SDS works with SuLSaR (Suffolk Lowland Search and Rescue). SuLSaR work for Suffolk Police providing a volunteer team available 24 hours a day to search for missing persons in the county.
SDS search dogs are trained to 'Air Scent'. This means that they do not as a general rule track the missing person. The dogs will react to a human scent being blown towards them by the wind or air currents. This means that as long as the dog is searching downwind of a casualty, or items which have human scent, it should find them.
A dog can cover large areas of ground, even in bad conditions, in the search for a missing person. The dog is very sensitive to any human scent it finds and will immediately follow that scent to find the person. It will then indicate to its handler to let them know it has a 'find'.
It does not matter whether it is dark or very poor visibility, the dog can search just as well as if it were a clear day.
If there is no wind or it is storm force the human scent will not carry as far. The handler will compensate for this by shortening their sweeps of the area. This will take more time to search, to get a high probability of detection.
Search Dogs Suffolk
