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.
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“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