Forming a Rapid Response team

heldengebroed

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Mar 9, 2005
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Hello
Let me introduse myself for those who don?t know me. I?m an experienced dogtrainer i have been a decoy for belgian ring for almost 30 years (next weekend it will be 30 years) and moved 2 years ago to the DR. As this is a high risk country- see the Haitian earthquake last year and several others that destroyed most mayor cities at one time or another and the risk of a hurricane hitting the country also is real. On the other hand this country lacks a proper search team with properly trained dogs. Last year I tried to create a team within the civil defence structures and failed. Everyone tought it was a great idea but no-one wanted to commit. In The capital is a fireman who has the same problems. This year i upped the scale a bit. I?m currently forming a small group of dedicated persons who are willing to co-operate in creating a fondation and not 1 but 4 teams evenly spread over the country.
Team 1 . Dajabon
Team 2 Puerto Plata
Team 3 Higuey
Team 4 Santo Domingo
This way the whole nation and haiti is covered within 4 houres (the US has a ETA of event +12houres).
Tomorrow i have a meeting with a woman who is said to be someone that can make things move and is apparently a friend of the president ( no verification of this information)
Next week i have a reunion with a general of CESFRONT ( to see if we can use some military grounds as training sides..)
When Vilallona is in town i?m going to see him to via a personal friend of him to see if he can help in one way or another
As this is a project that requires lots of recourses human and financial i am posting this to get some feedback from you guys to see if you?re intersted in joining in and or helping in another way.

Greetings

Johan Engelen
Loma de Cabrerra
Dominican Republic
 

Chirimoya

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Dec 9, 2002
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One already exists, unless it's yours. :)

BUSQUEDA Y RESCATE REP. DOMINICANA | Facebook

BUSQUEDA Y RESCATE REP. DOMINICANA - there are no contact names or details as far as I can tell.

"Es el primer equipo para la Rep. dominicana que cuenta con perros entrenados en b?squeda de personas bajo estructuras colapsadas, cad?veres tanto bajo escombros como agua, emergencias medicas, incendios, castatrofe y fenomenos naturales etc."
 

Chip

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Jul 25, 2007
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Santiago
There's a couple of phone numbers for the sponsors of a similar event, the San Pedro de Macorix FD. See below:

184663_1826408149654_1523792797_1894814_1628423_n.jpg
 

heldengebroed

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Mar 9, 2005
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I know that there are some dogs here that are trained to a certain extend but the problem is that the structure
It is poorly eg the fireman who is behind the firebrigade team appparently has to do the whole proces of creating thje team over and over again every time a big shot changes places
I'm not going to work against other terams but with them
And for the cost of the dogs; they would be trained by myself and other experienced trainers sowiththe cost of buying a dog we can set up a training \center



Greetings

Johan
 

Chip

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Jul 25, 2007
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I know that there are some dogs here that are trained to a certain extend but the problem is that the structure
It is poorly eg the fireman who is behind the firebrigade team appparently has to do the whole proces of creating thje team over and over again every time a big shot changes places
I'm not going to work against other terams but with them
And for the cost of the dogs; they would be trained by myself and other experienced trainers sowiththe cost of buying a dog we can set up a training \center



Greetings

Johan

I posted the link not thinking you were in competition with other SAR teams but rather for coordination purposes
 

Acira

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Sep 20, 2009
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As members of the Busqueda Y Rescate group of Santo Domingo, we know its not easy to get continued cooperation of government officials, and we recently suffered a set back with the death of Argos, the GSD of Molina. We can only applaud any serious initiative by other experienced dog trainers. As we know Johan since a long time, we will extend our full support in any way possible.
 

heldengebroed

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Mar 9, 2005
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Can you join with your own dog, or do you start only with puppies

All depends on the dog.
If it is a young adult with high preydrive mentaly correct and physical also ...
This being said not all dogs are good for the job and failure of the dog means death of a trapped person so standards need to be high
At this point i?m trying to get a structure started which is stable enough to widstand a change of person in one position or another.
My experience is that this has to be done outside the existing structures with cooperation protocols where possible. The reason for this is that there will always be another priority that is greater if you work in an existing structure. eg a new truck to combat fire is more importanty than to train a dog for an event that may happen in 4 years time..
Greetings

Johan
 

belgiank

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Jun 13, 2009
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Can you explain this term

high preydrive

all dogs have preydrive... this is simply the need to search for prey, like any animal, whether it is food or whatever...

