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How Search and Rescue Dogs Work · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you should know from house stuff Works
0:04
Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
0:13
Speaker 1: and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant and first time ever
0:18
Speaker 1: guest producer Andrews. It's very exciting. Yeah, I thought you
0:23
Speaker 1: were saying he was a ghost or something. We'll know.
0:26
Speaker 1: He's right beside you, right, But I mean he could
0:29
Speaker 1: be an illusion or one of those uh like the
0:34
Speaker 1: ghosts that I saw that didn't look like a ghost,
0:36
Speaker 1: that was just a solid form. Sure, hey k a ghost.
0:41
Speaker 1: Yeah we could use more ghost producers, we could, you know, Yeah,
0:46
Speaker 1: I don't have to time benefits. No, you do not
0:49
Speaker 1: have to do anything. Yep. He just pretty great. Press
0:52
Speaker 1: a button and die? Oh so um, Chuck. Yes, I
0:58
Speaker 1: don't know if you remember. Several months ago we released
1:01
Speaker 1: an episode and it was a good one if you
1:04
Speaker 1: ask me. It was about search and rescue. Okay, do
1:08
Speaker 1: you remember the episode right? And there was like you
1:13
Speaker 1: saw urban search and rescue, wilderness search and rescue, and
1:17
Speaker 1: in that episode I was like, man, we have to
1:19
Speaker 1: do an episode on search and rescue dogs. Well, by god,
1:23
Speaker 1: today is the day We're doing it. The only time
1:25
Speaker 1: we've ever followed up on a promise in our career.
1:28
Speaker 1: The prophecy has been fulfilled. It's right. So we're talking
1:32
Speaker 1: today about search and rescue dogs and this, first of all,
1:36
Speaker 1: this article is just genuine bona fide how stuff works,
1:41
Speaker 1: quality from the olden days. Just checks all those boxes,
1:45
Speaker 1: done in't it? Every box that's that's that's Mark one
1:48
Speaker 1: in the favor of this episode that it's based on
1:51
Speaker 1: that article. Mark two is that it's about dogs and
1:56
Speaker 1: how much how great dogs are. And I just had
1:59
Speaker 1: a really good time researching this one. Yeah, it's funny,
2:02
Speaker 1: like during reading this whole thing and all this research
2:05
Speaker 1: in my head, I just kept thinking, good boy, good girl.
2:09
Speaker 1: I just kept saying that over and over. Yeah, just
2:11
Speaker 1: petting them behind the ears in your mind. So, um,
2:17
Speaker 1: when we're talking about star dogs, we're talking about search
2:20
Speaker 1: and rescue dogs. Dogs that are trained to go find people.
2:24
Speaker 1: Right there, they do two things. There's two components to
2:26
Speaker 1: a search and rescue dogs job. It is to find
2:29
Speaker 1: people and then to let their handler know that they
2:32
Speaker 1: found the person. Right sure, because of a dog that
2:36
Speaker 1: just find someone doesn't let anyone know. They'll just be
2:40
Speaker 1: sitting around licking faces all day. Right, you're like, yes,
2:42
Speaker 1: you you found me, know, go get help, and the
2:44
Speaker 1: dogs like, I don't know, although I did like seeing
2:48
Speaker 1: what was that one dog called that's trained to uh
2:53
Speaker 1: to like stay there instead of going to to alert
2:56
Speaker 1: everyone else victim loyalty? Is that behavior? Yeah? And I
2:59
Speaker 1: think that's the case if there's if like someone is injured,
3:02
Speaker 1: they may need that dog to just stay there and
3:04
Speaker 1: start barking instead of saying, hey, I'm gonna run and
3:08
Speaker 1: find someone and let and let them know that you're
3:10
Speaker 1: not okay. Right. So, however they alert, as long as
3:14
Speaker 1: they alert, that's good. That's the second part of the job.
3:16
Speaker 1: As long as they don't wander off and like find
3:19
Speaker 1: a craps game to engage in without telling anybody that
3:21
Speaker 1: they found the person who's stranded in the wilderness, right,
3:24
Speaker 1: which would not happen with the star dog because they
3:27
Speaker 1: can focus like nobody's business right, right. So star dogs
3:31
Speaker 1: are professional working dogs, right, just as much as like
3:36
Speaker 1: a herding dog on a farm who actually does that
3:39
Speaker 1: work um or a canine unit dog or one of
3:43
Speaker 1: the Beagle Brigade we've talked about them before. It's a
3:46
Speaker 1: it's a working dog. But the the article that Julia
3:49
Speaker 1: Layton wrote points out and I think really just kind
3:52
Speaker 1: of changed my perspective on things and opened up my
3:55
Speaker 1: eyes that what the dog is really doing is playing. Yeah, right,
4:00
Speaker 1: so I mean the dog is not taking work seriously
4:04
Speaker 1: even though it appears to be. It's taking place seriously.
4:08
Speaker 1: And I just love that. Yeah, And and it really
4:11
Speaker 1: hit home to me too, like when it pointed out that, um,
4:14
Speaker 1: if you've ever had a dog that will like run
4:18
Speaker 1: till their paws are bloody to get that tennis ball
4:22
Speaker 1: or that coong, right, I guess I just name checked
4:26
Speaker 1: a brand they should throw some dough for that. It's
4:28
Speaker 1: a good brand. Uh loves the little those tiny ones
4:33
Speaker 1: are so cute. Um that that that would make a
4:36
Speaker 1: good star dog. And I have had two dogs in
4:39
Speaker 1: my life that would be great uh search and rescue dogs.
4:43
Speaker 1: My dog Buckley, who was no longer with us, and
4:45
Speaker 1: my current one of my two current dogs, Nico, And
4:48
Speaker 1: they both had a lot of Staffordshire Terrier on them,
4:51
Speaker 1: and they both from day one, if you threw something,
4:55
Speaker 1: ran and got it, brought it back, dropped it at
4:57
Speaker 1: your feet and looked at you as if if you
5:00
Speaker 1: don't throw that thing again, I might keel over and
5:02
Speaker 1: die right now. Staffords your terriers and that Spuds Mackenzie
5:06
Speaker 1: And now I can't remember what kind of terrier that is,
5:11
Speaker 1: but it was some kind of terrier, and I thought
5:13
Speaker 1: it was an English countryside village name terrier. Huh. I
5:18
Speaker 1: mean staffies are I think a lot of people throw
5:20
Speaker 1: a lot of dogs into the pit bull category that
5:22
Speaker 1: aren't pit bulls. That's kind of a a bone of
5:25
Speaker 1: contention with pit bull owners is like, you know, a
5:28
Speaker 1: dog attacks that has any a terrier in it and
5:31
Speaker 1: they say it was a pit bull. Um, So staffies
5:33
Speaker 1: are lumped in there. But I remember when we did
5:36
Speaker 1: one of my great memories of being in Edinburrow on
5:40
Speaker 1: our tour. I took a walk around Lovely, uh, the
5:44
Speaker 1: lovely town, and I ran into a lady who was
5:46
Speaker 1: walking one of hers And you know, when you're out
5:49
Speaker 1: of town and you're not with your dog, you just
5:50
Speaker 1: sort of like attack every dog you see. And so
5:53
Speaker 1: I got down. I was with this dog and I
5:54
Speaker 1: was like, I love this dog. Your you know, your
5:56
Speaker 1: dogs are sweet or something, and she went, just a
5:58
Speaker 1: wee staffy that's so Scottish. A wee staffy that was
6:05
Speaker 1: a uh that like that town is magnificent. It's magic,
6:09
Speaker 1: it really is. I can't wait to go back one day. Yeah,
6:11
Speaker 1: we need to do that. We need to get on
6:12
Speaker 1: another UK tour. I could not agree more. Dude. Heck, yeah, okay,
6:18
Speaker 1: it's done. We're doing it in like two years or
6:21
Speaker 1: three years if it's anything like our Australia tour. So
6:25
Speaker 1: with the Star Dogs though, Um, we cannot emphasize anymore
6:29
Speaker 1: how much time is of the essence because whether it is,
6:33
Speaker 1: and we'll get into the various types of rescues, but
6:36
Speaker 1: they're all pretty time sensitive. Whether it's a missing child,
6:38
Speaker 1: god forbid, or a collapse building, God forbid, or an avalanche,
6:44
Speaker 1: God forbid. None of these situations are awesome and the
6:48
Speaker 1: clock is ticking, especially you know in in those cases
6:51
Speaker 1: where you know there's maybe short of oxygen or they're
6:54
Speaker 1: buried in snow, Like minutes count. Yeah, for sure. I
6:58
Speaker 1: saw on a site for an organization that offers stur
7:02
Speaker 1: dog training, um for your dog, Like if you think
7:05
Speaker 1: your dog's got it, they say, come, we'll find out
7:08
Speaker 1: if your dog's got it. They were saying, like, um,
7:11
Speaker 1: you have to be out there, like you have to
7:13
Speaker 1: treat this like you're an ambulance. Basically, when you get
7:16
Speaker 1: the call, you gotta be out the door. And it's interesting.
