Professional Training

K9 Detect and Find Ireland offer a range of professional training options suited to your dogs skills and temperament. The training ethos here emphasizes the wellbeing of the dog and involves a balance of playful activities:

Being able to read a dog’s body language from the first day is essential for any dog handler and this is learnt easily through play. We learn so much about each other through play and we carry out up to three play sessions a day with any dog in training. Besides being fun playing with a dog this helps to build up their fitness and forms a strong bond with the handler. The dog will enjoy spending time with them and will want to work for the handler.

Initially you need to know how much training to give a dog at each training session because this needs to be precise to suit each dogs mental stamina and fitness. If a dog is being trained for three out of the four cadaver discipline their mental stamina needs to be built up to allow them to carry out three 40 minute sessions per day, 5 days a week.

The age and maturity of a dog needs to be factored in as they are not inanimate objects.

No pressure is put on to a dog in training this allows a dog to make their own decisions and creates a confident, independent working dog.

The following lists professional training options:

Cadaver Dogs

The three cadaver disciplines Rachell trains dogs to locate are:

Land cadaver: a deceased person on land.
River cadaver: a deceased person missing in an inland waterway such as a canal, river or a lake.
Human remains detection-locate recent: historical graves and cemeteries.

Rachell only trains dogs for the work they will be carrying out.

‘..if I was out on a human remains detection search I don’t want my dogs to indicate on bodily fluids, I want them to indicate on human remains/cremates’.

Conservation Dogs

Conservation dogs assist in wildlife research and environmental protection by locating everything from endangered species to invasive plants. Training focuses on specific target species - whether detecting scat from rare animals for population studies, finding nests or dens, locating invasive species like crayfish, or identifying diseased plants. These dogs often work in challenging terrain and must maintain focus despite abundant wildlife distractions. Handlers typically need backgrounds in biology or ecology and must understand the conservation goals behind their work. The training emphasizes minimal environmental disturbance and precise discrimination between similar species.

Instructor Training

Training to become a instructor means learning how to train other people and their dogs. This is something that K9 Detect and Find Ireland can guide you through. As a dog trainer you can expand your business by becoming a mantrailing or scent detection instructor.