I have been found by K9 Atticus!  I thought hiding on a ledge above a door would do the trick.

K9 Juno gets some play and a few pats

Planning our route during a mock search

Carrying the litter out to some poor, perfectly healthy and mobile sap who was suckered into going for a joy ride.

Going for a drag courtesy of K9 Topas

Thanks for reading!

Holy Cow! I am now an Operational Dog Handler after passing my search and rescue Operational 160 Acre Evaluation.

This is the 4-6 hour final test mock search to see if my dog and I have what it takes.

Rather than write a novella on all the things that happened.  (I don’t want to give away all the mysteries to those handlers not yet operational) I will give you a short synapsis and then a list of all the things I learned.

Search Senario

A small plane crashes in a forest with four passengers.  The pilot is found dead on the scene, but the three other passengers are missing. Evidence shows they walked away from the crash site.

Here’s What Happened.

• Watched Grom the search dog jump into a stream and find it was too deep to his liking. Then, try to exit via a steep bank unsuccessfully.
• Successfully found the “trail” that no longer exists and walked down it
• Watched my dog stick his nose against the wind on several occasions rather than alerting into the wind. (To follow him or no?)
• Cursed the 10mph wind for changing directions several times.
• Powdered dog in the face while doping the wind
• Successfully covered all the blank areas of the 160 acres first.  Then watch the clock tick down without a find.
• Ran into several muggles enjoying the forest in the middle of my sector
• Watched Grom indicate on a muggle speed walking a hiking trail and try to chase after him while keeping me in sight.  ”Why do you keep running away?” – Grom
• Walked too darn fast
• Followed Grom into the woods in a large circle because he kept following the scent of someone out there instead of going directly to a point I intended first.  (Trust your dog, don’t just follow him around.)
• Watch Grom ask one of my found subjects “Annie Annie, are you ok?” repeatedly at the top of his voice.
• Practically walked over a subject while trying not to break my ankle on fallen logs. (Hey Jen, Walk slower!)
• Watch the forest try to kill one of my evaluators
• Wake up my last subject from a very nice long nap.
• Catch up with a favorite former dog handler of the team.

Thanks to everyone involved in Testapalooza!

And a special congratulations to Chris and Daisy for also passing their Operational on the same day!

Here is what I have learned

1. When something goes wrong, and it will, pick yourself back up and keep on going.
2. Be confident in your skills.
3. This is a learning opportunity.
4. Your dog will mess up and that’s ok.
5. Watch your pace.  It is not a stroll, but it is also not a double time death march.
6. Take breaks. They are essential for your body and your brain and your dog.
7. You and your dog are a team, be clue aware and set yourself and your dog up for success.
8. In the real world, letting your dog trample the injured lost person in anticipation for play is probably a bad idea.
9. Try not to kill your evaluator.
10. Don’t treat it like a test, treat it like the real thing.

Well then, I have the answer for you.  Search and Rescue K9 Calendars make a perfect gift!  Give one to your friends, family, Coworkers, and yourself.

Simply go to the Virginia Search and Rescue Webpage below and hit the Donate button. For a 12$ donation you get the calendar sent to whomever you wish.  Help our 100% Volunteer Dogs and Humans continue their important work!

http://www.vsrda.org/donate/calendars

Now that I got my trail test finished, it is time to start working area searches.  This is where my mad getting lost skills can really get me in trouble.  Everything started out well,  my water bladder completely leaked over all of my pack contents.  No big problem, this shouldn’t take too long.

Here is the scoop on my subject. Paul was lost in the woods.  His family was worried because he got some bad news recently and park rangers found his car in the parking lot after hours. Looks like Grom and I are out to find him.

Here is my search area.

The very first thing I did was take notes all about my map.  I drew my own copy of the search area on a packing label and stuck it to my pack.  Here is what it would look like overlaid on the actual map.

Do your undefined first.

My plan of action was to walk up the road and flag my undefined boundary to the north.  So, up we walked the road with Grom on the leash. Nearly to the start of my task, I remember to do a radio check.  My evaluator Jack told me he nearly made me walk all the way back to base, pretending I had a broken radio!   With that simple threat, I would not do that again.

At the edge of the road I sent Grom off with his search word.  He dashed into the woods full of bounding joy and energy.  It was a gorgeous day, in the 60′s and overcast.  It even looked like it was going to rain.  Grom was elated to be free and immediately began grabbing sticks and peeing on everything he saw.  I called in to base to begin my task and set off after the wild pup.  This first leg was an easy walk downhill to a stream.  I would pause only a few seconds here and there to hang flagging tape, marking my northern boundary, and to test the wind.