7:19
Speaker 1: You know, the dog doesn't have any job other than
7:21
Speaker 1: search and rescue, so the dogs ready to go any time,
7:24
Speaker 1: but you're their handler and they live with you, and
7:27
Speaker 1: you have to be out there with them. So you
7:30
Speaker 1: have to be able to leave your regular job at
7:32
Speaker 1: the drop of a hat. And and Star dog handlers
7:35
Speaker 1: are on call twenty four hours a day, seven days
7:37
Speaker 1: a week, three hundred and sixty five days a year,
7:40
Speaker 1: so much that um the dogs go on vacation with
7:42
Speaker 1: the handlers in case there's a call and you both
7:46
Speaker 1: have to go show up somewhere together. So you have
7:48
Speaker 1: to be very, very responsive. And it is like you're saying,
7:52
Speaker 1: because time is of the essence. Because this article gives
7:55
Speaker 1: the example of avalanche victims, Like if you're an avalanche
7:59
Speaker 1: victor them, if you're covered in an avalanche, you probably
8:02
Speaker 1: will not want to be thinking about these stats. But
8:05
Speaker 1: most avalanche victims who are found within I think, is
8:10
Speaker 1: it ten minutes or fifteen minutes? I think of the
8:14
Speaker 1: victims are alive at fifteen minutes. Okay, great, what about
8:18
Speaker 1: thirty five minutes. Uh So between fifteen and thirty five minutes,
8:25
Speaker 1: sixty percent of the of those folks will be gone. Right.
8:29
Speaker 1: And so you might say, well, okay, wait, wait, you
8:32
Speaker 1: guys are talking about an avalanche. How's the dog going
8:35
Speaker 1: to find you in an avalanche? Dogs can find you
8:37
Speaker 1: covered in snow, Dogs can find you underwater. Dogs can
8:42
Speaker 1: pick up your scent sometimes when you're five away, right.
8:47
Speaker 1: It's amazing. I was surprised to hear that because you
8:49
Speaker 1: always see in like those old timey chain gang movies, um,
8:53
Speaker 1: you know that are my favorite genre. Obviously, when when
8:55
Speaker 1: they're trying to elude the tracking dogs they cross a
8:58
Speaker 1: river something like that, it's off the scent. And that
9:02
Speaker 1: probably works for for tracking dogs, and we'll talk about
9:05
Speaker 1: the difference between these dogs. But for for a scent dog, um,
9:11
Speaker 1: they can they can be trained to find your scent underwater,
9:14
Speaker 1: especially if you just happen to be decomposing. Yeah, and
9:18
Speaker 1: especially if that dog is a bloodhound. Um. And in
9:21
Speaker 1: those old timey movies that you love, it seems like
9:24
Speaker 1: it's always a bloodhound or you know, a pack of
9:27
Speaker 1: bloodhounds and the and the dude you know who just
9:29
Speaker 1: escaped from prison. Is runs through the river, and usually
9:34
Speaker 1: in the movie they're they're like, you know, drat it all.
9:37
Speaker 1: They just threw us off the scent, right, somebody throws
9:40
Speaker 1: their hat to the ground. It's because of those kind
9:44
Speaker 1: of because of that whole thing, that whole um, that
9:47
Speaker 1: genre whatever, that in prison escape thing. I unfairly associate
9:51
Speaker 1: bloodhounds with scary backwoods like redneck police officials. Yeah, yeah,
9:57
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying, because they're always with them.
9:58
Speaker 1: But that that doesn't mean that the bloodhounds are scary.
10:01
Speaker 1: They're great, sure, good old hound dogs. Yeah, Elvis wrote
10:06
Speaker 1: a song about him. Yeah, but it wasn't favorable. Uh,
10:11
Speaker 1: that's true, you know, lying all the time. I wonder,
10:15
Speaker 1: but Elvis wasn't talking about dogs, no, but he was
10:19
Speaker 1: comparing somebody who he didn't have in a high opinion
10:22
Speaker 1: or high esteem to a hound dog. I wonder who
10:25
Speaker 1: that was about. And he probably had no idea that
10:27
Speaker 1: he was giving them quite a compliment, right he was.
10:30
Speaker 1: He was trying to do the opposite. It was like
10:32
Speaker 1: that Simpsons where somebody calls somebody else a chicken and
10:35
Speaker 1: it chicken, and the top head appears and goes, he's
10:38
Speaker 1: insulting the both of us. They Elvis should have said,
10:41
Speaker 1: you ain't nothing but a hound dog, which is actually
10:44
Speaker 1: the most talented scent dog of all time. That would
10:48
Speaker 1: have fit too. You ain't nothing but a hound dog.
10:50
Speaker 1: I hold you in deep admiration. And there goes the
10:54
Speaker 1: career of Elvis Presley. Uh So, smell wise, dogs have
10:59
Speaker 1: a sense of smell about forty times stronger than a human.
11:03
Speaker 1: And this is all dogs. It doesn't mean all dogs
11:06
Speaker 1: make good star dogs. But just because a little Momo
11:10
Speaker 1: is uh, you know, like a little curly, cute lap dog,
11:15
Speaker 1: doesn't mean that Momo may not be a good star
11:18
Speaker 1: dog for obvious reasons. But that doesn't mean Momo can't
11:21
Speaker 1: smell a dead body in the ocean. No, and she does.
11:24
Speaker 1: She just she goes and finds a game of craps
11:26
Speaker 1: instead of telling anybody. That's because that's how you've trained her. Sure, now,
11:30
Speaker 1: Momo would not be a very good star dog. She
11:34
Speaker 1: would be a little sketched out on the scene of
11:36
Speaker 1: a search and rescue mission. But she could she and
11:39
Speaker 1: she does. I'm sure pick up on the rafts are
11:43
Speaker 1: a T I'm sorry r A F T S which is, uh,
11:46
Speaker 1: it's gross. But these are the dead skin cells that
11:50
Speaker 1: are constantly flying off of our body that smell only
11:54
Speaker 1: like us, Yeah, like every individual. Apparently this is not proven,
12:00
Speaker 1: but they think they know that humans shed skin cells rafts,
12:04
Speaker 1: and that they do have a sense human specifically human scent,
12:08
Speaker 1: and that is specific to each person too, which is
12:10
Speaker 1: all totally believable. Yeah, which is why they You know,
12:13
Speaker 1: like in the movies, they give somebody an old sweatshirt
12:16
Speaker 1: that that person wore the day before, and that's how
12:18
Speaker 1: they know how to go look for that person. Right,
12:20
Speaker 1: They'll they'll do that, they'll mash it in the dog's
12:22
Speaker 1: face and then go find it and they find the whatever,
12:26
Speaker 1: the person that smells like that. So they think that's
12:28
Speaker 1: how dogs are able to find specific human sense or
12:33
Speaker 1: any human scent, is that the rafts, the skin cells
12:36
Speaker 1: that were shedding are being picked up. We leave them
12:38
Speaker 1: behind on the ground. They follow the ground. Um. If
12:40
Speaker 1: we run up against a bush or something, a bunch
12:42
Speaker 1: of them get scraped off, or they're just kind of
12:45
Speaker 1: floating in the air, and depending on the type of
12:47
Speaker 1: dog um, they're going to pick up those skin cell
12:50
Speaker 1: rafts and and it's probably about here that we should
12:53
Speaker 1: say that there are two types too general umbrella categories
12:59
Speaker 1: of UM search and rescue dogs. There's the tracking dog
13:03
Speaker 1: and there's the air sent dog. And they do the
13:06
Speaker 1: same thing, they find humans, but they do it in
13:09
Speaker 1: two very different ways, one super targeted and one super general.
