Front Range Rescue Dogs

Informational Sheet

Front Range Rescue Dogs is a volunteer not for profit organization dedicated to training and fielding quality, well trained search teams. Our volunteers receive a great deal of satisfaction working with each other and our dogs. Our training requires a substantial amount of time, effort and money. It requires a large degree of personal commitment. We would like to invite you to join us in providing canine search and rescue to people in need.

Front Range Rescue Dogs has three membership categories. Operational Members actively search for missing people and are responsible for assisting in running the group and assisting with training. Associate Members provide time and services to FRRD but are not interested in actively searching. Candidate Members are working on gaining the skill and experience necessary to become either an Associate or Operational Member. All of our members lead very busy lives and are not always available to respond to searches. We do require that all members attend a minimum number of practices in a 6 month period.

Operational members are expected to be proficient in many skill areas such as: canine first aid, human first aid, scent theory, search strategy, wilderness navigation and radio communication.

All FRRD Dogs are required to pass an obedience test and either the trailing test or the air scent tests before responding to a search. Once a dog is qualified they have the option of furthering their skills and gaining additional qualifications in avalanche search, water search, evidence search and disaster search.

Typically it takes an active candidate a minimum of 2 years to become operational and to qualify their dog. Members must be operational and have some field experience before testing their dog. We encourage candidates to become members before getting dogs.

FRRD typically responds to searches in Boulder County, however we are also active on state and national levels and will send teams anywhere we are requested.

The 5 member Board of Directors oversees the team. The President is responsible for overseeing group operations. The Vice-President is responsible for training and testing. The Secretary is responsible for keeping minutes of meetings and keeping the paperwork in order. The Treasurer is responsible for keeping the books and overseeing fund raising. Finally the Emergency Liaison is responsible for relations with other agencies and search and rescue teams. There are also many committees which work on fundraising, our newsletter, the disaster site, etc...

In order to fulfill our goals we hold practices twice a week. These are at 6pm on Monday evening and 9am on Saturday mornings. On the first Monday of each month at 6pm we hold an indoor meeting or training. For directions to practices and special events call the FRRD information line at 303-441-4985.

We invite you to come to a few practices and see if you enjoy spending time training with us. If you have any questions please leave a message on the FRRD information line 303-441-4985