Amber-Higgins/

Twitter is @URdogCanRescueU

Facebook author page is  https://www.facebook.com/AuthorAmberHiggins/

Facebook Family Disaster Dogs page is  https://www.facebook.com/familydisasterdogs/

Website https://www.familydisasterdogs.com

Books

Evacuate with Your Dog's Help

My Puppy Can Find Me Publisher Page

https://www.waldorfpublishing.com/collections/2019/products/my-puppy-can-find-me

Family Disaster Dogs Radio Interview-update

Radio link is updated and hopefully works for everyone :)

In memory of Daisy who helped me write the books 

I was interviewed on Chat & Spin Radio UK on November 29th, 2020

Here's the voice recording of the show. 

Radio Interview

click above link to listen to the interview

you will be taken to a google drive sound file that is secured

To see, read more and buy the books go to my author page click here at Amazon or email me for a copy via the contact page that is above in the page bar. 

Wrinkledpups "Daisy" Mayham was my current girl's foster mama dog, 

Washee Thunderfoot a Family Disaster Dog

Click the radio recording link above to find out what inspired me to write the books.

Check it out--The Family Disaster Dogs is Free to read on Kindle until the New Year of 2021! click link to go read it

 and

My Puppy Can Find Me  

Chat and Spin Radio!

Here's the link to listen anytime. They put on a great show.

https://chatandspinradio.com/

Stay Safe out there!

Wrinkledpups (K9SAR dogs) Arkansas 1996-2013

T.A.'s Kennel - Dallas Tx 1982-1989

Arkansas 1989-1998

Family Disaster Dogs 2011-present

Gathering Scent Articles for Mantrailing Dogs to Search for Missing Persons

 Gathering Scent Articles for Mantrailing Dogs

Search and Rescue Dogs trained to follow the scent trail of a live human being are called Mantrailers. These specialty trained dogs use an article or item belonging to the person the dog will find to identify and discriminate that person from other people. 

No two people smell the same, even when they use the same perfume. Each person has their own unique personal scent signature. This, invisible to the eye, individual scent remains in indoor spaces we visit and on items we handle, touch or wear. 

We leave our scent signature everywhere.

Photo from Upslash.com

To give you an idea of how much our scent remains on everything around us. Let's take a look at all the items in the photo above. Everything pictured will be contaminated with the scent signature of that one person at the desk! 

Each thing on that desk is a potential scent article that can be used to lead a trained dog to that one and only person. The desk, chair and personal space around that person is a scent article too. I have scented dogs on items as small as cigarette butts, paperclips and my favorite scent article for success is a toothbrush because generally only one person uses a toothbrush. Dogs are scented on chairs, benches, cars, desks, rooms, anywhere a person has been and everything they have been close to.

Contamination or the mixing of scent signatures by another person's scent happens immediately when the second person gets close to the first person's item or personal space. 

Contamination also occurs when other natural and humanmade substances or odors get mixed. A contaminated scent article is the most common reason a dog fails to find a person. I will be writing more about contamination in future articles. Sign up for the newsletter or follow me to get the new posts and you can go to this page to read how to train your dog for tracking which is different than trailing.

Scent chemistry is a very complex subject I like to explain in simple terms for everyone to easily understand. So, if we think of a person's scent chemistry as a scent cloud made of invisible particles and flakes of skin, hair and whatever else falls off, such as germs and infectious viruses, like Covid19, we can better understand what a dog follows when they search for a person. The scent cloud is what a dog works with. 

Let's start with what the dog will start with, the Scent Article!

How-to properly gather and store scent articles for dogs to find people.

One of the easiest ways to find a lost person is to give a dog the person's scent and watch him find the scent. 

The dog is only looking for the smell and not for the actual person. 

The dog does not necessarily associate the scent with the person unless the person is somebody they know with that scent. 

copyright A.Higgins

In the photo, I'm giving a Bloodhound pup the scent article

 To a dog, a scent is a scent.

Therefore, the fastest and surest way to teach or ask a dog to find a person is to use the person's scent to show them who we seek and no two people smell alike. Everybody smells different and we smell different at various times during the day or if we are sick.

To teach your dog to search for a lost or missing person, including family members you have to prepare first by gathering a "scent article" then visit my free dog training lesson page to read how-to start a dog.

To find Family Members with your Dog

It is wise to gather one sock from each person you love or do not want to lose before you start training your family pet and to store these as instructed below for later use in training sessions or if a loved one is lost. Place one dirty sock from each family member in a one freezer bag each sock.  

