A walk up find is quite rare, but a search dog can provide useful information to help find your lost dog. They can help: Rule out the fact your dog could be trapped, injured, hiding, ill or even deceased in that immediate area. Provide a direction of travel and identify sites that the dog is revisiting. Reduce the size of the search area. Point out areas of interest. Scent pools can give us information that show us where a dog has been spending time. We can use this information to set up a wildlife camera, leave an article which has the owner’s scent and set up a food station. Check for the lost dog’s scent in the area of a possible sighting.

You can use a search dog in cases: When time is of the essence. If you have a young puppy, an elderly dog, an injured dog, a dog that is physically limited, a dog that is sick or needs frequent medication. When the dog is lost after an accident. When the dog is lost away from home, an example of this is when they escape at the vets. When the dog becomes lost while their owners are away. When the dog has recently been rescued. When the dog has run off in a rural area with the lead still attached so there is a possibility it could get caught up in undergrowth. When you have not received any sightings, but you know exactly where the dog escaped from.

You do not need a search dog when you have multiple sightings in the same area because you already know where the dog is located. Using a search dog could chase your dog further away and force them to move on to a different area. This often happens when too many members of the public try to help and take their own pet dogs out to search. They believe they are trying to help but they are only prolonging the search.

Our search dogs have been trained to discriminate an individual scent, so it is possible for them to search for other pets and even people. However, this is dependent on each specific situation and the circumstances surrounding the pet’s disappearance.

The search dog will be presented with a scent article, they are trained to search for that individual scent when instructed to track. You will be asked to provide an article before the dog can start work.

You will be asked to give us an article for the search dog to work with, this will be something that only has the scent of your missing dog. A collar, harness, blanket or part of a dog bed are all commonly used but it can be tricky to provide the individual scent in multi dog households. We will talk you through the process. The item will be placed in a zip-lock bag and used on the search to track the lost dog.

The truth is that no one really knows the answer to this question. There are many theories and false claims that dogs can successfully work a scent trail that is several months old, but the reality is very different. When environmental conditions are favourable, most well-trained trailing dogs could be expected to follow a scent trail which is several days old. The success rate of following older trails will be down to the capability of each individual dog, how they have been trained, and where they are being asked to work. The younger the trail, the more chance there is of success. We like to work our dogs within 24-48 hours, earlier if possible, depending on the case.

Generally, rain does not wash away scent and can in fact refresh it, this will help most search dogs work. Torrential rain and flooding can make it much more difficult to detect a trail.

Search Dogs Guernsey is a charity run by a team of volunteers, all our services are free and available to all members of the public.