Search Dog North Idaho Inc. - K9 Search & Rescue

   Search Dog North Idaho is a non-profit corporation based in Bonner County, Idaho dedicated to training dogs, handlers, and support staff and maintaining a K9 Task force to locate and bring back people lost or hurt whenever needed.  Our training sessions are fun adventures in wilderness skills and SAR techniques open to all SAR people and the general public.  We are an outdoor adventure group with a mission.  

  We currently have four certificed K-9 teams and seek new membes including important non-dog positions for support staff, base camp, public relations, fundraising, event planning, and administration.  If you like wilderness adventure please contact us through the link in the menu on this page.  Dogs just want to have fun!   

We are seeking new members with or without dogs 

     A canine Task Force must have all the skills of any SAR group plus specialized knowledge and techniques for working with dogs.  A competent dog unit needs a support staff to maintain a command center for tracking progress of a search, keeping up radio communications, calculating a theoretic search area and determining probability of detection.  Each dog/handler pair should have a navigator/communicator to allow the handler to focus on the dog while in the field.  All team members must have knowledge in reading topo maps, use of compass, GPS, radio, CPR & First aid, and have good mountaineering and wilderness survival skills.  We must be able to follow a dog through rough mountain terrain, across rivers and streams, and be ready to overnight safely in the wilderness.  We must know how to fully cooperate with the other SAR groups, interact with law enforcement and emergency crews who call us out, and at times direct a helicopter to land for evacuation. 

     A canine unit is a specialized Search and Rescue team that often works differently than other SAR groups because of the unique skills dogs have and the requirements necessary to let the dogs do their jobs.  Dog teams require more disciplines and training than many other SAR personnel such as scent behavior, veterinary first aid, and how to “read” your dog in addition to all of the required SAR skills.  Dog teams are often called out before other SAR units so the dogs can follow fresh scent without the distraction of other ground searchers, which requires being able to set up a command center using standardized protocol and conduct a search without compromising the scene or causing difficulties for other agencies that may follow.  Dog teams may search at night when scent is most active, and frequently use search patterns vastly different from other SAR teams due to the need to place the dog most favorably in an air borne wind path.  Many experienced SAR members have little or no knowledge of how dogs work which may require diplomacy in dealing with others and the need to succinctly explain what can be expected from your dog. 

     There are many skills involved and it is a real adventure learning and training for the job.  To learn and maintain these skills, we hold training sessions twice weekly all year round.  Our training sessions vary from doing theoretic strategy problems on a topo map to short range skills exercises and mock searches during which we set up a command post and staging area to coordinate efforts to locate multiple “hiders” with our dogs.  Over the coming year we will be planning high angle rope workshops, wilderness survival camp outs, and a variety of other exercises each of which both purposeful training and great fun for the outdoor enthusiast and of course, our dogs. 

Bonner and Boundary Counties, North Idaho

      Bonner and Boundary Counties are in the mountainous area in North Idaho known for its wide variety of recreational activities including hiking, camping, mountain biking, ATV's, skiing, snowmobiling, hunting, and boating.  With literally thousands of miles of untouched wilderness, our training sessions will take you to places of outstanding beauty that outdoor enthusiasts seek out.  We train in the exact areas people are likely to get lost or hurt, which includes trips to the high mountain lakes and streams, the national forests and parks, and majestic peaks that challenge climbers of all ages.  This makes our training sessions both a real adventure and gives us a realistic understanding of what we are likely to encounter on a call.  If you love the mountains and care about other people, come join us.

      We welcome and encourage cross-training with other SAR and dog units whenever possible.   

 We are a volunteer group in service to our community.