About that wind

The wind decided everything. With an overcast day and temperatures not much different from the night before, I knew the scent would be collecting in drainages and running down hill.  I would need to get my dog downwind of the sector and into the drainages.  The problem?  The wind was blowing from the north and going down to the south.  The only thing Grom would be smelling at this point was everything North of our sector.  I had to get us south.

That means a long walk all the way down to the southern part of our sector.  So, down along the stream we trekked. Grom was completely full of himself racing from the stream to the woods on our left and back again.  ”At least I will have a tired dog at the end of this,” I thought. The stream lazily flowed through a long lovely meadow with large patches of golden yellow grass and the feathery fronds of ferns.  It was slippery going, and I stumbled several times. I was making my way over a particularly messy spot, a soaked rotten log covered in moss when a shadowy blur streaked past the corner of my left eye.  Before my brain could make sense of what I was seeing, the blur collided into my left leg.  The blur, wearing an orange vest, and I went down in the wet moss. Unfazed by his tackle, Grom stood back up and went back to his dare devil galloping.  I thought I was the blond one here!

The stream became wider and deeper as I neared the trail marking my southern boundary. I began to worry at the clock, walking around my entire sector was taking up far too much time. Grom was having a blast leaping in and out of the water, biting at its surface, and digging interesting things out of the bottom.  He even took a few moments to blow bubbles here and there. We were racing against the clock.  Grom could care less.

I was getting nervous.  I hadn’t even started searching the interior of my sector yet.  I needed to work the dog across the wind.  So, on the trail I went, back to the road for my first pass.   I didn’t want Grom to be walking back along the busy park road, I wanted him in my sector.  So, I figured I could walk in the woods next to the road and he would stay in the woods with me.  This end of the woods was littered with fallen trees to which we expertly fell over and crawled under..  Our going was arduously slow. Not only was the stuff difficult to walk through, but I could not see far enough to get a proper bearing.  I was navigating around one particularly nasty tangled pine when, I looked up to notice Grom trotting happily to my right unimpeded by webs of sharp branches.  With a grin on his face, Grom was walking down the road.

This dog is smarter than his handler

On my second leg back to the stream I cussed under my breath trying to navigate around fallen trees I could not see past.  Halfway through I ran right back into the trail I had previously walked.  Oops!  Looks like I made a navigation mistake and drifted a bit off my line. Ok, I drifted a lot. Noting how the hiking trail took a huge cut to the south, I shrugged it off and kept on walking.  This way at least I would be covering the area well. Grom was still having fun by trotting across fallen logs and diving into mud puddles, probably laughing at me by now.

Back and forth we went across the meadow and into the woods and through the dense brush bordering the road.  Then, it started to rain.  Grom danced in delight, while I quickly threw my cell phone into my pack and covered it with the rain shield.  No point in putting my rain jacket on now, it was wet anyway.   The shipping label on my map case began to melt in the rain.  All of my notes and map drawing began to dissolve into oblivion.  We better find this guy fast I thought.  As I was muttering over the loss of my nice drawing, Grom took off.  He came back several minutes later acting like nothing had happened.

Oh great, I thought.  He found the person and decided not to tell me.

Reminder, If you think your dog decided not to indicate, don’t tell your evaluator.  I thought about how Grom was acting and concluded he had likely chased down a deer.   I did not see him perform his tell tale sign he was in scent by sticking his nose in the air with his nose and tail following its lead, he just dashed away. Boy, I sure hope I was right.

This is exactly why we have so many tests.  A dog handler needs to be put in a stressful life-like search situation so mistakes can be made and remedied with the help of an evaluator long before she is ready to become operational.  It is a one on one lesson with an expert.  This test is going to provide lots of material for MY evaluator today.

Once back to the road, I needed a break.  I was running out of time and my bladder began to really complain.  I left Grom in a down stay with my evaluator while I went off into the woods to think.  I cannot grid this whole thing and finish on time. I need to rethink my search strategy here.  I wandered back to my dog and evaluator and began to study my map.  After a minute or so passed, my evaluator Jack calmly observed,

Your dog just went into the culvert.

He went in the What!?

Jack gestured to the dark tunnel plunging into the ground under the road.  The tube was barely big enough for Grom to fit in.

You have GOT to be kidding me!

I called Grom’s name.  The culvert was not big enough to turn around in and came out the other side of the road to quite a drop into a deep drainage.  My heart fluttered, then dropped directly into my stomach with a sickening thud. Long seconds went by before a black feathered tail and a wiggling Belgian butt appeared at the entrance. Grom clumbsily extracted himself from his little spelunking adventure with a great big grin and a satisfied shake of his body.  I laughed out loud.

