CARDA© has a mission to train, certify, and deploy highly-qualified search dog teams to assist law enforcement and other public safety agencies in the search for missing persons.
CARDA search dog teams have participated in thousands of missing person searches. These search dog teams have saved public safety agencies millions of dollars through the use of volunteer resources. All CARDA services provided to requesting agencies and to the family of the lost person are free of charge. No person or agency is ever charged for CARDA’s services.
CARDA members incur all costs including gas, vehicles, training, equipment, and dog expenses. We rely on donations from the community to continue supplying this vital service.
We are sharing videos of our canine teams at work. See what these teams do for wilderness air scent, urban trailing, water and land human remains detection (HRD), and avalanche. We are always updating our video gallery so check back for updates.
Wilderness air scent dogs can cover 100+ acres of assigned search area a day (dependent on weather and terrain). Air scent dogs are helpful in wilderness typical to California’s recreation areas. Statistics are hard to acquire on lost and missing hikers, hunters, foragers, and climbers, but CARDA responds to 100+ wilderness searches per year through County Sheriff or California Office of Emergency Services (CalOES).
Trailing dogs are essential to establish higher probability search areas based off direction of travel of the missing person. For example, more than 60,000 children are reported missing, each year, in the State of California. Search and rescue trailing dogs are essential in the early minutes and hours of a reported absence.
Water HRD dogs trained to pinpoint missing person in water recoveries are extremely helpful to sheriff/coroner teams. Each year over 200 people die in drowning accidents in the State of California. Water human remains detection (HRD) dogs are essential resources for agencies tasked with recovering the bodies.
Land HRD dogs are used for cold cases in wilderness, disasters such as fire or mud slides, with suspected clandestine graves, and other criminal scenarios.
