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Documentation Index

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Water rescue dogs are trained to locate and assist individuals in distress across a wide range of aquatic environments, including open rivers, lakes, coastal waters, and active flood zones. These dogs develop swimming endurance, directional navigation, and victim detection skills through intensive aquatic conditioning. They work alongside certified rescue divers and boat crews, with their powerful retrieving instincts and physical conformation making certain breeds uniquely suited to sustained water operations.

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Qualifying Criteria

An animal must satisfy all three of the following criteria to receive a qualifies: true result for the Water Rescue program.
CriterionRequired Value
BreedsLabrador Retriever Mix, Chesapeake Bay Retriever, Newfoundland
SexIntact Female
Age26–156 weeks (approximately 6 months to 3 years)
Breed matching uses normalized substring comparison — both the animal’s recorded breed and each profile breed are lowercased and stripped of the words “mixed” and “dog” before the check. This allows common shelter classifications like “Lab/Retriever Mix” to resolve correctly. See Rescue Program Profiles: Overview for full matching details.
The Intact Female requirement is evaluated as an exact string match against the sex field in the shelter record (animal.sex === "Intact Female"). Spayed females, intact males, and any other sex classification will not satisfy this criterion and will receive only 5 points toward the sex component of their score. Confirm the reproductive status entry in the shelter record if a candidate is unexpectedly failing to qualify.

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Scoring Example

The examples below illustrate how the three scoring components combine for two Water Rescue evaluations of the same breed and sex. 
// Animal: Labrador Retriever Mix, Intact Female, 45 weeks → Score: 100 (qualifies)
{
  "programId": "water",
  "matchScore": 100,
  "breedMatch": true,
  "sexMatch": true,
  "ageMatch": true,
  "qualifies": true
}

// Animal: Labrador Retriever Mix, Intact Female, 200 weeks → Score: 80 (age miss)
{
  "programId": "water",
  "matchScore": 80,
  "breedMatch": true,
  "sexMatch": true,
  "ageMatch": false,
  "qualifies": false
}
In the second example, the animal is a breed and sex match but is 200 weeks old — outside the 26–156 week window. The age component contributes 5 points instead of 25, and qualifies is false even though the breed and sex criteria are both met.

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Operational Capabilities

Dogs that complete Water Rescue training are certified for the following operational roles:
  • Open-water victim search
  • Dive team coordination
  • Shoreline victim detection
  • Flood rescue support
  • Maritime search operations

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Program Details

DetailValue
Training Duration12–18 months
Training Success Rate87%
Operating EnvironmentRivers, lakes, coastal waters, flood zones

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Finding Water Rescue Candidates

To surface Water Rescue candidates from the full shelter dataset, navigate to the Dashboard and click the Water Rescue filter button. The candidate table immediately re-ranks all animals by their Water Rescue score, placing the highest-scoring animals at the top. Animals with qualifies: true — those matching breed, sex, and age simultaneously — will appear first. Partial matches remain visible below them, ranked by descending score, so near-miss animals are never hidden from view. Use the export function to download the current filtered and ranked list as a CSV for offline review or to share with rescue program representatives.

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