With new confidence, I headed back into the woods with my clown of a dog.  Minutes later, Grom takes off again.  This time, I was going to follow him.  I noted a mylar balloon on the ground to my left and pointed my compass directly at my dog’s butt and dashed after him.  Grom stopped, and put his head down to sniff some leaves, then began lazily wandering around investigating various sticks and plants.  Oh, great.  He wasn’t in scent and the clock was ticking down.  Back I tiredly stumbled to the mylar balloon and continued on my way. Grom staying closer than he had before.

What in the world are you thinking dog?  Did you smell something?  Was it the deer?

I began to fear I somehow walked past the subject or I would simply time out.  My dog probably thinks I am a complete idiot at this point and is staying close by to make sure I don’t do anything else stupid, like get lost.  Nothing to do but keep going and trust the dog.

Grom picks up the pace and begins trotting in wide arcs in front of us.  Could he be in scent? A skidding change in direction confirms my guess.  It is a tell tale sign that Grom reached the edge of the scent cloud.  I look in the direction my pup is headed and see the corner of something blue peeking from around a large tree.  Yes!

Before I am able to get moving, Grom is dashing back to me eyes locked to mine.  He is taking great gulps of air and bounding to a stop to give me an elated bark followed by two out of breath air barks.  I send him off to show me where the person is, tripping through moss and mud to Paul happily leaning against a tree.

I call out Paul’s name.  No response.  I reach to take his vitals when Jack calls out

He is foaming at the mouth and there are no signs of life

I call back if there is a heartbeat or breathing.  Jack responds with a smirk,

There are NO – SIGNS – OF – LIFE !

Oh right, that means he is dead, DUH!  Paul lets a small smile cross his lips, trying not to laugh.  I slowly back away from Paul in the direction I came and begin to describe crime scene preservation procedures to my evaluator.  Nodding, my evaluator gives Paul the blessing to play with my hard working pup.

I sigh a great big sigh of relief while I locate my coordinates and call my find into base.

or possibly a baseball bat.

Yesterday, I woke up to the feeling that a truck ran over me.  Funny how I am sick on the Monday after a nice training day out in the woods.  I felt fine while climbing trees and tugging with a strong labrador from my precarious perch. I felt absolutely stellar while resting my head on my pack, then dragged around the leaves by a strong German Shepherd on the other end of a tug.  I even felt wonderful after walking and running around in the woods with my pack on, playing with numerous other search and rescue dogs.  Some of them puppies, some of them teenagers getting ready to start their testing.  I even felt fine after doing a 40 acre sector with Grom and six other search team applicants and members learning the ropes.

Monday, I slept all day with a puppy on my chest.  A very loud puppy who snores with his legs in the air.  A very wiggly puppy who runs and wiggles with his legs in the air and his head firmly wedged in my armpit.  A good cuddly little puppy during the day.  A very bad, loud, and rambunctious puppy who barked and sped around the house all evening because he did not get worked.

Working dogs.  The good, the bad, the LOUD!

Needless to say, consciousness has been a challenge since monday as I have caught one nasty bug.  Let’s hope the puppy behaves, tonight.  Right Grom?

A mock search is a pretend search where all of the elements of a real search are practiced.  Practice makes perfect.  We learn about some of the challenges in a real search and learn from them in a safe setting. It is also a chance to have a bit of fun!

Do you like our nice Base of Operations trailer?

It comes with a fancy antenna that allows us to communicate over long distances on our radios and everything we need inside to run an entire search operation ourselves.

The very first thing that must be done at a search is sign in.  Here I am writing down all of my qualifications.  For today, I get to be an operational dog handler. Woo Hoo!

A few of our team members diligently take notes during the briefing.

Only a few people know where our lost people are hiding.  Today, they came up with a doozie of a scenario:

Three folks are “missing” out in the woods.   To make things interesting, our mock search organizers made of a back story for our missing persons. Their names are Andrew, Jason, and Amy. All three are familiar with these woods and are well prepared for a nice day out hiking.  They did not return from their hike the night before and so we were called in to help Law Enforcement search the area. Supposedly Andrew and Amy are married.  They are out with a mutual friend, Jason.  Law enforcement found out through interviews that Amy might be fooling around with Jason, and Andrew likely knows about it.  Uh oh!

Kay, running everything at base, briefs and gives out tasks to a dog team.

Here I am planning my route for my first task.

