The National Search And Rescue Dog Association

Dogs Bodies

We need Dogs Bodies to be able to train our Search Dogs in the Air Scent and Trailing disciplines.

It takes a special person to commit so much time to help with the training of our search dogs.

Dogs Bodies can spend an entire day hiding for the dogs or they can be hiding for very short spells but moving around a lot.

AIR SCENT - In the early stages of training they only need one body but soon as the dog progresses they need multiple bodies. A training route or area can have anything from one to three dogs bodies typically.

TRAILING - In the very early stages they do not need a dogs body straight away whilst they learn to scent discriminate. However they will quickly need multiple dogs bodies so that they can be trained to pick a specific person out from a line up of people. Thereafter they will be learning to train for a specific person so we need a target dogs body plus decoys to check the dog does trail to the correct person.

At the earlier stages in both disciplines the searches are short, getting progressively longer over time. However at the later stages the searches will extend up to 2 hours, often requiring multiple dogs bodies.

So you can imagine when an Association has numerous dogs of different disciplines, at different levels of training and qualification, we do need quite a few dogs bodies to help them.

All aspirant Dog Handlers & Dog Supports / Navigators will have been volunteering as a Dogs Body for at least 4-6 months before being accepted into the formal training programme.

The entry requirements for becoming a Dogs Body varies slightly from Association to Association, according to whether you will be working in a Mountain or Lowland Area.