Did you all hear about this?

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/us_world...lost_in_fr.html

Talk about heart warming. Apart from the gross negligence of the babysitter; I think its a fantastic story about survival.

It leads to another questions though: how do you teach a 3 year-old about survival?

You don't "teach" a 3 year old. I figure at that age, their good ole brain stem is doing most of the work - keeping warm is a pretty basic instinct.

After all, most 3rd world countries, a toddler is ready to wield a knife and slaughter a chicken. It's only in the "Developed" world where a 3 year old is sheltered.

A two dog night for sure. The babysitter needs to spend a night out in the cold...

The babysitter is still breathing. That speaks to the child's guardian and their self control.

Weekly steak for life for the pups.

Glad the little tyke made it. Glad the hounds made it too. Not sure who saved whom, but what does it matter. A win is a win.

With all respect, though, I do have to ask the skeptical question: 21 hours to search a one-mile radius? A SAR dog should take you from A to B in about half an hour, AFAIK. Even a focused ground search should cover that in a lot less time.

But I'm not a SAR expert, so I defer to wiser heads in this group.

I once read an article on survival that said little kids do faily well in these situations. They tend to hunker down, stay put and try to stay warm, exactly what you should do. Having the dogs around helped with warmth.

Depends on the dog, the weather, the terrain, etc. A circle with a one mile radius contains Pi square miles (3.14). That is a significant amount of ground, and dogs aren't a panacea. Usually there are a limited number of canine teams, their training and skill level varies wildly, and you have to focus them on the areas of highest probability.

Little kids can also be problematic, because they've absorbed their "stranger danger" lessons, and some of them also are afraid that they're going to get in trouble for wandering off. So, they sometimes hide and don't make a sound even if ground searchers walk right by. If you're playing hide-and-seek with a tiny tyke in 3+ square miles of rough territory, it's going to take a while.

I vaguely recall a search near here a few years ago where hundreds of searchers did a grid search (i.e. make a tight line and comb the woods) for a kid that had wandered off. The next day the kid popped out from under a dead tree 200 yards from the house. I believe that area had been searched at least twice, and she said she could hear everyone calling her the whole time.

This one appears to be true, but I always am a bit skeptical when I hear these stories. Several years ago, not far from here, we had a similar story, little boy 3-4, goes missing in the woods, for 3 days they searched and searched, then a relative "found" him and supposedly the dogs kept him warm for 3 nights in the cold. When he was "found", he was given to police in the woods, and taken straight to a hospital.

On examining him, the doctors became suspicious because not only was he not dehydrated or hungry, after 3 nights in the cold woods, his clothes were shabby, but his underwear was clean, 3 night and part of a 4th day alone in the woods, and he had not soiled them at all.

Turned out, the family faked it for donations and sympathy.

I've always found that a couple of nice puppies makes for a rather decent face warmer especially during these long cold winter evenings.

Yep, gotta love a warm pair of "puppies".........