Posted: 1/16/2008 11:48:42 AM EDT
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Im toying with the idea of becoming a dog handler, either a bomb dog or a SAR dog of some sort. Im leaning twards the bomb dog as it is a more regular employment kind of thing where as SAR is mostly on call and vollie. Im not intrested in a drug dog. Anyone working in the field have any thoughts on this? Thanks in advance! |
| Don' forget patrol dog. There are a number of dogs that are dual purpose- patrol dog/ drug dog, or patrol dog/ bomb dog. You might consider that. Also, depending on what breed of dog you would want to work with or your department uses, your options might be limited, i.e. a lab probably won't work out as a patrol dog. |
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Im not LE, Im EOD and Paramedic. Im thinking it's time to get another dog. My last one died a couple of years ago. Just thinking it would be nice to have a working dog as well as a regular dog buddy. Im just wondering if there are any down sides to it or things to consider that I may not have thought of? |
What are you going to do with the dog? If you are EOD (as in full time job), they have dogs. A bomb dog is a lot of training. Not sure what materials (even pseudo) that you would be allowed to get as non-LE or FD. One thing to think about, compared to other detector dogs, if you miss one bomb, that could be the end of several lives. You miss the dope, oh well 
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Just an observation from working with drug (I know you said not that one but bear with it for a moment) dog teams. The team had a large German Shepard. That was okay for searching buildings and cars, but when it came to small craft (boats), having to carry the dog up and down ladders, the small spaces, really tired him out quickly. We wanted to search three YP's that day; we barely got thru one. The environment one works in might have as much to do with the selection of the breed as the efficiency of a certain breed to the task at hand. When we picture MWD/PWD, we probably imagine shepard types, but the situation given above, I imagine there is a similar reason to why at least some Customs units use beagles. _______________________________________________________________ ("Intruder reaches thru, knocks out the guard dog here. But he's a dog, not a human. He wakes up, he has a sore head, but all he knows is to go back to work, not that he should report the incident."--Lee Barrett explaining how the perimeter was penetrated "without a trace", (w,stte), "The Satan Bug") |
| Being on the EMS side, have you considered about an arson dog? From your post above, I take it that this is going to be your personal dog which you want to train so you can help out outside of your EMS position? If so, another thing to consider is the agencies in your area. Would they go outside of their dept. or neighboring depts. and use a "civilian" dog for which ever task you decide to train for? |