13:13
Speaker 1: And depending on the situation that you're faced with, you're
13:16
Speaker 1: going to call it one dog or the other, or
13:18
Speaker 1: maybe both. If you're just a county that's just flushed
13:21
Speaker 1: with extra taxpay or cash that you don't know what
13:23
Speaker 1: to do with, sure dog, county. Uh Yeah, so a
13:27
Speaker 1: tracking dog. They also call those following dogs. Those are
13:31
Speaker 1: like when you think of a bloodhound with their nose
13:33
Speaker 1: down on a trail. Uh. They're the ones who who
13:36
Speaker 1: know and this is what these dogs need. They know
13:38
Speaker 1: the last scene point of this person. So like you know,
13:42
Speaker 1: if you went hiking in the woods and you parked
13:45
Speaker 1: your car at a trailhead, Uh, they know that that
13:48
Speaker 1: is your last if that is in fact your lasting point.
13:50
Speaker 1: That is the last sing point. Here is a sweater
13:54
Speaker 1: that they wore yesterday, and uh, go at it right,
13:58
Speaker 1: And we talked about the nuts and bolts of that
14:00
Speaker 1: kind of stuff on the Search and Rescue episode. So
14:03
Speaker 1: go listen to that because we talked about the last
14:06
Speaker 1: same point, and we talked about how searchers like fan
14:09
Speaker 1: out from there. Sure there's like a quick response team.
14:13
Speaker 1: The dogs are the ones that are brought out first
14:15
Speaker 1: because a scent, if it's a tracking dog and they're
14:19
Speaker 1: following the scent that was specifically laid down by that person,
14:23
Speaker 1: that tracking dog needs to be there very quickly, and
14:25
Speaker 1: they need to um, they need to be there before
14:29
Speaker 1: everybody else because once a bunch of searchers get into
14:31
Speaker 1: the area and start searching for the person, they don't
14:34
Speaker 1: know where the person's scent trail is, so they might
14:37
Speaker 1: be crossing all over it and ultimately ruin it for
14:40
Speaker 1: the dog who can't pick it up anymore. So that
14:42
Speaker 1: tracking dog is going to be among the first searchers
14:45
Speaker 1: on the scene. That's right. Uh. The air scent dogs,
14:48
Speaker 1: like you said that, these are a little more like
14:50
Speaker 1: when you don't know, like somebody's just lost in the
14:53
Speaker 1: forest or somebody is buried in the snow. They don't
14:57
Speaker 1: have that last scene starting point, uh, and they basically
15:01
Speaker 1: just say go out there and stick your nose in
15:03
Speaker 1: the air instead of on the ground and see if
15:06
Speaker 1: you can inhale some of those So some of those
15:10
Speaker 1: airborne rafts like fine seventies cocaine, right, the finest Quervo
15:18
Speaker 1: gold and the fine Columbian uh and those you know,
15:21
Speaker 1: that's basically basically their deal. Um. You know, if it's
15:26
Speaker 1: a little more general, um, you're you're probably some sort
15:29
Speaker 1: of a well, they're all kinds of dogs, but you're
15:31
Speaker 1: not small. You're medium sized or larger. You may be
15:35
Speaker 1: a German shepherd or like a lab believe believe it
15:38
Speaker 1: or not, it's probably not a Saint Bernard um, just
15:41
Speaker 1: because they're they're just a little too big these days. Yeah,
15:45
Speaker 1: cumbersome as how this article put it. Border collies are good. Uh,
15:49
Speaker 1: And of course the bloodhound because they're those big old
15:52
Speaker 1: ears and all those cute folds in their faces actually
15:57
Speaker 1: concentrate scent particles right into those uh, stinky, stinky, drippy nostrils. Yeah.
16:03
Speaker 1: It just kind of slaps the skin cells of humans
16:07
Speaker 1: right into the dog's nostrils. Amazing. So let's take a
16:10
Speaker 1: break and then we're gonna come back and talk about
16:12
Speaker 1: different specialties that a search and rescue dog can have. Okay, Wolf, Sorry, Okay, Chuck,
16:42
Speaker 1: so we're back. We're talking now, if you'll follow me
16:46
Speaker 1: in this line of thinking, Okay, about the different specialties
16:51
Speaker 1: search and rescue dogs can have. Yeah, this one is
16:55
Speaker 1: sort of the saddest specialty. But the cadaver dog UM
17:00
Speaker 1: very very important though, because, uh, you know, people need
17:04
Speaker 1: closure in their lives. And if you've lost a loved one,
17:07
Speaker 1: uh literally lost a loved one and you don't know
17:09
Speaker 1: where they are and they end up not surviving that ordeal,
17:14
Speaker 1: then you would still like to give them, um a
17:16
Speaker 1: burial of your choice or you know, however you want
17:19
Speaker 1: to do things in your family. But that that was
17:22
Speaker 1: a lot well I was saying a proper burial, but
17:24
Speaker 1: that means a lot of things to a lot of people.
17:26
Speaker 1: Sure it could be a sky burial, Sure it could
17:29
Speaker 1: be remember those Oh yeah, that was a great one.
17:31
Speaker 1: I don't remember what that was on, but that was
17:34
Speaker 1: a good one. Buzzards right, just picking at your body yep.
17:37
Speaker 1: Up in the Himalayas. Uh So they are they are
17:40
Speaker 1: specifically trained to search for human remains and those uh
17:45
Speaker 1: decomposition gases uh and those skin rafts. Still. But that
17:49
Speaker 1: that is pretty amazing because these dogs can find. It, says,
17:53
Speaker 1: a single human tooth or a single drop of blood
17:56
Speaker 1: they can detect, right right, because you know, first of all,
17:59
Speaker 1: they're they're truly um able to detect that kind of stuff.
18:04
Speaker 1: But then the training they receive really kind of narrows
18:07
Speaker 1: and and focuses that that natural ability they have. But
18:12
Speaker 1: when when I was looking up cadaver dogs, as of
18:14
Speaker 1: course they did, I was like, how would you train
18:17
Speaker 1: a cadaver dog? What are you? Where are you getting
18:20
Speaker 1: the dead bodies? Weren't. Apparently if you are training cadaver dogs,
18:24
Speaker 1: you can't apply to get like decomposing human tissue. You
18:28
Speaker 1: have to you have to like get a license for it,
18:31
Speaker 1: I believe, or a license to have it um. But
18:34
Speaker 1: apparently it's hard to come by. So trainers will like
18:37
Speaker 1: use their own blood to train dogs to fine blood.
18:41
Speaker 1: There's also a company UM that makes a scent of
18:45
Speaker 1: an artificial training scent called Sigma Pseudo Corpse Scent, and
18:51
Speaker 1: it comes in three flavors recently deceased, decomposing, and drowned.
18:57
Speaker 1: And you can train a dog on the UM on
19:00
Speaker 1: this sent It's close enough approximation that they will learn
19:04
Speaker 1: to follow the set and find decomposing human remains. So
19:08
Speaker 1: two people by those creeps creeps and uh star trainers,
19:14
Speaker 1: right and like, but just two people by the bottles.
