Fred Hassen's Sit Means Sit - Revolutionizing the World of Dog Training - www.SitMeansSit.com

On September 30, 2007 Search One Rescue Team, a volunteer K9 search team in the Dallas area, were called to assist the Ft. Worth Police department in locating a 73 year old man that had walked away from a nursing home. The man had dementia and had lived in the home for a couple of weeks. The nursing home called the police around 11 AM who in turn called upon the services of Search One Rescue Team. Upon arrival Search One deployed several K9 resources including a trailing dog and an air scent dog in the area west of the nursing home. In an attempt to have full coverage around the nursing home, Team Scooby was deployed in a wooded area directly behind the nursing home. The subject was found by K9 Scooby with assistance from his handler Carla Collins and flanker Terri Griffin. The man was found standing around by some brush. He was a bit confused but able to walk out with some minor assistance. When asked if he was surprised by the dog when he was found he said “No, that’s a good dog, a really good dog.”

Carla Collins is the owner of the Sit Means Sit Dallas dog training location, and her search dog Scooby has been trained using the Sit Means Sit dog training method. Carla and Scooby assist with Sit Means Sit basic and search seminars across the country.

December 8 & 9th 2007 – Sit Means Sit Trainers Pass Their FEMA Certification for Urban Search and Rescue

Carla Collins with K9 Scooby (Labrador Retriever), along with Lisa Myers and K9 Sampson (Golden Retriever), passed their FEMA K9 certification test at the Broward County Florida Task Force 2 location on December 8th and 9th. This was a re-certification with Scooby and the first time for Sampson. Lisa Myers, owner of the Sit Means Sit South New Jersey dog training location, has only had Sampson for 9 months, and he had no previous training. The Sit Means Sit dog training system has helped dramatically in getting Sampson trained in a much shorter amount of time, thus having him able to be able to work saving lives much sooner. The certification consists of search 2 separate rubble pile searches that have anywhere from 1-6 victims total on the piles. One pile is full access and can have 0-4 victims, the other has only limited access with at least 1 -4 victims. The dog is required to search this pile independently to find the 1st victim, after that the handler is allowed to access the pile but must stand at the area of the fine and direct the dog to search the rest of the pile. They handler may move to the dog only if it barks at another victim. Distractions such as food, worn clothing and live animals are hidden on the piles as distractions. The dog should not bark at these distractions, but if it does and the handler marks it as a find the team is failed.

Team Scooby and Team Sampson passed by finding all victims in the allotted time with no false alerts. There were a total of 14 teams testing and 13 passed over the weekend. In addition Team Aid’n handled by Denise Corliss and Team Dakota handled by Johnny Lane passed. These two have also used the Sit Means Sit dog training methods in training their disaster K9s.

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