The Thrill of Running Your Own Dog Tracking Business
Business Overview:
If you and your dog are looking for a way to learn new skills and start a new business, you should look into running your own dog tracking business. Dog tracking, also called scent tracking, is when a dog uses its keen sense of smell to track down a missing person. Humans have used dogs to track people for hundreds of years due to the special skills dogs have in distinguishing scent. Humans continuously give off tiny particles that have scent whether they are dead or alive. These microscopic scent particles travel through the air for great distances and can be picked up by dogs and followed. It’s a skill that can be taught to virtually any breed of dog; however, there are several breeds of hounds (bloodhounds being the most popular) that are particularly well suited for this activity. Scent tracking is used in a variety of circumstances and dogs’ training can be specialized to focus on one or more of these areas. These specialties include air scent (follows scent in the air), trailing (follows hair or skin tissue), tracking (follows the path of the person), disaster (finds missing people after earthquakes, tornadoes, etc.), cadaver (specializes in the scent of a dead human), water search (reacts to the gasses released by a human in or under water), and avalanche (detects human scent under snow). If you do not already have a trained dog, consider the location in which you live before deciding what area you will specialize in. You obviously wouldn’t want to start an avalanche rescue business if you live in a warm climate, for example. If you’re not interested in working with a dog yourself, you can always track down other dog owners who are interested in working for you. If you already own a dog training business, recruit a few promising students and offer their owners discounted training fees in return for working with you in your new tracking business. Market your services to local police and sheriffs’ departments. Put fliers up in local veterinarian offices advertising your service and recruiting other tracking dogs. As you can see, this is one of the more unique business ideas you’ll find but it’s a business that is extremely rewarding and unfortunately very necessary when someone goes missing and humans have run out of options in their search.
A Day in the Life of a Dog Tracking Business Owner:
As the owner of a dog tracking business, your schedule will vary greatly. Police and local authorities will contact you when they need your dog(s) to aid in a search and/or rescue situation. If you are in the middle of an ongoing search/rescue job, your day will be spent with your dog from sunup to sundown helping search. If you are not currently working on a search job, your day will be spent reviewing tracking fundamentals with your dog and marketing your business around town. If you have dogs and owners working for you, you will contact them when a job comes up. Since this is a part-time business, you will likely not work on it every day.
About Your Customers:
Your customers will be law enforcement personnel or individuals needing dog tracking services to locate a missing person.
What You Need to Start:
- Trained dog or dog owners with trained dogs
- Relationship with local law enforcement
- Marketing materials
- Computer with finance software
The Good:
- This is a valuable service.
- It’s a highly rewarding business.
- Start-up costs are low.
- You can easily run this business part-time.
The Bad:
- The work is very unpredictable and you may go for long periods without working.
- It can be a highly stressful business.
Resources:
- United States Search and Rescue Task Force
- National Association of Canine Scent Work
- American Scent Hound Association
- Wikipedia on Scent Hounds
About The Author
Templateify
Praesent nec tortor quam. Quisque ac malesuada augue. Sed dignissim gravida odio ut bibendum. Cras fermentum euismod turpis. Nunc nec diam ante, et faucibus ipsum. Etiam imperdiet mattis elit et molestie. Nulla feugiat mollis leo vel egestas. Pellentesque convallis
Abonați-vă la:
Postare comentarii (Atom)
0 comentarii