K9 Search and Rescue

SECOND EDITION

K9 Professional Training Series

Training that works by harnessing your dog’s instincts

Dr. Resi Gerritsen and Ruud Haak have trained search and rescue dogs for more than 30 years and have taken part in rescue operations around the world. They serve as training directors and international judges for the International Red Cross Federation, the United Nations, the International Rescue Dog Organization and the Fédération Cynologique Internationale (FCI). Based on their decades of study and experience, their innovative SAR training method is rooted in a firm, scientific understanding of K9 instincts.

Step-by-step instructions, dozens of illustrations and photographs from the field establish a professional K9 SAR program to benefit both beginners and experts.

Learn how to:

• Stimulate your dog’s natural hunting drive for effective SAR training.
• Start your dog’s training program with an easy, three-step process.
• Develop skills in a variety of search operations, including wilderness, avalanche and disaster scenarios.

Table of Contents

1. The history of search and rescue dogs
2. Training the natural way
3. The hunting drive complex
4. Training in three steps
5. Simulating interest in the sock toy
6. Connecting the sock toy with human scent
7. Linking the search field and human to the sock toy
8. Wilderness search
9. Rubble search
10. Disaster deployment tactics
11. Building damage typology
12. Avalanche search
13. A serious task
14. International rescue dog tests