Do Not Mix or touch the sock to anything, only the bag, use a hanger or stick to pick it up. Freeze the socks in case of a disaster where somebody is lost or gone missing. When you go hiking collect a article from each hiker before leaving in case somebody goes off the path and is lost. A search dog or a dog from the hiking group can find them if you let the dog smell the personal item.

Also you can collect a item from each family pet as well, a old collar or brush would do. Store this item as outlined below use it as a scent article for a dog to find the missing pet

copyright A.Higgins

To Find a Unknown Missing Person

When training your dog to find people who are unknown or not family members, you will be using a volunteer person to hide from your dog so you will collect a scent article from that person before the person goes hide. The scent article can be a face mask, a sock, hat or other small personal item nobody else has touched. 

  Gathering the Scent Article

Always handle every scent article, at all times, in training and in an actual search with the upmost care! NO OTHER PERSON or thing should every touch or breath on a scent article from somebody else. 

Preservation and handling of a scent article is the most important aspect of using a dog to find a missing person. The main reason a dog will not work a trail or lose the scent of a missing person is because the scent article used was contaminated. We cannot see the contamination or smell any difference but a trained dog will smell and look for every smell that is on the article. 

If another person handles the article the dog will look for both people. Then a different type of search is needed to be used that will depend upon how well the handler reads the dog to come to the right conclusion. The dog will follow both persons scents and should be rewarded, although it may appear the dog is on the wrong person's trail. 

If a handler does not know a scent article is contaminated and gives the dog the scent article to use to find the missing person or shows the dog the last known location to start on that is contaminated. The dog will smell the missing person and the unknown subject or other substances (I will write about substances soon) the dog will look for all the scents on the scent article or at the person's last know location. For this reason, it's critical to safeguard and choose wisely every scent article used. 

Everything a person touches is a potential scent article, make sure it's only touched by the one person you wish to find.

Collecting the Scent Article

DO NOT touch the scent article yourself, have the person drop the personal item from their hand into a new brown paper bag (lunch bag size) or a plastic freezer bag ( zip lock natural non chemical bag is best) I prefer paper bags because paper is natural and organic to the dog's nose.

This is a post for beginners, you will learn more about scent article collection at a scene in other articles. 

Do Not Contaminate that scent article. 

Have the person fold the bag shut and drop the bag into another holding bag you will carry.

Reminder, Do Not Put 2 scent articles from different people together, each article gets its own bag and label the bag with the person's name, date and time.

If you are not using the scent article right away, store the bag in the freezer until a few minutes before use.

Write "Scent Article" for emergency on the bag (police dogs and search dog handlers will know what to do with this if you ever have to call them about a missing person.

My bloodhound Homer found 26 people and 1 mountain lion while working a 6 year career in law enforcement before semi-retiring from my mentor to me to volunteer and produce fine pups that went to work in several states, Canada and South America. 

The “scent article” tells your dog who they are looking for!

Handle with Care.

When you start the dog on the scent article, you will open the bag and ask the dog to smell inside to bag. Most dogs will out of curiosity, be sure to tell the dog the command "Smell" or "Take Scent" each time to teach the dog you expect them to smell the item.

You only need one item from the person as long as that item is not contaminated by any other odor, substance or person. 

Here's some ideas for the best personal items to use for K9 scent articles.

1. Clothing directly from the person-hats, socks, shirts, shoes, etc.

2. Personal hygiene items-hair bush, toothbrush, comb, bottles only the person touched, etc.

3. Bedding-pillows, covers, sheets

4. Toys

5. Tools

6. Office items-mail, pens, pencil, books, desk top, chair that only one person has used

7. Benches, chairs, table tops, gate handles, door handles, etc

8. Automobiles -seat, steering wheel, doors, inside and outside surfaces, items inside, floors

9. Daily use items- towels, dishes, eating utensils, pipes, walking canes, backpacks, etc

10. Electronics- Phones, computers, device cords, memory cards, device case, briefcase 

For online courses that teach you how to train a dog to search for missing persons, dead and alive visit my online dog training courses and dog lifestyle coach page by clicking here. There is an Obedience course and Family Disaster Dogs course I am finishing writing there, and the Cadaver course is accepting more students. 

     

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My Daisy gave me the idea for this site and books ! Good girl Daisy!

Read the Family Disaster Dogs Book for Free on Kindle or buy a copy as a gift ! 
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Stay safe in 2020!