1. How many days a week do you set up problems?
2. When you do grave searches, are you looking for unmarked graves?
3. This one is for everyone- are any of you in a SAR group? If so, are you "on call" all the time?
thanks, rt
I don't have a set schedule of setting up problems. A lot depends on where the dog(s) are at.
For Thorpe, where he's at that transitional stage from subtle surface to buried, I have 22 problems out right now. It truly doesn't matter if he knows they are there. In fact at times it's preferred because he will have to target them to solve them. Last night he did 5 surface 2-teeth problems and 5 sub-surface two-teeth problems which means this weekend I will have to set up a series of 2-3 inch deep holes that will be allowed to close up. At the pace he's at, that series will be good for 2-3 weeks maximum to where he's convinced me he's ready to move deeper.
During this time he also gets to work SOME of the problems set up for Murphy that are skeletal and within his current skill level (I wouldn't have Thorpe work bones six feet up in a tree or buried 2 feet down. I wouldn't let Thorpe work bones/teeth in sand right now as I learned from Tempe that doing so at this stage creates more harm than good as it promotes digging.)
For Murphy, who works mostly skeletal but I hope to test with NAPWDA in late October, he will get increasingly more decomp and blood in the next six weeks as that's what they test for. I don't like training for a test, but do want him comfortable in their medium of choice. For Murphy, I'll set up problems up to 3 days ahead of time with the sources I need to pull first (to avoid scavengers) being worked first.
On a good week, I'll train 4-5 times a week. On a bad week, 3 times. On a great week, I'll get to train every day with my dogs with some fun, easy training thrown in as well as booger problems.
Grave searches:
Ultimately you want your dog to find the unmarked graves. At first most handlers gravitate to headstones. Marble headstones soak up scent and often the dog wants to just target the head stone. The handler has to quickly get past this stage and convince the dog to check the ground for the grave regardless of headstone BECAUSE graves get moved, headstones get placed before someone is buried and then they just don't get buried, and one headstone may mark up to eight graves if it's a tall one in the center for a family plot.
Reclaiming a cemetery can be anything from finding all the unmarked graves to also confirming all the headstones as well. Often times cemeteries are getting full and they need to know where they can place someone new without digging up someone else's bones. I've done many cemeteries where that's the case.
I've also done cemeteries where the town no longer exists, the land is now part of a cattle range, and the historians/descendents want the graves marked before they are lost for all time. It's always interesting to see if your dog can work graves with cows following it about for entertainment. The dog has to stay focused on the graves regardless. Such cemeteries often offer no clue they are there.
Progress can cause a cemetery to be moved and the descedents sometimes want to know where they were originally buried. Often times a moved cemetery is what's called ceremonial. In such cases the remains are so fragile that only a couple of shovels of the remains are moved to a new cemetery and the rest are left in place. Doing research and then driving around to talk to the locals, I determined where one cemetery had been moved in the 1940's. A bunch of us worked both the new cemetery and where it had been, now a gravel parking lot going to a boat ramp at a man-made lake. We located over 70 graves with partial remains, how much was left will never be known.
And, of course a bonus to all this is that if you dog(s) can do all this then searching for a 20-year old clandestine grave that someone talks about in prison before they die.....well, not so hard if they can at least get you within a couple of acres. Often times the tipster simply wants a field trip out in to the free world and may play Law Enforcement for what he/she can, so you might be working a negative as well.
SAR group:
I started out in a local civilian SAR group and still belong to it, acting at the training coordinator. I also work for the state medical examiner. I'm on 24-hour call with both....all the time.
Currently on sick leave, my dogs and I are getting a break. If I get a call currently, I try to direct them to a decent dog team to take care of their needs if its urgent. I've worked enough searches that I don't have that civilian searcher drive that I must do all the searches. My drive is to get the lost found regardless of who gets the search and who gets the credit. We do have a local civilian SAR team that is very territorial and has succeeded over the years in alienating themselves to most of the law enforcement and state emergency management personnel. They rarely get called back twice. The downside is they make all the rest of us look bad as law enforcement often judges all of us by their actions and incompetence.
Jim