Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you should know from house stuff Works
Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
Speaker 1: and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant and first time ever
Speaker 1: guest producer Andrews. It's very exciting. Yeah, I thought you
Speaker 1: were saying he was a ghost or something. We'll know.
Speaker 1: He's right beside you, right, But I mean he could
Speaker 1: be an illusion or one of those uh like the
Speaker 1: ghosts that I saw that didn't look like a ghost,
Speaker 1: that was just a solid form. Sure, hey k a ghost.
Speaker 1: Yeah we could use more ghost producers, we could, you know, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't have to time benefits. No, you do not
Speaker 1: have to do anything. Yep. He just pretty great. Press
Speaker 1: a button and die? Oh so um, Chuck. Yes, I
Speaker 1: don't know if you remember. Several months ago we released
Speaker 1: an episode and it was a good one if you
Speaker 1: ask me. It was about search and rescue. Okay, do
Speaker 1: you remember the episode right? And there was like you
Speaker 1: saw urban search and rescue, wilderness search and rescue, and
Speaker 1: in that episode I was like, man, we have to
Speaker 1: do an episode on search and rescue dogs. Well, by god,
Speaker 1: today is the day We're doing it. The only time
Speaker 1: we've ever followed up on a promise in our career.
Speaker 1: The prophecy has been fulfilled. It's right. So we're talking
Speaker 1: today about search and rescue dogs and this, first of all,
Speaker 1: this article is just genuine bona fide how stuff works,
Speaker 1: quality from the olden days. Just checks all those boxes,
Speaker 1: done in't it? Every box that's that's that's Mark one
Speaker 1: in the favor of this episode that it's based on
Speaker 1: that article. Mark two is that it's about dogs and
Speaker 1: how much how great dogs are. And I just had
Speaker 1: a really good time researching this one. Yeah, it's funny,
Speaker 1: like during reading this whole thing and all this research
Speaker 1: in my head, I just kept thinking, good boy, good girl.
Speaker 1: I just kept saying that over and over. Yeah, just
Speaker 1: petting them behind the ears in your mind. So, um,
Speaker 1: when we're talking about star dogs, we're talking about search
Speaker 1: and rescue dogs. Dogs that are trained to go find people.
Speaker 1: Right there, they do two things. There's two components to
Speaker 1: a search and rescue dogs job. It is to find
Speaker 1: people and then to let their handler know that they
Speaker 1: found the person. Right sure, because of a dog that
Speaker 1: just find someone doesn't let anyone know. They'll just be
Speaker 1: sitting around licking faces all day. Right, you're like, yes,
Speaker 1: you you found me, know, go get help, and the
Speaker 1: dogs like, I don't know, although I did like seeing
Speaker 1: what was that one dog called that's trained to uh
Speaker 1: to like stay there instead of going to to alert
Speaker 1: everyone else victim loyalty? Is that behavior? Yeah? And I
Speaker 1: think that's the case if there's if like someone is injured,
Speaker 1: they may need that dog to just stay there and
Speaker 1: start barking instead of saying, hey, I'm gonna run and
Speaker 1: find someone and let and let them know that you're
Speaker 1: not okay. Right. So, however they alert, as long as
Speaker 1: they alert, that's good. That's the second part of the job.
Speaker 1: As long as they don't wander off and like find
Speaker 1: a craps game to engage in without telling anybody that
Speaker 1: they found the person who's stranded in the wilderness, right,
Speaker 1: which would not happen with the star dog because they
Speaker 1: can focus like nobody's business right, right. So star dogs
Speaker 1: are professional working dogs, right, just as much as like
Speaker 1: a herding dog on a farm who actually does that
Speaker 1: work um or a canine unit dog or one of
Speaker 1: the Beagle Brigade we've talked about them before. It's a
Speaker 1: it's a working dog. But the the article that Julia
Speaker 1: Layton wrote points out and I think really just kind
Speaker 1: of changed my perspective on things and opened up my
Speaker 1: eyes that what the dog is really doing is playing. Yeah, right,
Speaker 1: so I mean the dog is not taking work seriously
Speaker 1: even though it appears to be. It's taking place seriously.
Speaker 1: And I just love that. Yeah, And and it really
Speaker 1: hit home to me too, like when it pointed out that, um,
Speaker 1: if you've ever had a dog that will like run
Speaker 1: till their paws are bloody to get that tennis ball
Speaker 1: or that coong, right, I guess I just name checked
Speaker 1: a brand they should throw some dough for that. It's
Speaker 1: a good brand. Uh loves the little those tiny ones
Speaker 1: are so cute. Um that that that would make a
Speaker 1: good star dog. And I have had two dogs in
Speaker 1: my life that would be great uh search and rescue dogs.
Speaker 1: My dog Buckley, who was no longer with us, and
Speaker 1: my current one of my two current dogs, Nico, And
Speaker 1: they both had a lot of Staffordshire Terrier on them,
Speaker 1: and they both from day one, if you threw something,
Speaker 1: ran and got it, brought it back, dropped it at
Speaker 1: your feet and looked at you as if if you
Speaker 1: don't throw that thing again, I might keel over and
Speaker 1: die right now. Staffords your terriers and that Spuds Mackenzie
Speaker 1: And now I can't remember what kind of terrier that is,
Speaker 1: but it was some kind of terrier, and I thought
Speaker 1: it was an English countryside village name terrier. Huh. I
Speaker 1: mean staffies are I think a lot of people throw
Speaker 1: a lot of dogs into the pit bull category that
Speaker 1: aren't pit bulls. That's kind of a a bone of
Speaker 1: contention with pit bull owners is like, you know, a
Speaker 1: dog attacks that has any a terrier in it and
Speaker 1: they say it was a pit bull. Um, So staffies
Speaker 1: are lumped in there. But I remember when we did
Speaker 1: one of my great memories of being in Edinburrow on
Speaker 1: our tour. I took a walk around Lovely, uh, the
Speaker 1: lovely town, and I ran into a lady who was
Speaker 1: walking one of hers And you know, when you're out
Speaker 1: of town and you're not with your dog, you just
Speaker 1: sort of like attack every dog you see. And so
Speaker 1: I got down. I was with this dog and I
Speaker 1: was like, I love this dog. Your you know, your
Speaker 1: dogs are sweet or something, and she went, just a
Speaker 1: wee staffy that's so Scottish. A wee staffy that was
Speaker 1: a uh that like that town is magnificent. It's magic,
Speaker 1: it really is. I can't wait to go back one day. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we need to do that. We need to get on
Speaker 1: another UK tour. I could not agree more. Dude. Heck, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: it's done. We're doing it in like two years or
Speaker 1: three years if it's anything like our Australia tour. So
Speaker 1: with the Star Dogs though, Um, we cannot emphasize anymore
Speaker 1: how much time is of the essence because whether it is,
Speaker 1: and we'll get into the various types of rescues, but
Speaker 1: they're all pretty time sensitive. Whether it's a missing child,
Speaker 1: god forbid, or a collapse building, God forbid, or an avalanche,
Speaker 1: God forbid. None of these situations are awesome and the
Speaker 1: clock is ticking, especially you know in in those cases
Speaker 1: where you know there's maybe short of oxygen or they're
Speaker 1: buried in snow, Like minutes count. Yeah, for sure. I
Speaker 1: saw on a site for an organization that offers stur
Speaker 1: dog training, um for your dog, Like if you think
Speaker 1: your dog's got it, they say, come, we'll find out
Speaker 1: if your dog's got it. They were saying, like, um,
Speaker 1: you have to be out there, like you have to
Speaker 1: treat this like you're an ambulance. Basically, when you get
Speaker 1: the call, you gotta be out the door. And it's interesting.