Gotta do all that nice map drawing so there is less work out in the field.  Do you notice the very important box of cookies on the table?  They did not last long. Grom, J, and I went out on a nice hour walk along a buried gas line for our first search task.  He had a great time running down the long mowed corridor, frequently leaping off in to the woods on to either side of us to check out some scent or another.  Our task ended up having no one in it.  Back to base.

Seamus is ready to get this show on the road!

David looks like he is continuing to have a really good time.  Here he is getting a ride in the back of a nice truck.  Relaxation time.

Wow! We got a call over the radio.  One of our missing persons is found and they are injured.  Out comes the litter (a fancy word for stretcher) for an evacuation.

But first!

Gather round. A lesson for all the new people on how to properly deal with a litter. (Don’t worry, our lost person is likely catching up on some sleep or reading a book, or more likely, they are listening to really bad jokes from members of the team that found them.)

Alleee ooop!

Would you like a nice ride?

One individual was brave enough to let us pack her in the litter for a little practice ride.

Here we are transferring the litter from one team to another over an obstacle. (See the chair obstacle on the ground?)

Now that we got the practice out of the way.  We get our boots on the ground and the litter on its way to the scene.

A nice light empty litter on a nice fall day.  Fun!

Also, very easy to carry.

We got our found “victim” strapped in and ready to go!

Our victim provided us with more story line for our interesting mock search scenario. She had a twisted ankle and was beat up by her husband “Andrew.”  Jason freaked out and ran away while this went down.  Andrew wandered off very upset and is somewhere out there for us to find.

Our wonderful “lost” subject was let out of the litter at the road after we got some fantastic practice carrying her over and around many obstacles in the woods.  We must have done a decent job as she did not run away or throw things at us; always a good sign.

Now we had two more people to find.  I got Grom out of the car and got ready for my next search sector.  Grom was ready to go for a second round.  I was assigned a new team of K9 escorts and was given a small triangular sector bordered by two drainages and a road.  Lesson time!  I let my walkers handle all of the navigation and communications while I paid attention to the dog and played devil’s advocate here and there.  My two walkers rarely took the bait and successfully covered the entire sector.

While I was out having fun.  It seems that Andrew was found.

Looks like this search team was given some crime scene preservation practice with this guy.

As you can tell by the smile even HE was having far too much fun out in the woods.  He was out there for several hours taking nice naps and watching the wildlife while texting the other lost person, Jason.

Jason was found not long after Andrew and everyone met back at base to share what they learned about the day.  We wandered in not long after all a tad tired and big smiles on our face.  Everyone learned much that day.

I learned that my husband’s PB&J sandwiches really hit the spot.

What to draw your map on.

• write in the rain notebook
• oversized blank shipping label slapped on your map case (only good in fair weather)
• easily accesisble notebook

The map is a wonderful tool before going on a task.

A map can be used to plan out how you will walk your sector.

First, Draw your sector including major landmarks:

• roads
• trails
• drainages
• water features
• man made objects

Be sure to put on your map:

Today we tackle the trail.

The scenario:

I suit up and plan how I was going to find a missing hiker named Charley. Her dog wandered back into camp hours ago. Rangers know she was planning to hike the High Meadows Trail within the park and never returned to her car. She was well acquainted with the area.

The trail test sounds easy, simply walk down a trail a mile and a half in length without the benefit of a GPS and find your missing person within the allotted time.  Trails are often rerouted, new trails built, and old ones shut down, information on the most recent topo maps tend to be nearly 30 years old.

My first task after interviewing my evaluator playing park ranger on the particulars of the search was to figure out my search strategy. I carefully note all of the land features I would come across on my journey. I can use this information to keep me on course.

Confident that I had planned things well, I grab Grom’s search vest out of its bag. Grom yawns and stretches, saying

“Yeah, I see what you got there. I am saving it up until you say the magic word.”

He did not disappoint. I give him the search command and he bolts twenty feet down the trail. Then proceeds to pee on several trees waiting for me to catch up while sniffing the air for scent.

The day was cool with a slight breeze blowing gently across my face. Grom pauses to frolic in a small creek, taking quick bites at the disturbed surface as he leaps. I let him. He revels in the cool water and the wonderful banquet of scents it must carry with it, a deer from an hour ago, a hiker taking a pause on a rock upstream, a great blue heron dipping his long beak in for a drink or a strike at a fish. I can only imagine and continue on.

Grom alternates between dashing ahead of me down the trail or crashing through the brush, back and forth across the trail. He is energized and grins at me on one of his flybys.

