This two-day course is designed for K9 handlers seeking to advance their skills at working bones, disarticulations and bone scatter scenarios. Over the course of two days handlers will receive organized, objective-based training in a constructive learning environment.
Hands on training will include the canine’s reward system for maintaining teamwork and canine mindset, incorporating human bones into the canine’s target odor class of “human remains”, and learning strategies for complex overlapping odors. Throughout the weekend, handlers will be able to engage with the instructor about topics relevant to maintaining the integrity of the dog’s training such as problem setting, contamination, bias, cueing, thresholds, and training aid storage and handling. Attendees will receive a certificate of training for this class.
Participant level: This course can accommodate a range of training levels of handler and canine, but canines are expected to have begun training for human remains and ideally have a final response. Teams work specific drills and problems with appropriate expectations and objectives depending on where the team is in their training.
Equipment to bring: 4’ or 6’ leash, your dog’s regular training equipment, soft reward treats and your dog’s reward toy(s), camp chair, personal items (whatever you need to be comfortable including snacks and water), note taking ability – there is NO VIDEO or AUDIO recording except of one’s own dog working. The instructor will provide training aids for this class. Participants are welcome to bring their own aids; there is no guarantee they will be used.
Physical aspects: Detailed search work often requires physical exertion and flexibility including bending over and squatting. Rewarding a dog with play is often physical exercise for the handler.
Other: Cell phones may be on the handler but taking calls or conducting personal or business matters on one’s phone should be left for after the class. Handlers encourage one another and learn from their own and others’ mistakes. Training is where mistakes are made – and fixed! General
Course Outline:
Day 1 AM: drive building, reward systems (hands on), training objectives – what, how, why PM: introduce bones, solidify final response to bones as needed; teamwork with the dog, fun drills to develop skill sets for detail work, intro to overlapping scent pictures Evening: informal dinner with instructor for Q/A
Day 2: Calibrate dogs to bones, more on training and implementing objectives, work training sets at the appropriate level of the team implementing the skills learned in this class.
Instructor: Mary Cablk, Ph.D. Mary Cablk (pronounced “Cable”) is an auxiliary deputy with multiple Sheriff Offices in the State of Nevada and is the Washoe County Medical Examiner’s Disaster Victim Recovery Team’s K9 handler. She is a founding member of three Sheriff Offices’ specialized K9 Units in Nevada and has searched throughout the country on cold cases. She is the president of the first SAR dog unit recognized by the California Office of Emergency Services: Wilderness Finders Search Dog Teams (aka “WOOF”). She is a professional detection and search/rescue/recovery K9 trainer and has trained, certified, and deployed three of her own K9s since 2000 within the US and abroad. Mary has deployed to hundreds of searches for federal, state and local agencies in multiple disciplines. She is credited with assisting in the recovery of a drowning victim at the deepest depth recorded for a dog find – 1100’ depth in Lake Tahoe, Nevada. A large proportion of her searches involve locating bones and trace evidence. A member of the Nevada Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST) K9 Standards Committee, she participated in the development of standards for K9 disciplines in the state and adheres to those standards with her K9s. She is a Nevada POST K9 evaluator and a California POST certified evaluator and instructor. She conducts research on K9 detection and has published the results of her work in peer-reviewed scientific journals and elsewhere. She is an associate member of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences, and regularly addresses the Academy on K9 issues. She served on an advisory committee to the Academy’s standards board to revise current federal best practices for K9 detection. Mary lectures on K9 capabilities, uses, deployment aspects, and target detection in the United States, Europe, Asia, and Africa. The target disciplines she has been involved with include narcotics, explosives, human remains, water, live human odor (area, tracking, trailing, articles), scat and wildlife. She has addressed, by invitation in the US and abroad, government officials, military, law enforcement, non-governmental organizations, defense attorneys, prosecutors, and judges on topics and issues relevant to K9s and the law.
REGISTER BY EMAILING topdog@detectionsciencesolutions.com