Wilderness search dogs

The wilderness search and rescue dog's job is to search out people that have gone missing or people that are hurt. However, this specific type of search and rescue dog does not specialize in finding people that are buried under debris. These dogs search for people that have gone missing in the woods, prairies etc. While a dog is searching for a missing person, the idea is for there to be a few people as possible around the search area because the smell of humans can affect and disturb the dogs work tremendously.

Just the fact that a missing person can be sitting, walking, lying down, running, inside a vehicle, etc, can actually impede the dogs from being able to use a valid discriminative element that can differentiate it from another person that could be in the same area such as in the case of a hiker. These types of circumstances interfere with the dog being able to get completely and entirely trained.

In a wilderness search, the person or chief in charge will strategically distribute the team out and will assign them to different areas or streets. The assigned limits are usually those of nature itself such as the rocks, hills, rivers, etc. The guides that take place in these searches will be in contact with the chief by receptors and they will inform the chief on how the rescue is going about. Once the area and starting point has been the determined the guide will send the dog out in front of everyone else. This will allow and make it easier for the dog to smell with the help of the wind. The guide will be following the dog during this search but the guide must not get too close to the dog. The idea is to give the dog it's space and allow him to search the area out freely and autonomously. However the guide will need to make sure the dog does not exceed the limits of the assigned area.