Search dogs and distractions (??)

Factual Questions
1

Ok, so I was driving home from work the other day and as I was turning into the ‘hood, this is the scene: two teams of search dogs manned by police and other uniformed emergency personnel, walking down the middle of the street. As I got closer, one of the handlers said, politely but firmly, “Please stop your vehicle.” I happily agreed, but as I was in the middle of the street, I turned my wheels toward the curb and attempted to clear a path for the teams of dogs. I rolled only a couple of feet when the guy said, “no, no, I mean please stop your vehicle EXACTLY where it is.” Fine. I did. Several other vehicles were starting to back up behind me, and (judging from these other drivers’ reactions) it appeared that the dude made a similar request of them as well. Oddly, the dogs never appeared to approach any of these stopped vehicles, nor did their handlers appear terribly interested in wandering in that direction; rather they simply passed from several feet away.

 After the two dog teams were out of sight I proceeded in the direction I had been traveling, only to be greeted by yet another team of dogs and handlers, again right in the middle of the street.  Same drill, only this time the handlers asked all the motorists (who had been stopped in both directions) to "please turn off the engine."  Again, no interest in the vehicles or their occupants was shown by either the dogs or the handlers.  And again, after the team moved out of site, traffic began to flow.  I headed home, a mere quarter mile away.

No sooner do I park my car on the street that a third team approaches.  Now I am standing on the sidewalk about to enter my home.  "Sir.  Please do not move.  Thank you very much."  Approaching vehicles were, once again. requested to "Stop and turn off the engine."

I later learned what was going on:  An Alzheimer's patient had wandered off from a nearby nursing home.  She had been gone for several hours, but was eventually located and returned safe and sound.

Here's my question:  What's up with the "Don't move" request, and "shut off your engine"?  It was clear that none of the searchers suspected that that the subject of the search had been kidnapped and might be in one of the cars.  And I was asked not to move even while I was ON FOOT (and thus obviously not concealing a missing Alzheimer's patient on my person).    Are search dogs that "sensitive" that they can't do their job if there are vehicles moving or other forms of ambient noise present?  Aren't these dogs deployed in crisis situations, like at collapsed buildings and other scenes where this is a whole bunch of racket going on?  Can anyone explain this to me?
2

Yes, search dogs are trained to ignore distractions, and I’m reading what happened as “crowd control” by the dog handlers in charge. They probably just preferred to have all cars stopped dead still, instead of having the inevitable Clueless Ones attempting to maneuver their cars around the job in progress and getting in the way (“Oh, this doesn’t mean me, and besides, I’m late…”), and having people shut off their engines is a good way to make sure you don’t have Idiot Motorists who are late for meetings trying to sneak their cars past the cops, and possibly running over a dog or two, who, as you noted, were working in the middle of the street.

See, what you did the first time is exactly what they’re worried about, and were trying to prevent. I know, you were just trying to be helpful, but the handler didn’t have any way of knowing that. All he saw was that you were asked to stop your car, and you didn’t, so for all he knew, you might have been getting ready to take off at a high rate of speed and mash part of his K-9 unit under your wheels.

It’s just easier to make everybody stop still, period.

And as for the thing on the sidewalk in front of your house, I’m guessing you just had the bad luck to meet a member of the “I’m with the Official Search And Rescue K-9 unit, hear my words and obey, all you mere mortals…” It wasn’t the dog that was having problems, it was the featherless biped holding its leash. :smiley:

3

Also, if a dog hits a hot scent, he needs to be able to pursue it without the handler having to look both ways before crossing the street.