There are 3 types of Airscent dogs.
Live only, Cadaver Only, and Dual Trained dogs.
Live Only Airscent: These dogs are generally used in Disaster situations, such as an earthquake, that will cause an entire building to collapse. It is vital that the live people be found as quickly as possible, so a dog that is only trained in LIVE is used. After the area is cleared, and all the live victims recovered, a Cadaver Only dog is used to find the remaining people.
Cadaver Only Airscent: These dogs are used in many situations. Drowning, murder cases, anthropological sites, disaster areas, etc. A dog can detect human scent on 2000 year old bones! The ways a good Cadaver dog can be used are endless.
| Dual Trained dogs:
Why would you ever want a dual trained dog? In wilderness situations, where a person can be lost for days on end, is an important place to have Dual dogs. You want that dog to find ANY human, alive or dead, in the area you are searching. This is the majority of searches we go on here in AL. Vast areas of woodlands, where a person can get lost and stay lost for days. |
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Most of the dogs in our group are Airscent Dual trained dogs. They are started out on live victims and moved to cadaver work once they are working well with live. We use dual trained dogs because of our location, terrain, and the types of call outs we get (lost person, possible suicide, drowning, etc). We don't have enough members to have dogs trained only in live or only in cadaver, so we dual train most of them. We are not working Disaster situations, so having a dog who finds Cadaver is not a problem. Many times, we don't know if our current victim is still alive.
Each one of these dogs has it place in Search and Rescue. We need more good handlers in all areas, so if you find this stuff interesting, you might consider starting or joining a group in your area.