19:17
Speaker 1: They're like a million dollars each Yeah, and they go
19:19
Speaker 1: out on a tender date and they're like just a
19:21
Speaker 1: little dab of drowned body behind each year. I'm all set, Yeah, alright.
19:27
Speaker 1: Water dogs are the next, and those uh search for
19:29
Speaker 1: drowning victims. Obviously, Uh, they are generally in a boat
19:33
Speaker 1: at some point, and we'll talk about their training, but
19:35
Speaker 1: one of the one of the big parts of training
19:37
Speaker 1: is to make sure that these are dogs can ride
19:40
Speaker 1: in helicopters and ride in boats, and ride on a
19:44
Speaker 1: snowmobile or whatever you know. And a t V one
19:48
Speaker 1: are those things called, yeah, a t V four wheelers?
19:52
Speaker 1: Remember they had three wheelers when we were kids. Man,
19:54
Speaker 1: those are so dangerous. Everyone's like, man, they sing, surety
19:57
Speaker 1: tip over a lot, right, Maybe we should add a
19:59
Speaker 1: fourth wheel. Yeah, there you go, and then now it's
20:02
Speaker 1: stable and it's a man. Those were so dangerous that
20:06
Speaker 1: I remember when they came out and it was like
20:08
Speaker 1: twelve year olds dying all over the place with those things.
20:10
Speaker 1: I never read one of those. I didn't either. My
20:13
Speaker 1: mom would would not have let me near one of those.
20:15
Speaker 1: I was a go carter. Oh lucky I had. I
20:19
Speaker 1: didn't have one. You know, we never had any of
20:20
Speaker 1: that stuff because my parents are teachers, so they were like,
20:23
Speaker 1: draw a picture of one. Um. But my my really
20:26
Speaker 1: good friend growing up lived out in the in the
20:28
Speaker 1: woods in the country, and he had two sort of
20:31
Speaker 1: homemade go carts. Um, not sort of homemade. They were
20:35
Speaker 1: totally homemade. Uh. They weren't like the you know, the
20:37
Speaker 1: super sweet things you could buy. But they had the
20:40
Speaker 1: land where their dad built like a dirt track and
20:44
Speaker 1: it was the most fun thing I ever did as
20:45
Speaker 1: a child. That's awesome. It was awesome. Yeah. It was
20:48
Speaker 1: always the friend out in the country that had the
20:50
Speaker 1: go carts. Sure, yeah, not a city folk, right. So
20:55
Speaker 1: I mean, if you have a really specialized um sar dog,
20:58
Speaker 1: maybe it is used to hiding in a go cart too,
21:01
Speaker 1: but it's gonna definitely be trained to ride in on
21:04
Speaker 1: just about anything that it will be called in for.
21:07
Speaker 1: And in addition, Chuck, this is amazing to me. They
21:10
Speaker 1: are totally fine with being lowered down the face of
21:13
Speaker 1: a cliff in a harness on a rope stuff like that.
21:17
Speaker 1: Like they're trained to um as. We'll see their training
21:20
Speaker 1: to basically keep it together in some very weird situations
21:24
Speaker 1: for dogs. Yeah, and again with my dog, Nico the
21:27
Speaker 1: staffy uh have you know, two dogs, and they've both
21:31
Speaker 1: been on boats. And Charlie the uh the shelty mix
21:36
Speaker 1: kind of just hides under seats, whereas Nico is we
21:40
Speaker 1: call her the hood ornament. She just sits as tall
21:43
Speaker 1: as possible front and center, and her nose is just
21:47
Speaker 1: I mean, I can't imagine the amount of sense that
21:50
Speaker 1: she's inhaling right, it's really impressive. Yeah, we took Momo
21:53
Speaker 1: and a kayak to see what she would do, and
21:55
Speaker 1: she loved it. She did not hide at all. She
21:58
Speaker 1: was alert, bark at fish, and I think she could find.
22:02
Speaker 1: She was like, yes, this is pretty great. That's pretty
22:05
Speaker 1: fun stuff. So there was also, like we said, there's
22:08
Speaker 1: avalanche um search and rescue dogs, there's also urban disaster
22:12
Speaker 1: searching and rescue dogs, and we'll talk about them more
22:15
Speaker 1: in depth than a little while, but suffice to say
22:18
Speaker 1: that that is the UM, the pinnacle of search and
22:21
Speaker 1: rescue dogs. That's the toughest one. There are something like
22:25
Speaker 1: from what I saw. There's maybe a hundred search and
22:28
Speaker 1: rescue dogs in the United States that are officially qualified
22:33
Speaker 1: to search in a disaster scenario in an urban area. Yeah,
22:37
Speaker 1: and I know we're going to talk about it in
22:38
Speaker 1: a minute, but there was one part of that section
22:41
Speaker 1: that just got me, like, these dogs operate on reward
22:47
Speaker 1: for doing what they're doing, and uh in urban disasters,
22:51
Speaker 1: like apparently a dog can get down if on themselves
22:55
Speaker 1: if they just keep finding dead people. And so at
23:00
Speaker 1: Own zero, they were firefighters and rescuers that would pretend
23:04
Speaker 1: to be uh, people trapped just so that these dogs
23:08
Speaker 1: that have been working long days could feel like they
23:11
Speaker 1: had done something to help. Right. Can you believe that, dude?
23:15
Speaker 1: I totally can. That's just such like a firefighter thing
23:18
Speaker 1: to do. Oh my god, I love that too. All Right,
23:22
Speaker 1: So there's wilderness dogs self explanatory, and then something called
23:27
Speaker 1: evidence article dogs. Yeah, they can find like pieces of
23:30
Speaker 1: clothing or or evidence in a crime. Yeah, got you,
23:35
Speaker 1: So go find the bloody hammer, right right exactly? Wow,
23:39
Speaker 1: that that turned dark all exec. So let's say that
23:43
Speaker 1: you want to start training your dog. Um, there there's
23:48
Speaker 1: it's actually training of search and rescue dog follows pretty
23:51
Speaker 1: established training principles and first of all, it's all positive reinforcement.
23:57
Speaker 1: We eventually need to do an episode on UM negative
24:01
Speaker 1: reinforcement or dog obedience because it's just so fully discredited,
24:05
Speaker 1: but most people think that most people don't realize it.
24:08
Speaker 1: But you do not need to punish your dog for
24:12
Speaker 1: not doing something right. You just praise and reward your
24:15
Speaker 1: dog for doing something for when they do do something right.
24:18
Speaker 1: That's how you train a dog and that's the basis
24:21
Speaker 1: of search and rescue training is it's all positive reinforcement
24:25
Speaker 1: and reward UM. And the whole thing starts out with
24:29
Speaker 1: just basic obedience. And it's at this point that Momo
24:32
Speaker 1: would wash out of search and rescue trail, just right
24:35
Speaker 1: out of the gate. Momo is her own person, and
24:39
Speaker 1: we treat her as such, like she's our child, so
24:41
Speaker 1: we don't treat her like a dog. So she has
24:43
Speaker 1: come to not see herself as a dog. UM. She's
24:46
Speaker 1: very good dog, very sweet and loyal and takes good
24:48
Speaker 1: care of us. But she Um, she would just get
24:51
Speaker 1: distracted and again a little freaked out and sketched out
24:54
Speaker 1: when the when the distractions came around. Yeah, Nicos stairs
25:00
Speaker 1: at UM you know, we're living in a in a
25:03
Speaker 1: rental house right now because we're doing work on our house.
