MetroDogs is a new community canine search & rescue team that started in Takoma Park, MD and has grown to include members from Silver Spring, Gaithersburg, Washington D.C., and Northern VA. In our community, people most likely to get lost include people with Alzheimer's or Autism, and small children. MetroDogs trains specifically to find people in our town. We are working hard to field operational dogs soon. Our goal is to arrive quickly, while scent is fresh, and make rapid finds.
Our team consists of people who train their own dogs to
search for people who are lost. Our dogs are trained to be scent
specific--that is, to follow the scent of a single person through all
the other scent in the area. This allows us to follow the path of a
single person down a sidewalk or through a park, where many other
scents are present.
Our team trains primarily in parks and neighborhoods near NW DC, Takoma Park, Silver Spring, Bethesda, Rockville, & Gaithersburg MD, and Arlington VA. We cross-train for perimeter searches around collapsed structures, so that our team can also provide an initial resource in disaster situations.
MetroDogs Community Canine SAR Strategy
Our dogs train to work on the mix of hard and soft surfaces-- streets & sidewalks, grass & dirt-- found in metro areas. Dogs sniff a scent object with the lost subject’s scent on it, then search the area to find matching scent. Then we rapidly follow the scent trail to the subject.
If the dog is not given a scent object, the dog searches the area for anyone hidden there. The dog then alerts on the first human scent encountered. This mode is especially useful when there is no scent object available, but the subject is thought to be trapped or hiding in a certain area.
Come join us for practice-- find out how YOUR dog likes this job!
If you are interested in finding out more about our volunteer team, please email us at:
We welcome questions and comments from anyone interested in our team. If you have an active dog with working characteristics such as retrieving or herding, this may be the right career. Although all dogs have great noses, not all dogs are willing to work on cue to let you know what they smell. We will gladly work with you to determine whether your dog might like Community Canine SAR work.
