Diving with Dogs

[selkie]

So yesterday I went out to our local lake to help train search and rescue water recovery dogs. The way this works at this time is two open circuit divers submerge in the lake in 25-30ft of water. The divers have a line which leads to shore. The dog and handler are in a boat looking for the divers. The dogs are supposed to be using smell to locate the divers but some of the dogs are cueing off of the diver’s bubbles. When the dog finds the divers the person on shore tugs on the rope. The divers surface with the dog’s toy to play with the dog as a reward for finding them.

The Oregon K9 Search Teams http://ok9st.org/ok9st/ is a non profit group that does this dog training. They bought me lunch and offered to pay for my air. I really think maybe they need to have some rebreather divers as a control to see if the training is effective. They have all of their volunteer divers for this year but will be resuming training in spring. Does anyone know of some Oregon or Washington rebrather divers who would be willing to spend the morning in a northern Oregon lake playing with dogs? If so have them respond to Nancy Walker at walkernan@proaxis.com and clearly point out that they use a rebreather that does not produce bubbles. I know they would really appreciate it and it is a great cause. Besides who doesn’t like to play with dogs?

[spatman]

billy snook over at Seven Seas recently did some ccr training. pdxdiver here on the forum is another, i think...