25:07
Speaker 1: So it's a very weird time for our whole family
25:09
Speaker 1: to all of a sudden be uprooted in living in
25:11
Speaker 1: a strange house out in the woods. But Nico just
25:14
Speaker 1: sits and stairs in the window which overlooks a big
25:18
Speaker 1: wooded lot, just movement, squirrels, birds or whatever. And the
25:24
Speaker 1: second you open that door, she's so fast. She's like
25:27
Speaker 1: a greyhound bolting for anything. And luckily she hasn't caught
25:31
Speaker 1: anything yet. But um, I'm telling you, man, she'd be
25:33
Speaker 1: a great star dog. Youlling reason I would not do
25:35
Speaker 1: this because I want her around, not on location, helping people.
25:41
Speaker 1: So I guess yeah, if I'm selfish, if it were
25:44
Speaker 1: squirrel search and rescue, I think Mama would be excellent,
25:48
Speaker 1: excellent at it. I agree, s S A R. Yeah,
25:52
Speaker 1: maybe there is a call for that. We just don't
25:54
Speaker 1: realize it because we don't speak squirrel. So yes, basic
25:57
Speaker 1: obedience is level one, uh, just regular commands. Temperament is
26:02
Speaker 1: super important. They have to be good with um strangers,
26:07
Speaker 1: um other dogs. Obviously a lot of times there are
26:09
Speaker 1: a bunch of dogs on the scene and they can't
26:11
Speaker 1: be like I'm gonna go fight that dog or play
26:13
Speaker 1: with that dog. Uh. They have to be good on walks,
26:16
Speaker 1: on loose leashes, but be good with crowds, all of
26:20
Speaker 1: that stuff, I imagine really roots out and training a
26:25
Speaker 1: bunch of dogs right off the bat. Yes, for sure.
26:28
Speaker 1: Um so that's just basic obedience and you have to
26:32
Speaker 1: you have to just knock that off the list out
26:35
Speaker 1: of the gate. Sure, right, then you move on to
26:37
Speaker 1: the you you move from you know, good well behaved
26:42
Speaker 1: obedient dog too. Now we're starting to get into the
26:44
Speaker 1: training a little bit, and you want to teach your dog,
26:48
Speaker 1: um something really important that apparently comes up in search
26:52
Speaker 1: and rescue that you are not the end all be
26:55
Speaker 1: all in the world to this dog. This dog has
27:00
Speaker 1: to be able to um to to take instruction from
27:04
Speaker 1: people other than you, and to also show a tremendous
27:08
Speaker 1: amount of concentration, self possession, non distraction. And the way
27:13
Speaker 1: that they test this usually when they're training search and
27:15
Speaker 1: rescue dogs is they will um take a dog over
27:18
Speaker 1: to a crowd of other dogs, and there will be
27:21
Speaker 1: other people milling about and all that, and um, you,
27:24
Speaker 1: the handler will will ask the dog to to lay
27:27
Speaker 1: down or stay or sit and the dog and then
27:30
Speaker 1: you leave, You go away at least out of sight.
27:33
Speaker 1: I think this article says thirty feet away, and so
27:36
Speaker 1: the dog can't see you anymore. And then over the
27:38
Speaker 1: course of ten twenty minutes, other handlers come in and
27:43
Speaker 1: take over responsibility of tending to this herd of dogs
27:46
Speaker 1: that are all sitting around. And if your dog will
27:48
Speaker 1: listen to your command that you gave one time to
27:52
Speaker 1: stay here or sit or lay down whatever, the whole
27:54
Speaker 1: time you're gone until you come back and tell them
27:57
Speaker 1: that they can get up or whatever, then it's apparently
28:00
Speaker 1: the test for canine professionalism pretty amazing, and I'm sure
28:04
Speaker 1: there's probably a lot of different tests. There's no standardization
28:09
Speaker 1: for search and rescue dog training except for the Female
28:11
Speaker 1: Certification for Urban Search and Rescue Dogs. Um so I'm
28:15
Speaker 1: sure there's different tests all over the place. But that's
28:18
Speaker 1: a pretty good glimpse of what you need to expect
28:20
Speaker 1: from your dog to to surpass the the second level,
28:24
Speaker 1: the second echelot, and move on to the third one.
28:27
Speaker 1: The second the second one is tough. I think the
28:31
Speaker 1: third one is genuinely tough, not not necessarily for you
28:35
Speaker 1: training the dog. I think the third one is the
28:37
Speaker 1: tough one on the dog. Yeah, this is just raw
28:40
Speaker 1: physical and mental ability and agility. So I mean they're
28:45
Speaker 1: going through like an obstacle course. Basically, you can go
28:47
Speaker 1: through tunnels. You can climb uh and incline of more
28:51
Speaker 1: than uh I think a minimum of forty five degrees
28:54
Speaker 1: on each side, like up and down. You can get
28:57
Speaker 1: into a a cherry picker like we talked about and
29:00
Speaker 1: go up really high without jumping out, or be in
29:04
Speaker 1: that boat or be in that snowmobile or a helicopter
29:07
Speaker 1: and not get freaked out like you have to. You know,
29:10
Speaker 1: they don't crank up the helicopter usually, like once you
29:13
Speaker 1: get in that thing and we've all seen mash you
29:16
Speaker 1: gotta run up to a helicopter whose blades are spinning,
29:20
Speaker 1: a lot of people don't want to do that. No, no, so,
29:23
Speaker 1: but your dog needs to be able to like, come on,
29:25
Speaker 1: let's go, I'll all the man, all man the machine gun. Yeah,
29:28
Speaker 1: or hey, get in this harness. I'm gonna attach you
29:30
Speaker 1: to my chest and we're gonna repel down this mountain
29:34
Speaker 1: and you just got to be a good boy. They do.
29:38
Speaker 1: I mean once they reach a certain level of training
29:40
Speaker 1: they do and then the final is is tracking. Obviously, um, well,
29:45
Speaker 1: I mean this is this is after they passed those
29:47
Speaker 1: three levels. But um tracking is urban tracking is level one,
29:54
Speaker 1: like you talked about that is that's the hardest thing
29:56
Speaker 1: to do in this test is just off the charts.
29:59
Speaker 1: To me. What they have a person do is they
30:02
Speaker 1: will be the target, like the you know, the whatever
30:04
Speaker 1: they're looking for. So they will do a half mile
30:07
Speaker 1: to one mile track from one point to another in
30:12
Speaker 1: high traffic area of a city, Like they'll go to
30:15
Speaker 1: like downtown New York and walk a half mile to
30:19
Speaker 1: a mile. This dog is sitting there the whole time,
30:21
Speaker 1: you know, with someone else. Uh, they have to cross
30:24
Speaker 1: at least two intersections, make at least three right angle turns,
30:28
Speaker 1: go down two blocks of alleyways, leaving you know, a
30:32
Speaker 1: scent article along the way, like they're at least leaving
30:35
Speaker 1: little nuggets shutting off skin cells, I guess, or maybe
30:39
Speaker 1: dropping the comb in your back pocket. Uh. Then once
30:42
Speaker 1: you have laid down that track, another person crosses that
30:45
Speaker 1: track in at least one place, so they're adding scent
30:49
Speaker 1: basically trying to throw this dog off. And then thirty
30:53
Speaker 1: minutes later, after all of this, and after the target
30:56
Speaker 1: is at the very end, they finally say, all right,
30:59
Speaker 1: dog go and the dog has to find this target
31:02
Speaker 1: and no more time than it took for the person
31:04
Speaker 1: to lay down that track. Right and like you said,
31:07
Speaker 1: waiting thirty minutes before they start after the person is finished,
31:11
Speaker 1: that's impressive. That is super impressive. And there's distractions the
31:15
Speaker 1: whole way to righte Like from from what I gathered,
31:18
Speaker 1: this is actually done in like an actual city, Like
31:21
Speaker 1: they don't have like a fake city built somewhere in
31:23
Speaker 1: Colorado or something like that. Like this is a like
31:26
Speaker 1: you your real town, this is happening in. So the
31:29
Speaker 1: more distractions the better, yea. And they hire people who
31:34
Speaker 1: are wearing like um, drecar no wir and just to
31:38
Speaker 1: wander around everywhere to confuse the scent and everything. It's
31:41
Speaker 1: it's a it's a crazy jam for the dog's gross.