Speaker 1: You know, the dog doesn't have any job other than
Speaker 1: search and rescue, so the dogs ready to go any time,
Speaker 1: but you're their handler and they live with you, and
Speaker 1: you have to be out there with them. So you
Speaker 1: have to be able to leave your regular job at
Speaker 1: the drop of a hat. And and Star dog handlers
Speaker 1: are on call twenty four hours a day, seven days
Speaker 1: a week, three hundred and sixty five days a year,
Speaker 1: so much that um the dogs go on vacation with
Speaker 1: the handlers in case there's a call and you both
Speaker 1: have to go show up somewhere together. So you have
Speaker 1: to be very, very responsive. And it is like you're saying,
Speaker 1: because time is of the essence. Because this article gives
Speaker 1: the example of avalanche victims, Like if you're an avalanche
Speaker 1: victor them, if you're covered in an avalanche, you probably
Speaker 1: will not want to be thinking about these stats. But
Speaker 1: most avalanche victims who are found within I think, is
Speaker 1: it ten minutes or fifteen minutes? I think of the
Speaker 1: victims are alive at fifteen minutes. Okay, great, what about
Speaker 1: thirty five minutes. Uh So between fifteen and thirty five minutes,
Speaker 1: sixty percent of the of those folks will be gone. Right.
Speaker 1: And so you might say, well, okay, wait, wait, you
Speaker 1: guys are talking about an avalanche. How's the dog going
Speaker 1: to find you in an avalanche? Dogs can find you
Speaker 1: covered in snow, Dogs can find you underwater. Dogs can
Speaker 1: pick up your scent sometimes when you're five away, right.
Speaker 1: It's amazing. I was surprised to hear that because you
Speaker 1: always see in like those old timey chain gang movies, um,
Speaker 1: you know that are my favorite genre. Obviously, when when
Speaker 1: they're trying to elude the tracking dogs they cross a
Speaker 1: river something like that, it's off the scent. And that
Speaker 1: probably works for for tracking dogs, and we'll talk about
Speaker 1: the difference between these dogs. But for for a scent dog, um,
Speaker 1: they can they can be trained to find your scent underwater,
Speaker 1: especially if you just happen to be decomposing. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: especially if that dog is a bloodhound. Um. And in
Speaker 1: those old timey movies that you love, it seems like
Speaker 1: it's always a bloodhound or you know, a pack of
Speaker 1: bloodhounds and the and the dude you know who just
Speaker 1: escaped from prison. Is runs through the river, and usually
Speaker 1: in the movie they're they're like, you know, drat it all.
Speaker 1: They just threw us off the scent, right, somebody throws
Speaker 1: their hat to the ground. It's because of those kind
Speaker 1: of because of that whole thing, that whole um, that
Speaker 1: genre whatever, that in prison escape thing. I unfairly associate
Speaker 1: bloodhounds with scary backwoods like redneck police officials. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying, because they're always with them.
Speaker 1: But that that doesn't mean that the bloodhounds are scary.
Speaker 1: They're great, sure, good old hound dogs. Yeah, Elvis wrote
Speaker 1: a song about him. Yeah, but it wasn't favorable. Uh,
Speaker 1: that's true, you know, lying all the time. I wonder,
Speaker 1: but Elvis wasn't talking about dogs, no, but he was
Speaker 1: comparing somebody who he didn't have in a high opinion
Speaker 1: or high esteem to a hound dog. I wonder who
Speaker 1: that was about. And he probably had no idea that
Speaker 1: he was giving them quite a compliment, right he was.
Speaker 1: He was trying to do the opposite. It was like
Speaker 1: that Simpsons where somebody calls somebody else a chicken and
Speaker 1: it chicken, and the top head appears and goes, he's
Speaker 1: insulting the both of us. They Elvis should have said,
Speaker 1: you ain't nothing but a hound dog, which is actually
Speaker 1: the most talented scent dog of all time. That would
Speaker 1: have fit too. You ain't nothing but a hound dog.
Speaker 1: I hold you in deep admiration. And there goes the
Speaker 1: career of Elvis Presley. Uh So, smell wise, dogs have
Speaker 1: a sense of smell about forty times stronger than a human.
Speaker 1: And this is all dogs. It doesn't mean all dogs
Speaker 1: make good star dogs. But just because a little Momo
Speaker 1: is uh, you know, like a little curly, cute lap dog,
Speaker 1: doesn't mean that Momo may not be a good star
Speaker 1: dog for obvious reasons. But that doesn't mean Momo can't
Speaker 1: smell a dead body in the ocean. No, and she does.
Speaker 1: She just she goes and finds a game of craps
Speaker 1: instead of telling anybody. That's because that's how you've trained her. Sure, now,
Speaker 1: Momo would not be a very good star dog. She
Speaker 1: would be a little sketched out on the scene of
Speaker 1: a search and rescue mission. But she could she and
Speaker 1: she does. I'm sure pick up on the rafts are
Speaker 1: a T I'm sorry r A F T S which is, uh,
Speaker 1: it's gross. But these are the dead skin cells that
Speaker 1: are constantly flying off of our body that smell only
Speaker 1: like us, Yeah, like every individual. Apparently this is not proven,
Speaker 1: but they think they know that humans shed skin cells rafts,
Speaker 1: and that they do have a sense human specifically human scent,
Speaker 1: and that is specific to each person too, which is
Speaker 1: all totally believable. Yeah, which is why they You know,
Speaker 1: like in the movies, they give somebody an old sweatshirt
Speaker 1: that that person wore the day before, and that's how
Speaker 1: they know how to go look for that person. Right,
Speaker 1: They'll they'll do that, they'll mash it in the dog's
Speaker 1: face and then go find it and they find the whatever,
Speaker 1: the person that smells like that. So they think that's
Speaker 1: how dogs are able to find specific human sense or
Speaker 1: any human scent, is that the rafts, the skin cells
Speaker 1: that were shedding are being picked up. We leave them
Speaker 1: behind on the ground. They follow the ground. Um. If
Speaker 1: we run up against a bush or something, a bunch
Speaker 1: of them get scraped off, or they're just kind of
Speaker 1: floating in the air, and depending on the type of
Speaker 1: dog um, they're going to pick up those skin cell
Speaker 1: rafts and and it's probably about here that we should
Speaker 1: say that there are two types too general umbrella categories
Speaker 1: of UM search and rescue dogs. There's the tracking dog
Speaker 1: and there's the air sent dog. And they do the
Speaker 1: same thing, they find humans, but they do it in
Speaker 1: two very different ways, one super targeted and one super general.
