Dogs' blog
Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue dog team consists of Cracker, a fire investigation dog and Echo, an Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) dog. From attending serious incidents, taking part in training courses and exercises and appearing at open days and events, you can get the lowdown on what they get up to by logging onto this page every few weeks. The updates are provided by their handler Crew Commander Mike Dewar.
Update: April 2009 - July 2009
The past few weeks has seen our dog team attend aproximately 20 incidents and a USAR exercise in Lincolnshire.
Cracker (our Fire Investigation dog) has been helping out on a police Crime Scene investigation course as well as attending these incidents in support of the fire investigation team and police crime scene investigation officers , she has detected accelerants on no less then 5 occasions in the last few weeks so assisted in determining how some fires have started.
Echo has been training along with our new pup Anna and they recently attended an exercise at RAF Waddington in Lincolnshire. This was a good opportunity for both dogs to get some training on a proper rubble pile , Echo did really well in locating the casualties he was searching for, unfortunately for Echo, Anna stole the show and was outstanding in her determination to locate her 'bodies'. She worked well on the rubble pile and showed all the qualities of a fully qualified dog during the search phase, myself and the team were very pleased with her and I need to start making the training more realistic now with more demanding searches to really test her.
When Anna is fully qualified I am hope that she will be eligible for international work and assist our ISAR (international search and rescue) team in operations overseas.
I've been on the moors above Bolton with the dogs in the last week just letting them have a run off the lead , this is not only fun for them but keeps them fit and assists in such things as agility training and allows them to have a swim which Labrador’s love to do!
Anyway I will keep you up to date with how our dogs are going on so watch this blog
Update: October 2008 - March 2009
It's been a few months since I last updated you on our dog team , it's been a very busy 6 months seeing both our qualified dogs deployed on incidents around the region and Anna our trainee dog undertake some intensive training with the regional USAR dog team.
Echo has seen operational use at two major collapses , the first one in the Wigan area of Greater Manchester involved an explosion in a block of maisonettes , Echo undertook a daring search of the first floor part of the building supported by a dog from lancs county fire service , this was a difficult search under very testing conditions , Echo did very well and its a testament to the training that the dogs receive that they work so hard to locate trapped persons , as a result of the k9 search it was determined that no persons were trapped , Echo got an extra dog treat that night.
the next incident was in Lancashire Fire Services area , it was an old mill complex in Lancaster , this again was a demanding search for the dog but he had the added problem of lots of dead pigeons lying around that added to the distractions for the dog , luckily I have trained Echo to ignore these types of distractions and he worked well around them, again this search proved negative and it was then up to the USAR teams to clear the rubble out of the building .
Cracker has attended about 75 incidents since my last update and has been involved in some unusual searches involving cars , houses and open areas , she has had some good finds and assisted the police and fire investigation officers to determine the cause of many fires , she has also been involved with local communities around the county spreading the fire safety message .
Anna our USAR trainee dog has been doing very well and is now on what we call “blind searches” this is where we set the dog off to search an area with the location of the “body” unknown to the dog and handler , she has a fantastic search drive and a good nose on her , she is very playful and loves to jump on Echos back and try to make him play with her ! I am hoping for big things from her and hopefully she will serve Greater Manchester Fire Service and the people of Manchester for many years to come.
29th September to 17th October 2008 – Get the lowdown on Anna the newest recruit to the USAR team…
I want to focus this week’s blog on Anna our new USAR trainee dog. She is seven months old now and has just started her initial training. I can train Cracker on her own but Anna needs another person to act as ‘body’ for her to find.
The process started with me teaching her to bark for a toy. I employed my 15 year old son Daniel to assist me as he was involved in the training of Echo and is a good dog handler himself so he knows just what to do to get the dog worked up to bark. The first stage is putting Anna on a lead and I hold her while Daniel stands in front of her calling her name and jumping up and down. As soon as she makes a sound however slight he gives her the ball instantly.
When that exercise has been mastered by Anna we will then move on to what we call runaways. Daniel will let Anna see him runaway and hide behind a wall or lay in the grass. I then let her off the lead and she runs to him and starts barking for her toy. To be honest Daniel has the most important job in the exercise as it’s him that has to judge just when to give Anna the ball and then make sure she has good play with him after.
This is the stage Anna is at now and I will not be moving on until this area has become second nature to her. It’s easy to push the dog too hard too early but it’s foolish to do that as it causes problems later on.
The other dogs in the team have been up to the usual round of training and incidents and I am still involved with training Tess the Collie from Bolton Mountain Rescue Team. She is coming along great and is learning fast.
I will keep you informed of Anna’s progress and what mischief she is getting up to with the other dogs.
Watch a video of Echo training (Windows Media/Audio File 5,290 KB)
Take a look at this video of Echo carrying out a search training exercise. Mike Dewar is Echo's handler and he is filming the training exercise and you can hear him shout the commands of 'find' behind the camera to Echo. Half way through the video Mike stops Echo by shouting 'down' and 'wait' and resumes the search by shouting 'free'.
Read our dog's blog achive...
What do you think of our blog? Email us your comments and suggestions