31:45
Speaker 1: So let's um, actually, man, when's the last time you
31:48
Speaker 1: smelled dre car no are? Oh? I don't know. I
31:52
Speaker 1: have smelled it within the last year, and I gotta
31:54
Speaker 1: tell you it holds up, maybe even more than it
31:57
Speaker 1: I realized before. You know, how I feel about cologne. Um,
32:02
Speaker 1: So I say we take our second break and then
32:04
Speaker 1: come back and talk about what we've talked about. At
32:07
Speaker 1: this point, it's just like basic training. Now we've got
32:10
Speaker 1: to get into specialty training. Okay, yeah, we'll be right back. Okay,
32:39
Speaker 1: So Chuck, your dog has been through Star training or
32:42
Speaker 1: basic basic training for Star, but they haven't actually been
32:46
Speaker 1: taught the star part yet. It's just they've just shown like, Okay,
32:50
Speaker 1: I got it, I got what it takes. Let's you know,
32:53
Speaker 1: put me in there, show me what to do. And
32:56
Speaker 1: the way that you you train a dog to um
32:59
Speaker 1: sir and and rescue by by alerting is just basically
33:05
Speaker 1: taking their natural inclinations and again like focusing them and
33:09
Speaker 1: amplifying them. And you do that through reward. And the
33:12
Speaker 1: way that you train a dog through reward I'm having
33:15
Speaker 1: trouble saying that for some reason, is that you identify
33:18
Speaker 1: what that dog wants more in the world than anything else,
33:21
Speaker 1: whether it's a tennis ball, whether it's a nossages, whatever
33:25
Speaker 1: it is. You figure out what that dog wants, the
33:28
Speaker 1: thing that they will do anything to get, uh, and
33:32
Speaker 1: that's what you use as their reward, and then you
33:35
Speaker 1: can start the star search and rescue training. Yeah, and
33:38
Speaker 1: the reward is important to to be consistent with that,
33:42
Speaker 1: with that reward because you can't even uh and they
33:46
Speaker 1: pointed out even in horrible situations like nine eleven or
33:51
Speaker 1: if they find like your family member, you know, their
33:55
Speaker 1: body out on the woods, you need to discreetly take
33:58
Speaker 1: this dog off to the side and give them the reward.
34:01
Speaker 1: And even if that means, you know, toss a frisbee, like,
34:06
Speaker 1: if that's what it is, then that's what you gotta do.
34:09
Speaker 1: Would should be a really just odd thing to see
34:13
Speaker 1: somebody playing frisbee with their dog, with the crying family
34:16
Speaker 1: and a dead body in the woods with bloody hammers
34:19
Speaker 1: sticking out of their forehead. Discreetly is the key word there.
34:22
Speaker 1: I don't think you're like leaping over the body or
34:24
Speaker 1: anything like. You just find a nearby area and then
34:29
Speaker 1: go kind of discreetly carry out your reward, let's just hope.
34:32
Speaker 1: So uh yeah. So it takes um about six hundred
34:38
Speaker 1: and this is generalization, of course, but about six hundred
34:41
Speaker 1: hours of training, which is a lot of hours for
34:44
Speaker 1: a dog to be field ready. That's for the dog, yeah, Yeah,
34:47
Speaker 1: the humans have to go through what like a thousand hours,
34:50
Speaker 1: that's what That's what this article says. Yeah, so that's
34:52
Speaker 1: six hours of training between humans and dogs, which is
34:56
Speaker 1: hilarious because it means that humans require more training than
34:59
Speaker 1: the dogs to to do the job. And then and like,
35:02
Speaker 1: I don't know, are humans rewarded? Are they like, here's
35:05
Speaker 1: your martini, Chuck, You're like I would crawl through an
35:10
Speaker 1: avalanche to get to a martini. That's my reward. So, um,
35:15
Speaker 1: you the the whole way you start this again, you're
35:18
Speaker 1: using their favorite thing in the world as a reward,
35:21
Speaker 1: and you teach them that they can go find their
35:26
Speaker 1: rewards somewhere. They normally want to find things, so if
35:30
Speaker 1: you show them, okay, come find me is a good
35:33
Speaker 1: way to start. And usually this takes two people. And
35:36
Speaker 1: this article uses avalanche training as an example, but it
35:39
Speaker 1: kind of generally applies to anything. Whatever your whatever specialty
35:43
Speaker 1: you're training you're star dog to engage in. That's what
35:46
Speaker 1: that's kind of what you would teach them. So if
35:48
Speaker 1: you're if you're training them under avalanche um guidelines, you
35:53
Speaker 1: would go dig a hole in some snow and in
35:56
Speaker 1: perfect perfect line of sight with the dog, you would
35:59
Speaker 1: go no, no, no, no, and like go run and
36:02
Speaker 1: jump into the hole in the snow, and you would
36:05
Speaker 1: have your assistant holding the dog back. And then after
36:08
Speaker 1: just a second after you make it into the hole,
36:10
Speaker 1: they let the dog go. The dog runs after you,
36:12
Speaker 1: and when the dog comes to get you, you just
36:14
Speaker 1: praise it and love on it and give it its
36:16
Speaker 1: ball or its snausages or whatever it is. And the
36:20
Speaker 1: dogs like, okay, if I go find human, I will
36:25
Speaker 1: get played with, I will get a reward whatever it
36:28
Speaker 1: is that's really important to me. And now the the kernel,
36:32
Speaker 1: the seed of search and rescue training has just been
36:35
Speaker 1: planted in the dog. And dogs are smart, so it
36:38
Speaker 1: doesn't take much more to kind of fluff it up
36:40
Speaker 1: into bona fide full search and rescue professionalism. Yeah, it's
36:46
Speaker 1: kind of funny because dogs are super smart but also
36:49
Speaker 1: very dumb in that, like it's just a simple reward
36:55
Speaker 1: situation like find person, get treat. Yeah, and that doesn't
37:00
Speaker 1: mean dumb, but it's simplistic. I guess okay, good, I'm
37:03
Speaker 1: glad you said say. It sounds more like dogs have
37:06
Speaker 1: it figured out rather than being dumb. I've had some
37:09
Speaker 1: dumb dogs. Well, sure, there's things dumb dogs the best.
37:13
Speaker 1: There's dumb people too, so dumb shrews, dumb camels, dumb plants,
37:20
Speaker 1: interesting point, dumb everything. Uh So, in the case of
37:24
Speaker 1: the avalanche, you jump in the hole and that's great.
37:27
Speaker 1: First first part accomplished. But then they'll do it again.
37:31
Speaker 1: But the person handling the dog holds onto them for
37:35
Speaker 1: say five or ten seconds, then makes them go. Then
37:38
Speaker 1: they just increase that time up until the point where
37:40
Speaker 1: it's like five or ten minutes and the person has
37:43
Speaker 1: buried themselves in the snow. And then the dog like
37:47
Speaker 1: that's the true test, Like it's been ten minutes. I
37:49
Speaker 1: saw the person go and disappear, and now and imagine
37:53
Speaker 1: this isn't very fun for the person to bury themselves
37:56
Speaker 1: in snow completely, but it's got to be done. And
37:59
Speaker 1: then the dog finds a person and they get that
38:01
Speaker 1: snausage or that frisbee play yep. And so each time
38:05
Speaker 1: they're associating this new thing um, the increasingly complex game
38:11
Speaker 1: of find the human um with their reward. So they're
38:15
Speaker 1: learning this this new stuff. Holding the dog back increases
38:19
Speaker 1: the amount of attention span and memory that's required to
38:22
Speaker 1: to remember this game, and so over time the dog
38:25
Speaker 1: learns if I go dig under snow, I can find
38:28
Speaker 1: a person that I smell there and they'll probably play
38:31
Speaker 1: with me. Um. Again, depends on how soon the dog
38:35
Speaker 1: was led off on the scent of the person covered
38:37
Speaker 1: by the avalanche. But that's what that's the game that
38:40
Speaker 1: they learned. Yeah, and and they talk a lot about
38:43
Speaker 1: focus and concentration. But these dogs, I mean, it is
38:47
Speaker 1: amazing because in a in a lot of these searches,
38:50
Speaker 1: unless you like you're the first one on the scene,
38:52
Speaker 1: there are people everywhere. There are sirens, there are bullhorns,
38:57
Speaker 1: there's equipment making loud noises, there are any distraction you
39:01
Speaker 1: could think of that would freak a dog out is
39:04
Speaker 1: on the scene all at once. And they say that
39:06
Speaker 1: star dogs can get so good that they can not
39:09
Speaker 1: only ignore all this, but they could they could walk
39:12
Speaker 1: by a cheeseburger on a trail and just keep following
39:16
Speaker 1: that scent. Yeah, which is where my dogs would fail.
