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msar-riders - Re: [MSAR] Fw: Air Scenting Horse's

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Subject: Mounted search and rescue

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  • From: "Irvin Lichtenstein " <ilichten1@verizon.net>
  • To: "'Mounted search and rescue'" <msar-riders@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [MSAR] Fw: Air Scenting Horse's
  • Date: Wed, 17 Mar 2010 08:47:02 -0400

You don’t train a horse to air scent. As a prey animal the horse has a very developed sense of self preservation.

This includes fusing information from sight, smell, hearing, even feeling.  What a search rider has to do is learn to

read his horse.

 

Search dogs need training because they are being told to hunt without killing. As a predator a dog only has to be good enough to

catch enough to survive and domestic dogs do this well enough.

 

There are major differences between a horse and a dog.  The horse uses all his senses to classify the object he has detected.

This allows the horse to differentiate between threats, between what is identified as of no interest, and what can safely be ignored versus

the search object.  A horse will detect whether an object has been moved, added, or subtracted from its environment even if it hasn’t been

there for a period of time.  A dog does not differentiate without extensive training and does not remember the context of an area.   

 

Published anecdotal studies of this behavior date back to 1986 in the East and probably before that in other areas.  You must also realize that the introduction of

organized European style air scent dogs in the East only dates back to the late 1970’s and early 1980’s with the founding of Mid Atlantic Dogs in the Baltimore area and

similar organizations in New Jersey.  As then chief of Greater Philadelphia Search and Rescue I organized their mounted unit starting in 1986. 

 

Regardless of claims by those who have used published studies and reports of others you cannot train a horse to behave naturally. Once you have bomb proofed a horse

he is too ignorant of his surroundings to be safe as a search horse.  The basic principle of using a search horse is a partnership.  You protect each other on the

trail. You are looking for clues, your horse is looking out for you and the search subject(s).  The worst thing you can do is train a horse for this activity. You can educate

your horse, you can develop mutual trust, but a conditioned response is the last thing you want. 

 

Your horse should know that when the gear goes on and you say it is time to go to work that he is working.  And when the gear isn’t on he is still working, because horses are always afraid of being eaten by somebody and that alertness is what makes a search horse a search horse.

 

Many of those that now embrace this practice once thought it was impossible to use a horse for anything but a ride and that horses trampled clues and tracks. They embraced the idea because they are mercenaries who sell their services to teach you something you already know.  Members of Southeast Pennsylvania Search and Rescue are often amazed at how fast a green trail horse picks up that you want it to communicate with the rider about its surroundings and how often this comes naturally.  We don’t have to teach air scenting to our mounts, but we do have to teach communicating to our riders.  It takes about one trail ride.

 

Irv Lichtenstein

Chief of Operations

SE PA SAR

   


From: msar-riders-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org [mailto:msar-riders-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Jorene Downs
Sent: Wednesday, March 17, 2010 12:46 AM
To: 'Mounted search and rescue'
Subject: Re: [MSAR] Fw: Air Scenting Horse's




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