Four Rivers K-9 Search Rescue & Recovery Team
How We Work
Since the Four Rivers K-9 Search Rescue & Recovery Team depends on the support of the community, grants, and fundraisers conducted throughout the year to maintain operations, we can provide our services at no charge to the requesting agency as well as in the communities that need our help.
When requested to respond, we will do so with a multitude of dogs, handlers, backup, horses and divers when necessary. To transport the team and their dogs we have two trailers - one of which serves as our communications and central command center in all searches. The other trailer is our team equipment and supply trailer. The team can be self sufficient for a minimum of 7 days with no outside support when required to do so.
Each dog and horse lives with, is owned, and is trained by the individual handler. It takes approximately 600 hours of training before the dogs become "operational." Our field training imitates real life situations such as wilderness, water, disaster, child, elderly, hikers, hunters, etc. We also train the dogs to look for articles that may have been left and anything that has human scent on it. This type of training is necessary for all searches and especially important when we are requested by law enforcement agencies to assist in homicides and evidence searches. Most of our dogs are trained as "air scenters" to find any human scent in an area. Some of the dogs are trained in tracking. These tracking dogs are used to establish a direction of travel when a last known point is available. Dogs can be an effective resource when trained and used appropriately.
K-9 Handlers dedicate approximately 20 hours or more a week to training themselves and their canines for SAR and often use their vacation time off work for SAR activities, seminars, and other local and regional training. Most gear and equipment is privately owned by the handlers. They use their personal vehicles to travel to trainings, seminars, demos, and search mission.
It takes approximately 1000 hours of training for each handler, backup, Mounted SAR, divers, and base camp operators. Some of the skills needed to be a SAR professional include mapping, survival, medical, etc. All of the active members have been trained in basic first aid and some are EMT's and/or paramedics.
In addition to training and missions, the Team also spends many hours in fundraising and public relations.
We train our staff for all aspects of Search and Rescue including:
Map Reading
Using a Compass
Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM)
National Incident Management System (NIMS)
Advanced and Search & Rescue specific First-Aid
Incident Command
Radio Communications
Public Relations
Global Positioning System (GPS)
Lost, missing, and overdue person behavior
Urban Search and Rescue
Clue Recognition
Crime scene management
Our K-9s receive training in:
Obedience
Tracking/Trailing
Air Scenting
Urban Search & Rescue
Water searches
Disaster
Confined Space
Cadaver Land and Water
Other varieties of Search & Rescue situations