39:19
Speaker 1: You want to identify the star dog at a disaster area,
39:23
Speaker 1: find the dog that's just casually filing its nails. That's
39:27
Speaker 1: the star dog every time. Yeah, there's no way my
39:30
Speaker 1: dogs would ignore that. The food thing that would I'm
39:35
Speaker 1: always got this thing where her eyes get real big
39:37
Speaker 1: and kind of bug out of her head and she
39:39
Speaker 1: like uses a paw to kind of like gently like
39:42
Speaker 1: tap you, like, hey, I'm right here. You want to
39:45
Speaker 1: share some of that. So, UM, there's a couple other
39:50
Speaker 1: things we should mention about this. This training, the avalanche
39:53
Speaker 1: training we just mentioned, you can you can do that
39:55
Speaker 1: with anything you can do with underwater training. Apparently it
39:58
Speaker 1: involves the handler in the bow with the dog, but
40:01
Speaker 1: also a scuba diver hiding underwater. That's the best way
40:03
Speaker 1: to train dogs on water. Um, you can do it
40:07
Speaker 1: with um simulated disaster like collapse buildings, that kind of stuff.
40:12
Speaker 1: So you can take this this idea that you're training
40:16
Speaker 1: the dog that if they go look for a person,
40:18
Speaker 1: the person might give them their snausage or their ball,
40:21
Speaker 1: and that's what they're doing. So even when they're out
40:24
Speaker 1: there searching for dead bodies in the woods, to the dog,
40:28
Speaker 1: they're just playing a game. There's a bunch of people around,
40:31
Speaker 1: there's a lot of sirens and like crying humans, and um,
40:35
Speaker 1: we're like shovels and back house and all that stuff.
40:37
Speaker 1: But the dogs just in the midst of all this,
40:40
Speaker 1: the dog is playing a game of go find it,
40:43
Speaker 1: which is why that reward is so key even in
40:47
Speaker 1: the face of tragedy. Yeah. So, um, that that's the
40:52
Speaker 1: dog training. We have to talk about training you because
40:55
Speaker 1: in in Soviet Russia, sorry, training trains you. Uh yeah,
41:00
Speaker 1: I mean you know most of these star handlers. Uh well,
41:04
Speaker 1: we'll seek out this dog probably from the get go
41:07
Speaker 1: um at a shelter and kind of start from from
41:10
Speaker 1: day one as like this is my next star dog. Um.
41:14
Speaker 1: Like we said earlier, they spent about a thousand hours
41:16
Speaker 1: of training as a human. Um, this is training the dog.
41:20
Speaker 1: This is also like you've got to be good in
41:22
Speaker 1: the woods. You've got to know weather patterns. You've got
41:24
Speaker 1: to know how to communicate on these radio comms and
41:27
Speaker 1: know how to work a compass. And most of these
41:30
Speaker 1: people are a lot of more e m S certified.
41:32
Speaker 1: But the very least you're brushed up very well in
41:35
Speaker 1: your CPR. Because if you're a couple of miles away
41:38
Speaker 1: and you're the person that comes upon the scene, you've
41:40
Speaker 1: got to administer some some aid right there. One might
41:43
Speaker 1: call it first aid. Yeah, you would. You gotta look
41:48
Speaker 1: good in cargo pants, yeah, for sure. Uh, you gotta
41:52
Speaker 1: have a nice pair of hiking boots. You gotta be
41:53
Speaker 1: able to wear a boot. This article UM quotes a
41:57
Speaker 1: search and rescue handler UM who who says, the chief
42:02
Speaker 1: thing that you have to be able to do is
42:05
Speaker 1: to know where you are at any given point during
42:08
Speaker 1: the search. UM. You have to precisely identify your coordinates,
42:13
Speaker 1: which means you have to know that GPS, the compass,
42:15
Speaker 1: the map, all that stuff you said, But you also
42:17
Speaker 1: have to know it while you're following your dog with
42:19
Speaker 1: a flashlight at night, because apparently at night is the
42:22
Speaker 1: best time for a dog to search. So you have
42:24
Speaker 1: to be really, really good at at identifying your coordinates.
42:28
Speaker 1: And the reason why is because dogs will often UM
42:31
Speaker 1: give a sign, they'll alert that they found something even
42:35
Speaker 1: though there doesn't seem to be anything there. But if
42:37
Speaker 1: your dog does that, you want to note down the
42:39
Speaker 1: coordinates and you keep searching. And if some other star
42:43
Speaker 1: dogs come along and they note the same area and
42:46
Speaker 1: everybody compares notes afterwards, there you're going to go back
42:49
Speaker 1: to that same area. But that that you need to
42:52
Speaker 1: know exactly where the area is so you know that
42:54
Speaker 1: there's something there and how to get back to it.
42:57
Speaker 1: So you really need to know what you're doing with
43:00
Speaker 1: with um self coordination is what I'll call it. Yeah,
43:03
Speaker 1: I would fail even if Nika was great. My my
43:07
Speaker 1: legendary sense of that poor sense of direction would disqualify me. Yes,
43:13
Speaker 1: so that's why I don't do this. Didn't you get
43:15
Speaker 1: trapped in a cave one? Uh? No, I didn't get trapped.
43:20
Speaker 1: You just didn't feel like leaving. What are you talking about.
43:24
Speaker 1: I went caving, and I went in and I went out. Okay,
43:27
Speaker 1: there was no problems. I thought there was a problem. No,
43:30
Speaker 1: I mean the problems were. It was kind of scary, right,
43:35
Speaker 1: but I was I was with experienced speed lunkers who
43:39
Speaker 1: got me all through it. Sure, but yeah, that was
43:42
Speaker 1: that one pancake part that you've freaked out when I
43:44
Speaker 1: even told you about it. Yeah, I don't want to
43:46
Speaker 1: talk about it. So. Uh, if you are a star
43:51
Speaker 1: team or you have a star dog, um, you are,
43:54
Speaker 1: like you said, on call at all times, even if
43:56
Speaker 1: you're on vacation. That's why you travel with your dogs
43:58
Speaker 1: a lot. Um You're always ready and I imagine it
44:02
Speaker 1: could ruin a vacation. But if you're sitting around, you know,
44:06
Speaker 1: pushing papers in an office, you you probably look forward
44:08
Speaker 1: to that call to get out in the in the
44:10
Speaker 1: woods and do what you were trained to do with
44:12
Speaker 1: your with your best pal. Yeah, exactly. So you get
44:16
Speaker 1: the call out, Uh, you load up all your gear,
44:19
Speaker 1: you you head out there. Um. It depends on what's
44:22
Speaker 1: going on. You might be hopping on a helicopter or
44:24
Speaker 1: a boat again, depending what's going on there. Um. And
44:27
Speaker 1: this is where the obedience and all those distractions come
44:31
Speaker 1: into play, and you're you're you know, it's up to
44:34
Speaker 1: you as the handler to be the alpha. Even though
44:37
Speaker 1: your dog needs to be good awfu leash and on
44:39
Speaker 1: loose leash, it's still you're still in charge. And that's
44:42
Speaker 1: that's a big part of it. So I think we
44:46
Speaker 1: said that search and um urban search and rescue is
44:49
Speaker 1: the hardest um kind of search and rescue for a
44:53
Speaker 1: dog to do, not just because um it's it's difficult,
44:58
Speaker 1: but because it can be it can really get a
45:00
Speaker 1: dog down to find nothing but dead bodies. It's also
45:03
Speaker 1: extremely hazardous. You know that dogs poking around a collapsed building,
45:08
Speaker 1: that's a precarious place to be looking for survivors. UM.