Speaker 1: And depending on the situation that you're faced with, you're
Speaker 1: going to call it one dog or the other, or
Speaker 1: maybe both. If you're just a county that's just flushed
Speaker 1: with extra taxpay or cash that you don't know what
Speaker 1: to do with, sure dog, county. Uh Yeah, so a
Speaker 1: tracking dog. They also call those following dogs. Those are
Speaker 1: like when you think of a bloodhound with their nose
Speaker 1: down on a trail. Uh. They're the ones who who
Speaker 1: know and this is what these dogs need. They know
Speaker 1: the last scene point of this person. So like you know,
Speaker 1: if you went hiking in the woods and you parked
Speaker 1: your car at a trailhead, Uh, they know that that
Speaker 1: is your last if that is in fact your lasting point.
Speaker 1: That is the last sing point. Here is a sweater
Speaker 1: that they wore yesterday, and uh, go at it right,
Speaker 1: And we talked about the nuts and bolts of that
Speaker 1: kind of stuff on the Search and Rescue episode. So
Speaker 1: go listen to that because we talked about the last
Speaker 1: same point, and we talked about how searchers like fan
Speaker 1: out from there. Sure there's like a quick response team.
Speaker 1: The dogs are the ones that are brought out first
Speaker 1: because a scent, if it's a tracking dog and they're
Speaker 1: following the scent that was specifically laid down by that person,
Speaker 1: that tracking dog needs to be there very quickly, and
Speaker 1: they need to um, they need to be there before
Speaker 1: everybody else because once a bunch of searchers get into
Speaker 1: the area and start searching for the person, they don't
Speaker 1: know where the person's scent trail is, so they might
Speaker 1: be crossing all over it and ultimately ruin it for
Speaker 1: the dog who can't pick it up anymore. So that
Speaker 1: tracking dog is going to be among the first searchers
Speaker 1: on the scene. That's right. Uh. The air scent dogs,
Speaker 1: like you said that, these are a little more like
Speaker 1: when you don't know, like somebody's just lost in the
Speaker 1: forest or somebody is buried in the snow. They don't
Speaker 1: have that last scene starting point, uh, and they basically
Speaker 1: just say go out there and stick your nose in
Speaker 1: the air instead of on the ground and see if
Speaker 1: you can inhale some of those So some of those
Speaker 1: airborne rafts like fine seventies cocaine, right, the finest Quervo
Speaker 1: gold and the fine Columbian uh and those you know,
Speaker 1: that's basically basically their deal. Um. You know, if it's
Speaker 1: a little more general, um, you're you're probably some sort
Speaker 1: of a well, they're all kinds of dogs, but you're
Speaker 1: not small. You're medium sized or larger. You may be
Speaker 1: a German shepherd or like a lab believe believe it
Speaker 1: or not, it's probably not a Saint Bernard um, just
Speaker 1: because they're they're just a little too big these days. Yeah,
Speaker 1: cumbersome as how this article put it. Border collies are good. Uh,
Speaker 1: And of course the bloodhound because they're those big old
Speaker 1: ears and all those cute folds in their faces actually
Speaker 1: concentrate scent particles right into those uh, stinky, stinky, drippy nostrils. Yeah.
Speaker 1: It just kind of slaps the skin cells of humans
Speaker 1: right into the dog's nostrils. Amazing. So let's take a
Speaker 1: break and then we're gonna come back and talk about
Speaker 1: different specialties that a search and rescue dog can have. Okay, Wolf, Sorry, Okay, Chuck,
Speaker 1: so we're back. We're talking now, if you'll follow me
Speaker 1: in this line of thinking, Okay, about the different specialties
Speaker 1: search and rescue dogs can have. Yeah, this one is
Speaker 1: sort of the saddest specialty. But the cadaver dog UM
Speaker 1: very very important though, because, uh, you know, people need
Speaker 1: closure in their lives. And if you've lost a loved one,
Speaker 1: uh literally lost a loved one and you don't know
Speaker 1: where they are and they end up not surviving that ordeal,
Speaker 1: then you would still like to give them, um a
Speaker 1: burial of your choice or you know, however you want
Speaker 1: to do things in your family. But that that was
Speaker 1: a lot well I was saying a proper burial, but
Speaker 1: that means a lot of things to a lot of people.
Speaker 1: Sure it could be a sky burial, Sure it could
Speaker 1: be remember those Oh yeah, that was a great one.
Speaker 1: I don't remember what that was on, but that was
Speaker 1: a good one. Buzzards right, just picking at your body yep.
Speaker 1: Up in the Himalayas. Uh So they are they are
Speaker 1: specifically trained to search for human remains and those uh
Speaker 1: decomposition gases uh and those skin rafts. Still. But that
Speaker 1: that is pretty amazing because these dogs can find. It, says,
Speaker 1: a single human tooth or a single drop of blood
Speaker 1: they can detect, right right, because you know, first of all,
Speaker 1: they're they're truly um able to detect that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: But then the training they receive really kind of narrows
Speaker 1: and and focuses that that natural ability they have. But
Speaker 1: when when I was looking up cadaver dogs, as of
Speaker 1: course they did, I was like, how would you train
Speaker 1: a cadaver dog? What are you? Where are you getting
Speaker 1: the dead bodies? Weren't. Apparently if you are training cadaver dogs,
Speaker 1: you can't apply to get like decomposing human tissue. You
Speaker 1: have to you have to like get a license for it,
Speaker 1: I believe, or a license to have it um. But
Speaker 1: apparently it's hard to come by. So trainers will like
Speaker 1: use their own blood to train dogs to fine blood.
Speaker 1: There's also a company UM that makes a scent of
Speaker 1: an artificial training scent called Sigma Pseudo Corpse Scent, and
Speaker 1: it comes in three flavors recently deceased, decomposing, and drowned.