A dog with a high preydrive is kind of obsessed... the dog will search for hours for a certain toy for example, and will not stop until it finds it. The trainer's job is then to turn this drive towards its final goal, whether it is drugs, people, explosives, whatever...

Mind you, this is a basic explanation, and it is more complicated then this in reality.
 

Anastacio

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Feb 22, 2010
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I've always had hunting dogs and it is thrilling to see a sighthound on the go, it is very different for me to train my sighthound to chase deer, fox or hare than training a scent hound to seek out scent in the forest. Chasing animal scent for scent hounds and running down a moving target for sighthounds come kind of natural, it is installed there from day zero. But the one thing that really impresses me is when these dogs can find a gun that hasn't been used in over a year, or a roll of money, drugs etc. It's bloody amazing and genius to the trainers.
 

heldengebroed

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Mar 9, 2005
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But the one thing that really impresses me is when these dogs can find a gun that hasn't been used in over a year, or a roll of money, drugs etc. It's bloody amazing and genius to the trainers.

This is because we see the world different than dogs do. Dogs form, besides a visual picture of their surroundings, also a scent picture. Sometimes i think dogs see us as underdeveloped stupid beings

Greetings

Johan
 

SantiagueroRD

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Apr 20, 2011
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Although I do not know the author Johan his use of the term "drives" and explanation tends to verify that he knows what he is talking about. High pack drive is another that is vital for a service dog as in retriever.
 

heldengebroed

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Mar 9, 2005
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How the drives are named and identified isn?t that important. The important thing is that the dog can do the job and can do it to perfection

In this cas. Literaly lives are at stake

I?ve just been on a livesaving mission to dajabon (giving Blood) and have seen the perfect headquarters a vacant, fully functioning radiostation with his own power generator conference room etc
To top it of besides it and on the opposit side of the roada large fully enclosed field with lots of concrete slabs, tubes etc
You can only dream

Greetings

Johan
 

Acira

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It matters a lot to me which and how much drive a dog of mine has. Too much pack drive will give you a dog which can have a shorter "professional" life span if fully and solely trained as a service dog. Lets not forget that it takes already a couple of years to train a service dog in general, let alone to more specific tasks.

And I have put the word "professional" especially between brackets because we are still speaking about volunteering work here, has to be that way IMO. That doesn't mean that a SAR team with dogs on a voluntary basis cannot be a perfectly organized and professional working team.

Acira
 

heldengebroed

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Mar 9, 2005
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This is going to be a bit technical but here we go...
A dog is like all living being a complex system of toughts, instincts , drives whatever you want to name them. The difficulty i have with terms like preydrive etc (although i need to use them frequently ) is that the definition as such isn?t that clear and the interpretation differs from person to person. If you talk to oldtimers, guys who have trained more dogs and selected them to suit their needs than this forum together, you?ll never hear them speak of drives. They talk about hard dogs with lots of hart or a point dog etc When they describe a dog you know what they are talking about and often they end their discription with... but he does the job. My point was and is that the labeling of drives, instincts etc is an inadequate way of describing the qualities-defaults of a dog.
Don?t know if it was you hilde or peter who said that all dogs have preydrive. i know of one exception that dog has no drives whatsoever except sexdrive
 

Acira

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Its just a question of our different background in training methods which in no way means that we can not be compliment to one another Johan. Every trainer who comes from such different backgrounds as you and I do, do understand each other clearly if it comes to determine what a dog needs to have or what we see in a young dog that will eventually could make him/her a good service dog.

You speak of a hard dog with a hart for it, we prefer to call it a high prey driven dog with a high determination to obtain its goal. ultimately we have the same goal but we use different methods to achieve that goal because we look at it different.

Acira
 

SantiagueroRD

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Apr 20, 2011
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Acira has answered with an expertly nuanced explantion and I agree. Dog trainers the world over use different terms to say sometimes the same thing. This may be solely because of translations but a "hard" dog in Police service terms in english indicates a knucklehead whose "alpha" drive borders on insubordination. I disagree that "If you talk to oldtimers, guys who have trained more dogs and selected them to suit their needs than this forum together, you?ll never hear them speak of drives." I have attended service dog training with English, German (West then named), and American and they all used some form of "drive" to try and explain why dogs do what they do.