45:12
Speaker 1: So if you're an urban search and rescue dog from
45:15
Speaker 1: what I saw. You don't want a dog that's over
45:17
Speaker 1: three years old entering this or that's just too old,
45:21
Speaker 1: So you want a younger dog. You want to start
45:23
Speaker 1: training them early on. But if you're an urban search
45:26
Speaker 1: and rescue dog urban disaster search and rescue, UM, you're
45:29
Speaker 1: probably not going to have an extremely long career in that.
45:32
Speaker 1: It's just too exhausting and it's too demanding. So you
45:37
Speaker 1: may as your as you kind of move towards retirement, UM,
45:41
Speaker 1: get moved to different types of search and rescue that
45:44
Speaker 1: are a little less demanding. And apparently the last step
45:47
Speaker 1: before retirement is wilderness search and rescue because to a dog,
45:51
Speaker 1: it's just a great day out in the woods. That's
45:55
Speaker 1: it's as good as it comes. Yeah. So after after
45:58
Speaker 1: four or five years on the scene of collapsed buildings,
46:01
Speaker 1: you get to run around the national forest and uh
46:05
Speaker 1: and look for folks yep. And then after you finally
46:08
Speaker 1: are retired, you get to lay around all day and
46:11
Speaker 1: chase those squirrels you've been wanting to chase that whole time. Yes,
46:14
Speaker 1: and unsurprisingly, UM, I would say most all of the
46:18
Speaker 1: time you were probably sticking with the the trainer as
46:23
Speaker 1: their good boy or girl. But if that is not
46:26
Speaker 1: possible for some reason, there are plenty of people that
46:29
Speaker 1: will line up to adopt this sur dog. Oh yes,
46:32
Speaker 1: because they are just as as um well trained as
46:36
Speaker 1: they come. That's right. Uh, you got anything else now? Man?
46:39
Speaker 1: I love these dog cats. So dogs. Yeah, I'd love
46:43
Speaker 1: to do something about just breeds and the original dogs
46:47
Speaker 1: and how they evolved and all that good stuff. Okay,
46:50
Speaker 1: have we not done how dogs works? I'm sure we have, yeah,
46:54
Speaker 1: but I don't know if we got into all the Uh.
46:56
Speaker 1: You know, there's that movie out about the original dog,
47:00
Speaker 1: the original domesticated dog. Um it's called Alpha, and I
47:05
Speaker 1: think it's not true, but I think it may be
47:08
Speaker 1: based on what people believe might have happened, like one
47:12
Speaker 1: human bonded with one wolf and that kind of started
47:16
Speaker 1: the whole thing. Are you talking about dances with wolves? Yeah?
47:20
Speaker 1: That's it. Oh no, no, no, that it was water World.
47:25
Speaker 1: That's funny you bring that up. I was thinking about
47:27
Speaker 1: that movie the other day and just how perfect the
47:30
Speaker 1: casting of Dennis Hopper was, because whoever casted him was like,
47:34
Speaker 1: this movie's off the rails before we even started shooting. Yeah,
47:37
Speaker 1: let's get Dennis Opper and Gary Busey in here? What's
47:40
Speaker 1: Gary Busey in it too? And I don't want to
47:42
Speaker 1: make fun of Gary Busey. He said you shouldn't real troubles. Well,
47:47
Speaker 1: way to end this on a downer, will just stop
47:49
Speaker 1: right here. If you want to know more about star Dogs,
47:51
Speaker 1: just start looking it up. There's all sorts of training
47:54
Speaker 1: resources and everything you could hope to find on the internet. Um.
47:59
Speaker 1: And since I said at it's time for a listener mail, Uh,
48:04
Speaker 1: this is about Pando. Yes, um, And I have to
48:08
Speaker 1: say that since we did that episode, I've often listened
48:12
Speaker 1: to brown noise here at work while I'm trying to
48:14
Speaker 1: concentrate on my my earbuds. But I have since switched
48:18
Speaker 1: to Aspen Forest, Oh and and wind. There's a great
48:23
Speaker 1: like hour and a half recording of In the Field
48:26
Speaker 1: of a It maybe Pando for all I know, but
48:29
Speaker 1: it's really really lovely, highly recommended. Cool. So all right
48:33
Speaker 1: here we go. Hey guys, Uh and Jerry, I hope
48:36
Speaker 1: you're having a wonderful day. You really enjoyed hearing episode
48:38
Speaker 1: on Pando. My family has been taking an annual camping
48:41
Speaker 1: trip to Fish Lake, Utah since the early to mid nineties,
48:44
Speaker 1: which is only a mile or two down the road
48:45
Speaker 1: from Pando. It's like, how do you go a mile
48:48
Speaker 1: from Pando that's that big and just not going to Pando?
48:51
Speaker 1: All right? You know, maybe they don't know about Pando.
48:54
Speaker 1: Oh he knows, he said. I've been hearing stories about
48:56
Speaker 1: it since I was little and have always been astounded
48:59
Speaker 1: by the magnitude and resilience of an organism like that.
49:02
Speaker 1: The ungulate fences start right on the side of the road,
49:06
Speaker 1: and it's like night and day. You're driving along in
49:09
Speaker 1: a fairly sparse aspen grove and then bam, there's a
49:13
Speaker 1: wall of tall, dense aspens on one side, surrounded by
49:15
Speaker 1: a fence. The other side of the road is offence
49:17
Speaker 1: as well, but there's often cattle roaming, and the tree
49:20
Speaker 1: population is considerably thinner. I'm an oil painter by trade
49:24
Speaker 1: and recently did a commission of a nice little spot
49:26
Speaker 1: in Pando and included a little picture here in the
49:29
Speaker 1: email of the finished piece. It is wonderfully gorgeous place.
49:32
Speaker 1: Saddens me to hear how much danger it's in. Thanks
49:35
Speaker 1: for getting the word out there, guys. Hopefully something could
49:37
Speaker 1: be done. Hope all is well. That is from Lawson
49:40
Speaker 1: Barney in Colorado and asked him if people could view
49:43
Speaker 1: his art, and he said, just go to Lawson Barney
49:46
Speaker 1: on Instagram. L A W S O N all one
49:49
Speaker 1: word capital b A r n E y on Instagram
49:52
Speaker 1: to see some of this stuff. Yes. Uh, Instagram is
49:55
Speaker 1: a great place to find artists these days. That's what
49:58
Speaker 1: I hear. Are you're not on I don't know you
50:01
Speaker 1: know me? You gotta check it out. While you're there.
50:03
Speaker 1: Check out an artist I love called the Christian Rex
50:06
Speaker 1: fan minute amazing. And I'm gonna check out laws and
50:10
Speaker 1: Barney too at the very least because he's got a
50:12
Speaker 1: pretty awesome name. Uh. If you want to talk about
50:16
Speaker 1: artists that you love on Instagram, turn us onto some.
50:20
Speaker 1: You can go to our website Stuff you Should Know
50:24
Speaker 1: dot com find all of our social links. I also
50:26
Speaker 1: have a website called the Josh Clark Way dot com
50:29
Speaker 1: and you can send us an email. Send it off
50:31
Speaker 1: to stuff podcast at how stuff Works dot com for
50:40
Speaker 1: more on this and thousands of other topics. Is that
50:42
Speaker 1: how stuff Works dot com.