Speaker 1: And you can train a dog on the UM on
Speaker 1: this sent It's close enough approximation that they will learn
Speaker 1: to follow the set and find decomposing human remains. So
Speaker 1: two people by those creeps creeps and uh star trainers,
Speaker 1: right and like, but just two people by the bottles.
Speaker 1: They're like a million dollars each Yeah, and they go
Speaker 1: out on a tender date and they're like just a
Speaker 1: little dab of drowned body behind each year. I'm all set, Yeah, alright.
Speaker 1: Water dogs are the next, and those uh search for
Speaker 1: drowning victims. Obviously, Uh, they are generally in a boat
Speaker 1: at some point, and we'll talk about their training, but
Speaker 1: one of the one of the big parts of training
Speaker 1: is to make sure that these are dogs can ride
Speaker 1: in helicopters and ride in boats, and ride on a
Speaker 1: snowmobile or whatever you know. And a t V one
Speaker 1: are those things called, yeah, a t V four wheelers?
Speaker 1: Remember they had three wheelers when we were kids. Man,
Speaker 1: those are so dangerous. Everyone's like, man, they sing, surety
Speaker 1: tip over a lot, right, Maybe we should add a
Speaker 1: fourth wheel. Yeah, there you go, and then now it's
Speaker 1: stable and it's a man. Those were so dangerous that
Speaker 1: I remember when they came out and it was like
Speaker 1: twelve year olds dying all over the place with those things.
Speaker 1: I never read one of those. I didn't either. My
Speaker 1: mom would would not have let me near one of those.
Speaker 1: I was a go carter. Oh lucky I had. I
Speaker 1: didn't have one. You know, we never had any of
Speaker 1: that stuff because my parents are teachers, so they were like,
Speaker 1: draw a picture of one. Um. But my my really
Speaker 1: good friend growing up lived out in the in the
Speaker 1: woods in the country, and he had two sort of
Speaker 1: homemade go carts. Um, not sort of homemade. They were
Speaker 1: totally homemade. Uh. They weren't like the you know, the
Speaker 1: super sweet things you could buy. But they had the
Speaker 1: land where their dad built like a dirt track and
Speaker 1: it was the most fun thing I ever did as
Speaker 1: a child. That's awesome. It was awesome. Yeah. It was
Speaker 1: always the friend out in the country that had the
Speaker 1: go carts. Sure, yeah, not a city folk, right. So
Speaker 1: I mean, if you have a really specialized um sar dog,
Speaker 1: maybe it is used to hiding in a go cart too,
Speaker 1: but it's gonna definitely be trained to ride in on
Speaker 1: just about anything that it will be called in for.
Speaker 1: And in addition, Chuck, this is amazing to me. They
Speaker 1: are totally fine with being lowered down the face of
Speaker 1: a cliff in a harness on a rope stuff like that.
Speaker 1: Like they're trained to um as. We'll see their training
Speaker 1: to basically keep it together in some very weird situations
Speaker 1: for dogs. Yeah, and again with my dog, Nico the
Speaker 1: staffy uh have you know, two dogs, and they've both
Speaker 1: been on boats. And Charlie the uh the shelty mix
Speaker 1: kind of just hides under seats, whereas Nico is we
Speaker 1: call her the hood ornament. She just sits as tall
Speaker 1: as possible front and center, and her nose is just
Speaker 1: I mean, I can't imagine the amount of sense that
Speaker 1: she's inhaling right, it's really impressive. Yeah, we took Momo
Speaker 1: and a kayak to see what she would do, and
Speaker 1: she loved it. She did not hide at all. She
Speaker 1: was alert, bark at fish, and I think she could find.
Speaker 1: She was like, yes, this is pretty great. That's pretty
Speaker 1: fun stuff. So there was also, like we said, there's
Speaker 1: avalanche um search and rescue dogs, there's also urban disaster
Speaker 1: searching and rescue dogs, and we'll talk about them more
Speaker 1: in depth than a little while, but suffice to say
Speaker 1: that that is the UM, the pinnacle of search and
Speaker 1: rescue dogs. That's the toughest one. There are something like
Speaker 1: from what I saw. There's maybe a hundred search and
Speaker 1: rescue dogs in the United States that are officially qualified
Speaker 1: to search in a disaster scenario in an urban area. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I know we're going to talk about it in
Speaker 1: a minute, but there was one part of that section
Speaker 1: that just got me, like, these dogs operate on reward
Speaker 1: for doing what they're doing, and uh in urban disasters,
Speaker 1: like apparently a dog can get down if on themselves
Speaker 1: if they just keep finding dead people. And so at
Speaker 1: Own zero, they were firefighters and rescuers that would pretend
Speaker 1: to be uh, people trapped just so that these dogs
Speaker 1: that have been working long days could feel like they
Speaker 1: had done something to help. Right. Can you believe that, dude?
Speaker 1: I totally can. That's just such like a firefighter thing
Speaker 1: to do. Oh my god, I love that too. All Right,
Speaker 1: So there's wilderness dogs self explanatory, and then something called
Speaker 1: evidence article dogs. Yeah, they can find like pieces of
Speaker 1: clothing or or evidence in a crime. Yeah, got you,
Speaker 1: So go find the bloody hammer, right right exactly? Wow,
Speaker 1: that that turned dark all exec. So let's say that
Speaker 1: you want to start training your dog. Um, there there's
Speaker 1: it's actually training of search and rescue dog follows pretty
Speaker 1: established training principles and first of all, it's all positive reinforcement.
Speaker 1: We eventually need to do an episode on UM negative
Speaker 1: reinforcement or dog obedience because it's just so fully discredited,
Speaker 1: but most people think that most people don't realize it.
Speaker 1: But you do not need to punish your dog for
Speaker 1: not doing something right. You just praise and reward your
Speaker 1: dog for doing something for when they do do something right.
Speaker 1: That's how you train a dog and that's the basis
Speaker 1: of search and rescue training is it's all positive reinforcement
Speaker 1: and reward UM. And the whole thing starts out with
Speaker 1: just basic obedience. And it's at this point that Momo
Speaker 1: would wash out of search and rescue trail, just right
Speaker 1: out of the gate. Momo is her own person, and
Speaker 1: we treat her as such, like she's our child, so
Speaker 1: we don't treat her like a dog. So she has
Speaker 1: come to not see herself as a dog. UM. She's
Speaker 1: very good dog, very sweet and loyal and takes good
Speaker 1: care of us. But she Um, she would just get
Speaker 1: distracted and again a little freaked out and sketched out
Speaker 1: when the when the distractions came around. Yeah, Nicos stairs
Speaker 1: at UM you know, we're living in a in a
Speaker 1: rental house right now because we're doing work on our house.
