Owners of lost pets sometimes desperately wish we had some type of lost pet detection dogs in New Zealand but to my knowledge there aren’t any.

Possibly this is because in the past there were huge barriers to provide this service. There was lengthy training time in the USA, the high cost of flights for the person and their dog, plus long quarantine times. However, in recent years with the advent of the Go Pro and free audio/video calling on different platforms across the world, it’s now possible for dogs and their handlers to train right here in New Zealand, remotely.

The expert in this field is Kat Albrecht at Missing Animal Response (MAR) in the USA. Kat learnt her skills as a Police Officer working with dogs to track lost people. Her skills and these courses have been adapted over many years of practice using dogs find lost pets.

The MAR K9 course offers training and certification for the dog handler and dog. There are two types of Missing Animal Response training for dogs - cat detection and trailing dogs.

Kat says, “On average, it takes approximately 12 to 18 months to train a dog to track the scent trail of lost dogs. Although our instructors and many students are from North America, we currently have students in the U.K., Italy, Ireland, and Slovenia. Our courses are broken into a series of 10-week courses that are taught online and you can live anywhere and participate in this training. Each week, owners are given a “homework” assignment with instructions and they videotape (using a GoPro camera) their dog in training. After their videos are uploaded to a private Facebook page, our instructors evaluate those videos, write up an analysis, craft a homework assignment for that team, and then meet (in a group conference call) to discuss each dog’s progress and then issue a new homework assignment.”

All dogs that enter the program need to have no fear issues, no aggression issues (towards humans, other dogs, or cats), and must exhibit a high level of interest / excitement towards other dogs. The human handler needs to able to work with their dog and upset pet owners. So both the human and canine need the right mindset to do this work.

If the idea of training your dog for this type of service sounds interesting, you can find out more from Missing Animal Response at https://www.missinganimalresponse.com.