Being a helper for SAR K9s – The Do’s and Don’ts with Florian Schneider June 18-19

SAR dog helpers play the most important role in modern SAR dog training, they spend the most time during training with our dogs, they have the biggest impact. Lets talk about the different levels of SAR dog helpers, their role in the unit and what they should be capable of – in theory and practical exercises.
There are helper and decoy classes, week long training programs and even competitive events for decoys in bitework for sports and working dogs. These branches have understood already years ago that they will benefit from a well trained and educated helper / decoy throughout the whole career of a dog.
Yet, not so in SAR dog training. Often the reward ist just passed on to the helper with no or little further instruction. But we risk a lot in our training by having too little thoughts about what could happen and more important, how can we get the best out of our dog? Certainly by training the helpers who are the number 1 impact for our SAR dogs!
The theory and practical exercises will include:
• Needs of green dogs and pupopies
• Needs of trained and mission ready dogs
• Overview of our current progression plan in SAR dog training
• How much help is good and when does help become a problem?
• Criteria for search behavior
• Criteria for a TFR (focus on barking, also refind)
• When to reward – when to punish the dog.
• individual problem solving as long as we have time for it