Speaker 1: So it's a very weird time for our whole family
Speaker 1: to all of a sudden be uprooted in living in
Speaker 1: a strange house out in the woods. But Nico just
Speaker 1: sits and stairs in the window which overlooks a big
Speaker 1: wooded lot, just movement, squirrels, birds or whatever. And the
Speaker 1: second you open that door, she's so fast. She's like
Speaker 1: a greyhound bolting for anything. And luckily she hasn't caught
Speaker 1: anything yet. But um, I'm telling you, man, she'd be
Speaker 1: a great star dog. Youlling reason I would not do
Speaker 1: this because I want her around, not on location, helping people.
Speaker 1: So I guess yeah, if I'm selfish, if it were
Speaker 1: squirrel search and rescue, I think Mama would be excellent,
Speaker 1: excellent at it. I agree, s S A R. Yeah,
Speaker 1: maybe there is a call for that. We just don't
Speaker 1: realize it because we don't speak squirrel. So yes, basic
Speaker 1: obedience is level one, uh, just regular commands. Temperament is
Speaker 1: super important. They have to be good with um strangers,
Speaker 1: um other dogs. Obviously a lot of times there are
Speaker 1: a bunch of dogs on the scene and they can't
Speaker 1: be like I'm gonna go fight that dog or play
Speaker 1: with that dog. Uh. They have to be good on walks,
Speaker 1: on loose leashes, but be good with crowds, all of
Speaker 1: that stuff, I imagine really roots out and training a
Speaker 1: bunch of dogs right off the bat. Yes, for sure.
Speaker 1: Um so that's just basic obedience and you have to
Speaker 1: you have to just knock that off the list out
Speaker 1: of the gate. Sure, right, then you move on to
Speaker 1: the you you move from you know, good well behaved
Speaker 1: obedient dog too. Now we're starting to get into the
Speaker 1: training a little bit, and you want to teach your dog,
Speaker 1: um something really important that apparently comes up in search
Speaker 1: and rescue that you are not the end all be
Speaker 1: all in the world to this dog. This dog has
Speaker 1: to be able to um to to take instruction from
Speaker 1: people other than you, and to also show a tremendous
Speaker 1: amount of concentration, self possession, non distraction. And the way
Speaker 1: that they test this usually when they're training search and
Speaker 1: rescue dogs is they will um take a dog over
Speaker 1: to a crowd of other dogs, and there will be
Speaker 1: other people milling about and all that, and um, you,
Speaker 1: the handler will will ask the dog to to lay
Speaker 1: down or stay or sit and the dog and then
Speaker 1: you leave, You go away at least out of sight.
Speaker 1: I think this article says thirty feet away, and so
Speaker 1: the dog can't see you anymore. And then over the
Speaker 1: course of ten twenty minutes, other handlers come in and
Speaker 1: take over responsibility of tending to this herd of dogs
Speaker 1: that are all sitting around. And if your dog will
Speaker 1: listen to your command that you gave one time to
Speaker 1: stay here or sit or lay down whatever, the whole
Speaker 1: time you're gone until you come back and tell them
Speaker 1: that they can get up or whatever, then it's apparently
Speaker 1: the test for canine professionalism pretty amazing, and I'm sure
Speaker 1: there's probably a lot of different tests. There's no standardization
Speaker 1: for search and rescue dog training except for the Female
Speaker 1: Certification for Urban Search and Rescue Dogs. Um so I'm
Speaker 1: sure there's different tests all over the place. But that's
Speaker 1: a pretty good glimpse of what you need to expect
Speaker 1: from your dog to to surpass the the second level,
Speaker 1: the second echelot, and move on to the third one.
Speaker 1: The second the second one is tough. I think the
Speaker 1: third one is genuinely tough, not not necessarily for you
Speaker 1: training the dog. I think the third one is the
Speaker 1: tough one on the dog. Yeah, this is just raw
Speaker 1: physical and mental ability and agility. So I mean they're
Speaker 1: going through like an obstacle course. Basically, you can go
Speaker 1: through tunnels. You can climb uh and incline of more
Speaker 1: than uh I think a minimum of forty five degrees
Speaker 1: on each side, like up and down. You can get
Speaker 1: into a a cherry picker like we talked about and
Speaker 1: go up really high without jumping out, or be in
Speaker 1: that boat or be in that snowmobile or a helicopter
Speaker 1: and not get freaked out like you have to. You know,
Speaker 1: they don't crank up the helicopter usually, like once you
Speaker 1: get in that thing and we've all seen mash you
Speaker 1: gotta run up to a helicopter whose blades are spinning,
Speaker 1: a lot of people don't want to do that. No, no, so,
Speaker 1: but your dog needs to be able to like, come on,
Speaker 1: let's go, I'll all the man, all man the machine gun. Yeah,
Speaker 1: or hey, get in this harness. I'm gonna attach you
Speaker 1: to my chest and we're gonna repel down this mountain
Speaker 1: and you just got to be a good boy. They do.
Speaker 1: I mean once they reach a certain level of training
Speaker 1: they do and then the final is is tracking. Obviously, um, well,
Speaker 1: I mean this is this is after they passed those
Speaker 1: three levels. But um tracking is urban tracking is level one,
Speaker 1: like you talked about that is that's the hardest thing
Speaker 1: to do in this test is just off the charts.
Speaker 1: To me. What they have a person do is they
Speaker 1: will be the target, like the you know, the whatever
Speaker 1: they're looking for. So they will do a half mile
Speaker 1: to one mile track from one point to another in
Speaker 1: high traffic area of a city, Like they'll go to
Speaker 1: like downtown New York and walk a half mile to
Speaker 1: a mile. This dog is sitting there the whole time,
Speaker 1: you know, with someone else. Uh, they have to cross
Speaker 1: at least two intersections, make at least three right angle turns,
Speaker 1: go down two blocks of alleyways, leaving you know, a
Speaker 1: scent article along the way, like they're at least leaving
Speaker 1: little nuggets shutting off skin cells, I guess, or maybe
Speaker 1: dropping the comb in your back pocket. Uh. Then once
Speaker 1: you have laid down that track, another person crosses that
Speaker 1: track in at least one place, so they're adding scent
Speaker 1: basically trying to throw this dog off. And then thirty
Speaker 1: minutes later, after all of this, and after the target
Speaker 1: is at the very end, they finally say, all right,
Speaker 1: dog go and the dog has to find this target
Speaker 1: and no more time than it took for the person
Speaker 1: to lay down that track. Right and like you said,
Speaker 1: waiting thirty minutes before they start after the person is finished,
Speaker 1: that's impressive. That is super impressive. And there's distractions the
Speaker 1: whole way to righte Like from from what I gathered,
Speaker 1: this is actually done in like an actual city, Like
Speaker 1: they don't have like a fake city built somewhere in
Speaker 1: Colorado or something like that. Like this is a like
Speaker 1: you your real town, this is happening in. So the
Speaker 1: more distractions the better, yea. And they hire people who
Speaker 1: are wearing like um, drecar no wir and just to
Speaker 1: wander around everywhere to confuse the scent and everything. It's
Speaker 1: it's a it's a crazy jam for the dog's gross.
