Since
snow hasn't scent, this is the easiest
way of searching for dog. Anyway, circumstances
like deep snow can make the searching
much heavier and sometimes impossible.
When there's a lot of it, we cover the
decoy with snow so dog must use only sense
of smell. This picture shows Gunna and
her run to a "searching mission"
with a maximum speed :-)
It's
very important that handler knows well
his dog that he can know when the dog
follows a human scent. It often can be
a crucial moment for action development.
As
usual, dog performs a bark alert when
the "missing person" is found.
Duration of barking depends of dog motivation.
After
some time of dog barking which depends
how well the dog is trained, decoy gives
him a reward (toy or food). Good decoy
make half way to a good rescue good.
Afterwards,
the dog brings his toy to his handler
and play "tug of war" with him.
When
there's plenty of snow, we cover the decoy
with snow so dog can rely upon his sense
of smell only.
Besides
barking, dog must mark the place with
the decoy with stratching. In real rescuing
situation where injured person can be
deep below the snow, it's of essence that
the dog very exact locate the right place
so the rescuers know where to dig up.
