Mounted search and rescue

[Terry Nowacki <wwfarm@wiktel.com>]

Cadaver Horse  Test / Demonstration

After giving a public invitation to over 70 people representing
Sheriff's Departments, SAR and SAR K9s, from a five county area, I
presented a first of its kind Cadaver Horse Demonstration on a very cold
November 21 Minnesota morning. Temperatures were well below freezing
plus wind chill factors.

My demonstration horses included one riding horse with only 12 hours of
cadaver training that was spread out evenly over 22 days, (Plus a small
amount of my foundation air scent training.) and a yearling miniature horse.
I did not use my experienced live human air scent horse because I wanted
to prove that many different horses can be trained successfully for air
scent locating work.

>From the group that witnessed this ground breaking demonstration, some
may have come skeptical but they left as believers.  I believe a quote
from an out-of-state SAR professional who witnessed this demonstration
says it all: "I expected to see success and I saw it."

All standards for this test / demonstration, including test area size,
etc. were taken from a surface field test used by NASAR, a nationwide
SAR organization, as part of the process to certify cadaver K9s. The
difficult levels of this horse scenting test met or exceeded the NASAR
standards. (This was not a NASAR approved test.) The test was set up
by a SAR certification officer. The judges were the certification officer
plus the group of observers. The cadaver material was less than 15 grams
(That is less than 1/2 ounce.) The cadaver material was hidden and
camouflaged before I arrived at the test area with my two demonstration
horses.

For this test, my horses were blindfolded to prevent skeptics from
saying that the horses were searching by sight. During the first part
of the search I rode the 12 year old search horse until he picked up
the first trace of cadaver scent, which he confirmed to me by his
silent alert signals.  I marked this spot with a flag.  (We later found
that the distance at this point was 110 ft from the hidden cadaver
material.) I continued on with the search pattern until the horse
showed a stronger silent alert signal. At this point in order to prove
beyond a doubt that the horse was working totally on his own I
dismounted and turned my horse completely free in an open field to
locate the cadaver source on his own. After losing and relocating the
scent drift, the loose horse then actively searched out and located the
hidden cadaver material from a distance of 50 feet.  (Remember the horse
was blind folded) The horse located the source of the cadaver scent
within the 30 minute time frame allowed by the NASAR standards used for
this test. The yearling miniature horse also tested successfully
according to the  K9 cadaver standards.

In order to make the test more difficult and for proofing reasons some
bloody dead wildlife was also placed out in the test area.  This did
not fool the human cadaver trained horses. One horse completely ignored the
scent while the other only gave me one signal that something was up wind
but did try to follow the scent.


What did this prove?

It proves a wide variety of horses can be trained for cadaver area / air
scent locating.

It also proves that horses can scent discriminate.


Terry Nowacki
http://airscentinghorse.com/