Speaker 1: So let's um, actually, man, when's the last time you
Speaker 1: smelled dre car no are? Oh? I don't know. I
Speaker 1: have smelled it within the last year, and I gotta
Speaker 1: tell you it holds up, maybe even more than it
Speaker 1: I realized before. You know, how I feel about cologne. Um,
Speaker 1: So I say we take our second break and then
Speaker 1: come back and talk about what we've talked about. At
Speaker 1: this point, it's just like basic training. Now we've got
Speaker 1: to get into specialty training. Okay, yeah, we'll be right back. Okay,
Speaker 1: So Chuck, your dog has been through Star training or
Speaker 1: basic basic training for Star, but they haven't actually been
Speaker 1: taught the star part yet. It's just they've just shown like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I got it, I got what it takes. Let's you know,
Speaker 1: put me in there, show me what to do. And
Speaker 1: the way that you you train a dog to um
Speaker 1: sir and and rescue by by alerting is just basically
Speaker 1: taking their natural inclinations and again like focusing them and
Speaker 1: amplifying them. And you do that through reward. And the
Speaker 1: way that you train a dog through reward I'm having
Speaker 1: trouble saying that for some reason, is that you identify
Speaker 1: what that dog wants more in the world than anything else,
Speaker 1: whether it's a tennis ball, whether it's a nossages, whatever
Speaker 1: it is. You figure out what that dog wants, the
Speaker 1: thing that they will do anything to get, uh, and
Speaker 1: that's what you use as their reward, and then you
Speaker 1: can start the star search and rescue training. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: the reward is important to to be consistent with that,
Speaker 1: with that reward because you can't even uh and they
Speaker 1: pointed out even in horrible situations like nine eleven or
Speaker 1: if they find like your family member, you know, their
Speaker 1: body out on the woods, you need to discreetly take
Speaker 1: this dog off to the side and give them the reward.
Speaker 1: And even if that means, you know, toss a frisbee, like,
Speaker 1: if that's what it is, then that's what you gotta do.
Speaker 1: Would should be a really just odd thing to see
Speaker 1: somebody playing frisbee with their dog, with the crying family
Speaker 1: and a dead body in the woods with bloody hammers
Speaker 1: sticking out of their forehead. Discreetly is the key word there.
Speaker 1: I don't think you're like leaping over the body or
Speaker 1: anything like. You just find a nearby area and then
Speaker 1: go kind of discreetly carry out your reward, let's just hope.
Speaker 1: So uh yeah. So it takes um about six hundred
Speaker 1: and this is generalization, of course, but about six hundred
Speaker 1: hours of training, which is a lot of hours for
Speaker 1: a dog to be field ready. That's for the dog, yeah, Yeah,
Speaker 1: the humans have to go through what like a thousand hours,
Speaker 1: that's what That's what this article says. Yeah, so that's
Speaker 1: six hours of training between humans and dogs, which is
Speaker 1: hilarious because it means that humans require more training than
Speaker 1: the dogs to to do the job. And then and like,
Speaker 1: I don't know, are humans rewarded? Are they like, here's
Speaker 1: your martini, Chuck, You're like I would crawl through an
Speaker 1: avalanche to get to a martini. That's my reward. So, um,
Speaker 1: you the the whole way you start this again, you're
Speaker 1: using their favorite thing in the world as a reward,
Speaker 1: and you teach them that they can go find their
Speaker 1: rewards somewhere. They normally want to find things, so if
Speaker 1: you show them, okay, come find me is a good
Speaker 1: way to start. And usually this takes two people. And
Speaker 1: this article uses avalanche training as an example, but it
Speaker 1: kind of generally applies to anything. Whatever your whatever specialty
Speaker 1: you're training you're star dog to engage in. That's what
Speaker 1: that's kind of what you would teach them. So if
Speaker 1: you're if you're training them under avalanche um guidelines, you
Speaker 1: would go dig a hole in some snow and in
Speaker 1: perfect perfect line of sight with the dog, you would
Speaker 1: go no, no, no, no, and like go run and
Speaker 1: jump into the hole in the snow, and you would
Speaker 1: have your assistant holding the dog back. And then after
Speaker 1: just a second after you make it into the hole,
Speaker 1: they let the dog go. The dog runs after you,
Speaker 1: and when the dog comes to get you, you just
Speaker 1: praise it and love on it and give it its
Speaker 1: ball or its snausages or whatever it is. And the
Speaker 1: dogs like, okay, if I go find human, I will
Speaker 1: get played with, I will get a reward whatever it
Speaker 1: is that's really important to me. And now the the kernel,
Speaker 1: the seed of search and rescue training has just been
Speaker 1: planted in the dog. And dogs are smart, so it
Speaker 1: doesn't take much more to kind of fluff it up
Speaker 1: into bona fide full search and rescue professionalism. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: kind of funny because dogs are super smart but also
Speaker 1: very dumb in that, like it's just a simple reward
Speaker 1: situation like find person, get treat. Yeah, and that doesn't
Speaker 1: mean dumb, but it's simplistic. I guess okay, good, I'm
Speaker 1: glad you said say. It sounds more like dogs have
Speaker 1: it figured out rather than being dumb. I've had some
Speaker 1: dumb dogs. Well, sure, there's things dumb dogs the best.
Speaker 1: There's dumb people too, so dumb shrews, dumb camels, dumb plants,
Speaker 1: interesting point, dumb everything. Uh So, in the case of
Speaker 1: the avalanche, you jump in the hole and that's great.
Speaker 1: First first part accomplished. But then they'll do it again.
