Hello

[Susana Izquierdo]

Hi,
My name is Susana, I live in Madrid, and worked with detector dogs. Also collaborated with an association of professionals who work with rescue dogs, and giving training to other SAR teams.
I have 2 yellow labrador retriever, and would love to know how the SAR dogs teams work in UK.
I apologize for my poor knowledge of English
Kind regards to all from Spain.

[Merlin]

hola! bienvenidos!

No need to apologise for your English. It's much better than our Spanish!

[Andy W.]

Hi Susana,

you're welcome and I suspect your English is better than our Spanish!

You have good taste in dogs!

I have two Labradors, a black one who is training in air scent and a red one that I have just started man trailing with as a trial. My red one is a little old perhaps but she is showing promise. I understand in Spain that water Dogs are popular choices for SAR work, at least that's what i have seen and read!

Andy.

[Susana Izquierdo]

Thank you all for your welcome.
I'm starting to learn English, and the google translator is a great help!
Andy, water SAR dogs in Spain are few, but very noisy. I think there are only two or three groups in the country: two on the coast (north and east), and one in the center (near Madrid).
My job is to train bomb-sniffing dogs for private security companies. And the free time, I´m volunteer in a Disaster Intervention Group of the ESDP since 1998.
My labradors are Yako y Kali, and they search on air-scenting (area search) and rbble search. Yako is 8 years old, and Kali is his daughter and is 4 years old. In my group, when a dog is 8 years old, the handler must begin training a replacement.

Greetings to all

Susana

[Andy W.]

Susana as you train explosives dogs (and I assume you are not in the police yourself) are you allowed to have explosives to train them on in Spain? In this country only police or military are allowed to have explosives all others have to use 'pseudo scents' ie chemicals mixed to smell like explosives without actually being bombs. This limits how effective civilian dogs can usually be.

I met two water dogs being trained as SAR dogs last year in France. I wasn't very impressed by them as a breed, they were very slow to learn and yes very noisey as well. However I saw a promotional video for a GPS system of them being used by the the Guarda Civil (?) I think(?) on rubble.

[mark_n]

Hola Susana,

Welcome to the site, If you want to know how SAR dogs work in the UK, then this is one of the best places to be.
If you have a question, then you will always get a reply.

I look forward to hearing about your training in Spain.


Saludos

Mark

[Susana Izquierdo]

Hy Andy,
In spain real explosives are forbidden to civilian too. Generally we use pseudo, but I have recived military trainning, and my former colleagues test my operational dogs periodically using rela explossives.


I have a doubt: When you talk about water rescue dogs, do you mean dogs seaching persons drowned (cadaver)?, Or dogs that help people who are drowning?

[Andy W.]

The breed Spanish or Portugese Water Dogs is what i mean.

[Susana Izquierdo]

Sorry, I didn´t understand the question correctly...

Some firefighters from the south of spain use this breed. A fire official invented a method (Arcon method)to train SAR dogs using spanish water dogs, and many firefighters in Andalucía work according this method.
The most SAR dogs groups in Spain don´t work with this breed.
I think it is emotionally unstable, barking excessively, and often insecure.

[Andy W.]

I think it is emotionally unstable, barking excessively, and often insecure.

Yep we are definitely talking about the same dogs now!!