The dog is trained to obey these directional commands up to the moment when they smell a scent source that is live human. Then they are supposed to disobey, go into the human subject to confirm a person is there and pin-point their location(s). Then go back to their handler and tell the handler they have found someone by performing a trained, recognizable alert. They then lead their handler back to the location of the subject. Area search dogs can help in situations like: an overdue hiker, a lost hunter, or a child missing from a campground.

Trailing

These dogs are trained to look for the scent of one particular human to the exclusion of all other humans or other interesting scents. They are sometimes called scent discriminating dogs, and are typically asked to start working from a place where the subject was last seen (PLS). Their objective is then to work the scent trail left by the subject until it takes them (and their handler since they are usually worked on a long lead) to the place where the subject currently is. Most people have a mental image from television of bloodhounds as the most common example of this discipline. Trailing dogs can be used to locate: an alzheimer patient who has wandered away from their care facility, a child missing from a playground. They can also be used to confirm whether or not that an article has been worn by a subject, that a subject has been in a car, or that subject has been in an area.

Disaster

This discipline trains dog and handler to navigate confined spaces and rubble piles, take directional commands at extended distances and look only for live human scent in a collapsed structure. Although some disaster teams may be used initially in a local disaster (e.g. earthquake), the best-trained and equipped teams in this discipline are associated with the Federal Emergency Management Agency teams located throughout the country. These are the canine teams you saw on TV working the Federal building in Oklahoma, WTC, and Pentagon.

Avalanche

The goal in this discipline is for the team to quickly locate people who have been buried by an avalanche. Quick response, thorough searching, and safety are all important elements of a response to an avalanche accident. Avalanche search dogs are one tool used to find lost persons buried in snow slides. Probe pole teams and transceivers (if used by the buried person) are about the only other options used to find slide victims until the snowpack melts. The sense of urgency during a search for a person buried by an avalanche cannot be understated. Survival statistics tell us that 90% of slide victims are alive at the fifteen minute mark. After 35 minutes the survival rate is at 30% and quickly drops after that.

Water

These dogs are trained to identify the presence of, and help locate, possible drowning victims in bodies of water. They may work from the shoreline or from a boat depending on the situation. When humans drown, it is usually too late to save a life by the time a water search dog can respond. But since some drownings are unconfirmed and bodies may stay submerged for 1-2 weeks, the family and the authorities need to know if a body is present and, if so, where it is so that it can be recovered. The dog is able to work by detecting the by-products of decomposition as they start to rise slowly to the surface of the water. Once this odor reaches the surface, it fans out on the breeze and the dog helps the handler identify where it first comes to the surface. This surface location is then used to direct divers for body recovery. Water search dogs can be used to find drowning victims in a lake, bay, stream, etc.

Cadaver / Human Remains Detection (HRD)

This discipline borrows from area search in that a dog is given an assigned area in which they are to determine if a body is present. Unlike area search, they are to ignore the smell of live humans and animals. They focus only on the by-products of human decomposition. These dogs are used for presumed suicides in wilderness areas, some law enforcement investigations if a body has been disposed of in a particular area, and some limited applications such as following structure fires to determine if a person’s remains are present in the debris. HRD dogs can be use to: locate human remains in an area in situations like: suspected suicide, buried, after a fire, air or train accidents, possible homicide scenes. They can also be used on archeological digs to locate historical gravesites.

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