Speaker 1: But the person handling the dog holds onto them for
Speaker 1: say five or ten seconds, then makes them go. Then
Speaker 1: they just increase that time up until the point where
Speaker 1: it's like five or ten minutes and the person has
Speaker 1: buried themselves in the snow. And then the dog like
Speaker 1: that's the true test, Like it's been ten minutes. I
Speaker 1: saw the person go and disappear, and now and imagine
Speaker 1: this isn't very fun for the person to bury themselves
Speaker 1: in snow completely, but it's got to be done. And
Speaker 1: then the dog finds a person and they get that
Speaker 1: snausage or that frisbee play yep. And so each time
Speaker 1: they're associating this new thing um, the increasingly complex game
Speaker 1: of find the human um with their reward. So they're
Speaker 1: learning this this new stuff. Holding the dog back increases
Speaker 1: the amount of attention span and memory that's required to
Speaker 1: to remember this game, and so over time the dog
Speaker 1: learns if I go dig under snow, I can find
Speaker 1: a person that I smell there and they'll probably play
Speaker 1: with me. Um. Again, depends on how soon the dog
Speaker 1: was led off on the scent of the person covered
Speaker 1: by the avalanche. But that's what that's the game that
Speaker 1: they learned. Yeah, and and they talk a lot about
Speaker 1: focus and concentration. But these dogs, I mean, it is
Speaker 1: amazing because in a in a lot of these searches,
Speaker 1: unless you like you're the first one on the scene,
Speaker 1: there are people everywhere. There are sirens, there are bullhorns,
Speaker 1: there's equipment making loud noises, there are any distraction you
Speaker 1: could think of that would freak a dog out is
Speaker 1: on the scene all at once. And they say that
Speaker 1: star dogs can get so good that they can not
Speaker 1: only ignore all this, but they could they could walk
Speaker 1: by a cheeseburger on a trail and just keep following
Speaker 1: that scent. Yeah, which is where my dogs would fail.
Speaker 1: You want to identify the star dog at a disaster area,
Speaker 1: find the dog that's just casually filing its nails. That's
Speaker 1: the star dog every time. Yeah, there's no way my
Speaker 1: dogs would ignore that. The food thing that would I'm
Speaker 1: always got this thing where her eyes get real big
Speaker 1: and kind of bug out of her head and she
Speaker 1: like uses a paw to kind of like gently like
Speaker 1: tap you, like, hey, I'm right here. You want to
Speaker 1: share some of that. So, UM, there's a couple other
Speaker 1: things we should mention about this. This training, the avalanche
Speaker 1: training we just mentioned, you can you can do that
Speaker 1: with anything you can do with underwater training. Apparently it
Speaker 1: involves the handler in the bow with the dog, but
Speaker 1: also a scuba diver hiding underwater. That's the best way
Speaker 1: to train dogs on water. Um, you can do it
Speaker 1: with um simulated disaster like collapse buildings, that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: So you can take this this idea that you're training
Speaker 1: the dog that if they go look for a person,
Speaker 1: the person might give them their snausage or their ball,
Speaker 1: and that's what they're doing. So even when they're out
Speaker 1: there searching for dead bodies in the woods, to the dog,
Speaker 1: they're just playing a game. There's a bunch of people around,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of sirens and like crying humans, and um,
Speaker 1: we're like shovels and back house and all that stuff.
Speaker 1: But the dogs just in the midst of all this,
Speaker 1: the dog is playing a game of go find it,
Speaker 1: which is why that reward is so key even in
Speaker 1: the face of tragedy. Yeah. So, um, that that's the
Speaker 1: dog training. We have to talk about training you because
Speaker 1: in in Soviet Russia, sorry, training trains you. Uh yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean you know most of these star handlers. Uh well,
Speaker 1: we'll seek out this dog probably from the get go
Speaker 1: um at a shelter and kind of start from from
Speaker 1: day one as like this is my next star dog. Um.
Speaker 1: Like we said earlier, they spent about a thousand hours
Speaker 1: of training as a human. Um, this is training the dog.
Speaker 1: This is also like you've got to be good in
Speaker 1: the woods. You've got to know weather patterns. You've got
Speaker 1: to know how to communicate on these radio comms and
Speaker 1: know how to work a compass. And most of these
Speaker 1: people are a lot of more e m S certified.
Speaker 1: But the very least you're brushed up very well in
Speaker 1: your CPR. Because if you're a couple of miles away
Speaker 1: and you're the person that comes upon the scene, you've
Speaker 1: got to administer some some aid right there. One might
Speaker 1: call it first aid. Yeah, you would. You gotta look
Speaker 1: good in cargo pants, yeah, for sure. Uh, you gotta
Speaker 1: have a nice pair of hiking boots. You gotta be
Speaker 1: able to wear a boot. This article UM quotes a
Speaker 1: search and rescue handler UM who who says, the chief
Speaker 1: thing that you have to be able to do is
Speaker 1: to know where you are at any given point during
Speaker 1: the search. UM. You have to precisely identify your coordinates,
Speaker 1: which means you have to know that GPS, the compass,
Speaker 1: the map, all that stuff you said, But you also
Speaker 1: have to know it while you're following your dog with
Speaker 1: a flashlight at night, because apparently at night is the
Speaker 1: best time for a dog to search. So you have
Speaker 1: to be really, really good at at identifying your coordinates.
Speaker 1: And the reason why is because dogs will often UM
Speaker 1: give a sign, they'll alert that they found something even
Speaker 1: though there doesn't seem to be anything there. But if
Speaker 1: your dog does that, you want to note down the
Speaker 1: coordinates and you keep searching. And if some other star
Speaker 1: dogs come along and they note the same area and
Speaker 1: everybody compares notes afterwards, there you're going to go back
Speaker 1: to that same area. But that that you need to
Speaker 1: know exactly where the area is so you know that
Speaker 1: there's something there and how to get back to it.
Speaker 1: So you really need to know what you're doing with
Speaker 1: with um self coordination is what I'll call it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I would fail even if Nika was great. My my
Speaker 1: legendary sense of that poor sense of direction would disqualify me. Yes,
Speaker 1: so that's why I don't do this. Didn't you get
Speaker 1: trapped in a cave one? Uh? No, I didn't get trapped.
Speaker 1: You just didn't feel like leaving. What are you talking about.
Speaker 1: I went caving, and I went in and I went out. Okay,
Speaker 1: there was no problems. I thought there was a problem. No,
Speaker 1: I mean the problems were. It was kind of scary, right,
Speaker 1: but I was I was with experienced speed lunkers who
Speaker 1: got me all through it. Sure, but yeah, that was
Speaker 1: that one pancake part that you've freaked out when I
Speaker 1: even told you about it. Yeah, I don't want to
Speaker 1: talk about it. So. Uh, if you are a star
Speaker 1: team or you have a star dog, um, you are,
Speaker 1: like you said, on call at all times, even if
Speaker 1: you're on vacation. That's why you travel with your dogs
Speaker 1: a lot. Um You're always ready and I imagine it
Speaker 1: could ruin a vacation. But if you're sitting around, you know,
Speaker 1: pushing papers in an office, you you probably look forward
Speaker 1: to that call to get out in the in the
Speaker 1: woods and do what you were trained to do with
Speaker 1: your with your best pal. Yeah, exactly. So you get
Speaker 1: the call out, Uh, you load up all your gear,
Speaker 1: you you head out there. Um. It depends on what's
Speaker 1: going on. You might be hopping on a helicopter or
Speaker 1: a boat again, depending what's going on there. Um. And
Speaker 1: this is where the obedience and all those distractions come
Speaker 1: into play, and you're you're you know, it's up to
Speaker 1: you as the handler to be the alpha. Even though
Speaker 1: your dog needs to be good awfu leash and on
Speaker 1: loose leash, it's still you're still in charge. And that's
Speaker 1: that's a big part of it. So I think we
Speaker 1: said that search and um urban search and rescue is
Speaker 1: the hardest um kind of search and rescue for a
Speaker 1: dog to do, not just because um it's it's difficult,
Speaker 1: but because it can be it can really get a
Speaker 1: dog down to find nothing but dead bodies. It's also
Speaker 1: extremely hazardous. You know that dogs poking around a collapsed building,
Speaker 1: that's a precarious place to be looking for survivors. UM.
