CARDA Report

This December, G.J. Stone and his black lab Voodoo, who are a WBR certified A team had the opportunity to attend Kicking Horse resort in Golden BC for a week long rescue dog training course with CARDA. Learning focused on the CARDA validation process that includes: A first on scene rapid rescue scenario, article searches, and obedience. Additional learning also included proper use of buried articles to train the dogs to indicate on human scent.
Evenings were spent discussing various aspects of avalanche rescue, including case studies of local accidents, incident command structure, and radio communication.
 
CARDA criteria for validation:
Site: 100 metre x100 metre. First the team is expected to cover the site in approximately 10 min. doing a beacon search and finding a backpack that has been buried shallow at 25 to 50cm deep. This is the initial rapid rescue search. Next the team is expected to work the site for 45 min. and find at least one of two articles that were buried 24 hours prior at 80cm deep.
 
Obedience criteria for validation:
The dog team must perform: 5 min down stay, down on recall, fetch with 30 sec hold, and finish at a heel.
It was a great learning experience and a lot of ideas were brought back to our dog program at The Canyons