Firestyle Magazine Issue 1 - Autumn 2015 | Page 56

It’S A DOGS LIFE Dog Day Afternoon A three day National Search Dog Training exercise for live scent’ rescue dogs and their handlers took place at Station 60, National Resilience. The event was organised and coordinated by dog handler, Paul West who is part of the National Resilience team, based at Fire Service headquarters, Clyst St George. Paul has trained and works with two enthusiastic ‘live scent’ dogs Mickey and Kes. Three carefully selected locations were chosen to fully test the skills of both the handlers and their dogs, ranging from open terrain on Woodbury Common, a local Exmouth college, to a collapsed building scenario, vehicles and rigs based at SHQ, Clyst St George. Benefits of training Paul explained: “There is a huge benefit for handlers as well as their dogs at these training events, as they experience a variety of live scenarios in different environments. Loud equipment noise and distractions are all part of the training to observe the level of focus. 56 “Abilities are mixed as the dogs range from pups of eight months to experienced nine year olds, but they are all experts in the area of scent detection and they literally hit the ground running. The exercises give the handlers the chance to see if there are any issues for their dog that they need to focus on – better to find out while training, then at a real incident. “Handlers have travelled as from far as Scotland and Wales. This is also part of the dogs training so they experience being transported long distances and living in a van for three or four nights. The handlers have to make sure they have enough food some are more organised than others - but we should be able to go away for a week and be selfsufficient. “The police have been a fantastic support and their input and perspective has been invaluable with any problem solving that has gone on. They also assisted us in the assessment of each handler and his dog after each scenario.” Indoor training The interior of Rolle College in Exmouth was used within a scenario where dog handler and instructor Hugh Watson from Devon & Cornwall police was based. Hugh explained that training in a buil