We need your help - Play Dead for a Good Cause

[bogrady]

Travis County Search and Rescue will be training some of its search and rescue dogs for underwater body location on Oct 1 and Oct 2 on Lake Georgetown. This is an all-volunteer organization and they need 6 divers to literally play dead in the lake for the dogs to locate. I participated in this training exercise last weekend and it was amazing – these dogs need to be seen to be believed.

It’s pretty easy duty – you submerge in about 12 feet of water and sit and wait for 5 – 15 minutes while the dog guides the search boat and locates you. A shore tender notifies you via a tether line to surface and reward the dog. Each dog gets 3 runs and then they change dogs. Viz last weekend was 4-5 inches so it was a very meditative experience.

I can’t adequately express how interesting, rewarding and fun this was to work with the dogs and the handlers. This is well worth the time and as morbid as this may sound– one of these dogs might someday – God forbid – be needed to locate one of us. This is a great way to give back to the people that are called upon to protect us. YOu can check them out at Travis County Search & Rescue > Home

The training runs from 8am to 4pm both days. While we’d love you to be there all day, a 2-3 hour slot would work too.

PM me or contact Mack at Oak Hill Scuba if you’re willing to help.

 

[Smurf Stomper]

sounds cool, I'm a bit far away to be of help though, but I did want to ask: How do the dogs find real corpses (that aren't breathing out air bubbles up to the surface)?

 

[bogrady]

I had the same question. Apparently, a decomposing body gives off quite a lot of gas underwater. It bubbles to the surface and the dogs detect the scent. They actually have decomp scent generators that they submerge to take the dogs through the advanced training.

 

[Beowulf]

Wow hope I'm never around one of those scent generators. yuck

Sent from my SGH-T959V using Tapatalk