Speaker 1: So if you're an urban search and rescue dog from
Speaker 1: what I saw. You don't want a dog that's over
Speaker 1: three years old entering this or that's just too old,
Speaker 1: So you want a younger dog. You want to start
Speaker 1: training them early on. But if you're an urban search
Speaker 1: and rescue dog urban disaster search and rescue, UM, you're
Speaker 1: probably not going to have an extremely long career in that.
Speaker 1: It's just too exhausting and it's too demanding. So you
Speaker 1: may as your as you kind of move towards retirement, UM,
Speaker 1: get moved to different types of search and rescue that
Speaker 1: are a little less demanding. And apparently the last step
Speaker 1: before retirement is wilderness search and rescue because to a dog,
Speaker 1: it's just a great day out in the woods. That's
Speaker 1: it's as good as it comes. Yeah. So after after
Speaker 1: four or five years on the scene of collapsed buildings,
Speaker 1: you get to run around the national forest and uh
Speaker 1: and look for folks yep. And then after you finally
Speaker 1: are retired, you get to lay around all day and
Speaker 1: chase those squirrels you've been wanting to chase that whole time. Yes,
Speaker 1: and unsurprisingly, UM, I would say most all of the
Speaker 1: time you were probably sticking with the the trainer as
Speaker 1: their good boy or girl. But if that is not
Speaker 1: possible for some reason, there are plenty of people that
Speaker 1: will line up to adopt this sur dog. Oh yes,
Speaker 1: because they are just as as um well trained as
Speaker 1: they come. That's right. Uh, you got anything else now? Man?
Speaker 1: I love these dog cats. So dogs. Yeah, I'd love
Speaker 1: to do something about just breeds and the original dogs
Speaker 1: and how they evolved and all that good stuff. Okay,
Speaker 1: have we not done how dogs works? I'm sure we have, yeah,
Speaker 1: but I don't know if we got into all the Uh.
Speaker 1: You know, there's that movie out about the original dog,
Speaker 1: the original domesticated dog. Um it's called Alpha, and I
Speaker 1: think it's not true, but I think it may be
Speaker 1: based on what people believe might have happened, like one
Speaker 1: human bonded with one wolf and that kind of started
Speaker 1: the whole thing. Are you talking about dances with wolves? Yeah?
Speaker 1: That's it. Oh no, no, no, that it was water World.
Speaker 1: That's funny you bring that up. I was thinking about
Speaker 1: that movie the other day and just how perfect the
Speaker 1: casting of Dennis Hopper was, because whoever casted him was like,
Speaker 1: this movie's off the rails before we even started shooting. Yeah,
Speaker 1: let's get Dennis Opper and Gary Busey in here? What's
Speaker 1: Gary Busey in it too? And I don't want to
Speaker 1: make fun of Gary Busey. He said you shouldn't real troubles. Well,
Speaker 1: way to end this on a downer, will just stop
Speaker 1: right here. If you want to know more about star Dogs,
Speaker 1: just start looking it up. There's all sorts of training
Speaker 1: resources and everything you could hope to find on the internet. Um.
Speaker 1: And since I said at it's time for a listener mail, Uh,
Speaker 1: this is about Pando. Yes, um, And I have to
Speaker 1: say that since we did that episode, I've often listened
Speaker 1: to brown noise here at work while I'm trying to
Speaker 1: concentrate on my my earbuds. But I have since switched
Speaker 1: to Aspen Forest, Oh and and wind. There's a great
Speaker 1: like hour and a half recording of In the Field
Speaker 1: of a It maybe Pando for all I know, but
Speaker 1: it's really really lovely, highly recommended. Cool. So all right
Speaker 1: here we go. Hey guys, Uh and Jerry, I hope
Speaker 1: you're having a wonderful day. You really enjoyed hearing episode
Speaker 1: on Pando. My family has been taking an annual camping
Speaker 1: trip to Fish Lake, Utah since the early to mid nineties,
Speaker 1: which is only a mile or two down the road
Speaker 1: from Pando. It's like, how do you go a mile
Speaker 1: from Pando that's that big and just not going to Pando?
Speaker 1: All right? You know, maybe they don't know about Pando.
Speaker 1: Oh he knows, he said. I've been hearing stories about
Speaker 1: it since I was little and have always been astounded
Speaker 1: by the magnitude and resilience of an organism like that.
Speaker 1: The ungulate fences start right on the side of the road,
Speaker 1: and it's like night and day. You're driving along in
Speaker 1: a fairly sparse aspen grove and then bam, there's a
Speaker 1: wall of tall, dense aspens on one side, surrounded by
Speaker 1: a fence. The other side of the road is offence
Speaker 1: as well, but there's often cattle roaming, and the tree
Speaker 1: population is considerably thinner. I'm an oil painter by trade
Speaker 1: and recently did a commission of a nice little spot
Speaker 1: in Pando and included a little picture here in the
Speaker 1: email of the finished piece. It is wonderfully gorgeous place.
Speaker 1: Saddens me to hear how much danger it's in. Thanks
Speaker 1: for getting the word out there, guys. Hopefully something could
Speaker 1: be done. Hope all is well. That is from Lawson
Speaker 1: Barney in Colorado and asked him if people could view
Speaker 1: his art, and he said, just go to Lawson Barney
Speaker 1: on Instagram. L A W S O N all one
Speaker 1: word capital b A r n E y on Instagram
Speaker 1: to see some of this stuff. Yes. Uh, Instagram is
Speaker 1: a great place to find artists these days. That's what
Speaker 1: I hear. Are you're not on I don't know you
Speaker 1: know me? You gotta check it out. While you're there.
Speaker 1: Check out an artist I love called the Christian Rex
Speaker 1: fan minute amazing. And I'm gonna check out laws and
Speaker 1: Barney too at the very least because he's got a
Speaker 1: pretty awesome name. Uh. If you want to talk about
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