Mounted search and rescue

[Una Smith <una.smith@att.net>]

Chris Pennington wrote:
>I was wondering about the possibility of using dogs to help track MP's from
>horseback. There was some history of doing this type of thing in the distant
>past but I haven't heard much about it in modern SAR. Does anyone do this?
>Know of anyone who does this? Curious because our youngest pup shows some
>aptitude but I don't think I have the time to do two completely different
>disciplines. Now combining them....for use separately or together....that's
>intriguing. 

A woman in New Mexico, who used to be on this list, would carry her small
SAR dog on horseback to transport him to the search area.  He would search
on foot.  She got really busy with USAR and FEMA, and I don't know what 
she is up to now.  I know other MSAR responders who sometimes bring well
behaved ranch working dogs (cattle dogs) on searches with them.  These dogs
are experts at searching out cattle, and clearly understand the search job,
but they are not trained nor proven SAR dogs.  There is a lot of interest
in combining SAR dogs and horses, but because strong canine SAR and mounted
SAR communities rarely occur in the same places, cross-training is difficult.
Canine teams are more common in areas where the number of missions is high
(ie, urban areas);  MSAR teams are more common in ranching and farming
communities.  These two kinds of team co-occur most often urban/wilderness
interface areas.  (Chris lives in such an area.)

Among long distance horse riders (meaning those who ride across continents),
it is very common to travel with a dog, the dog riding on top of a loaded
pack saddle.  The dog jumps on and off at will.

Some hunting dogs still are worked from horseback.  Most often, the dogs are
pointers.  They are worked on long leads from the horse (this is called 
"roading"), or off lead.  See for example this very interesting web page:
http://www.gaitedhorses.net/Articles/FT/FieldTrial.shtml  Note it mentions
handling a dog on a 30-foot lead, while riding through brush.  Smart dogs
worked on leads in woodlands soon learn not to wrap the lead around trees,
and how to unwrap it if necessary (eg they guess wrong about which way the
human will go).

I hope this inspires some of you to approach SAR dog teams in your area
about training together.  Many SAR dog teams like to have two people work
each dog:  a handler and a navigator/comms person.  So you might start by
volunteering to work as their navigator during training searches, and
learn by watching.

        Una Smith
        New Mexico