Several minutes later I come across a guidepost on the side of the trail at an intersection and read. The trail that intersects the one I am on is several hundred meters beyond where it is on the map. I become slightly confused and note the descrepency. The signpost indicates the road I was supposed to cross is ahead down my trail as it should be, so I continue on.

The road crosses my trail far too soon. I stand on the center of the road looking up, down, and across its width. Nothing is as it should be. I should have been on the top of the hill, and there is no trail on the other side of the road. I walk across the road in attempts to find the trail. Grom trots straight ahead on what looks to be a trail, but peters out within 15 meters or so. I am not where I am supposed to be, I declare and head back to the signpost. Grom lopes down the center of the trail, unconcerned with our backtracking.

When I stop he begins to wander aimlessly around me sniffing here and there at the forest floor, undirected energy. I put him in a down so he will be focused when we move again. I unfold a trail map of the park I wisely picked up at the visitor’s center. I should be following orange blazes, the intersecting trail has yellow and is going in the wrong direction. It is best to go back to where I was sure. We head back to the stream where I find oranged blazed trees marching northward along the stream then stomping westward along the curve of the hill. Grom, innocent of his idiot handler, returns to his play in the stream.

The road greets me once again exactly where it should have at the top of the hill.

Follow the orange blazes I tell myself, DUH!

The lithe black dog sprints past an ancient graveyard and crashes through a thicket of dense brush. I remark to my evaluator this is a place I need to pay special attention to on my way back. A person might hide in there for shelter, her scent trapped among the braches and brambles, the trail and dog upwind of her.

Confident I am on the right path now, I pick up my pace. Grom notes my change in pace and bounds ahead down the trail and out of sight.  I follow the sound of the two big red bear bells attached to his vest as my only guide to where he is. Grom often appears only a minute or two later with a look of” hurry up!” Much of the time he doesn’t even pause to say hi. He simply gives me a flyby run.

A few times on the top of a hill he shows interest to the northwest, his entire body pointing in the direction of his nose, a feathered tail arched up over his back in happy attention. His interest lasts only a few seconds, telling me the source is likely too far away to persue from our location or is an animal he knows not to chase.

Grom is doing a great job dashing back and forth along both sides of the trail as we encounter a second, wider stream. After a few splashes in the water, the little search dog begins to circle a small tree, stretching his nose into the air under its branches. I see something bright orange on one of the lower braches.

Has he found a clue? The orange blob ahead could be a glove, a hat, or a bandana, something left by the subject as a clue for me to find on the test. Excitement grows as I catch up to the dog, who at this point is trying to climb the tree.  The closer I get the more the orange blob looks like a leaf. Why in the world is my dog trying to climb this little sapling? I pull the baby powder bottle out of my pocket and puff the fine particles into the air, doping the wind.

A slight breeze is blowing from behind me towards the tree. I turn around looking for something on the other side of the trail. There I find a leash caught up in wild rose brambles. It’s bright pink, Charley’s favorite color. I mark the find on the map and immediately begin to circle the clue looking for any body language Grom shows indicating he is in scent. He happily splashes in the water again then hops back into some tall grass biting and flossing his teeth with the yellow dried strands. Is he having trouble working out a scent pool?  Grom rarely gets frustrated while I am still moving and there is scent around. We circle back around to the trail and the leash.

Grom begins furiously digging and biting at the base of a young tree near the side of the trail. He scampers backwards pawing at something at the ground then thrashing it back and forth in his mouth. Oh man, I think to myself, he has caught some small creature. Still thrashing the object in his mouth, Grom bucks like a bronco over to a log just to the right of me. He pins the object down with a paw and begins to bat it around like a cat. I ask the dog to “bring it.” His command to bring me whatever it is he has in his mouth. The same command I give when he finds a wayward dirty sock, wash cloth, or other prize and decides to make a game of killing it in the house.

The little troublemaker trots right to me and drops his prize, a pink striped sock, formerly clean and new. This was a second clue. “Where is she?” I think as I stuff the sock into my back pocket. Convinced I had covered the area well enough for now, I decide to head down the trail and check the area more thoroughly later. The trail begins an upward climb. Grom satisfied after some good old sock thrashing trots confidently ahead.

Near the top of the hill, he tenses, his nose thrown into the air and his tail shooting straight out behind him. Before I acknowlege he has caught scent of someone, he bolts into the woods. Seconds later, he rushes back, looks me straight in the eye, and barks. With an excited show me command I run after him stumbling through the woods. Seconds later a blue tarp comes into view with a very comfortable looking Charley lounged atop it.

Grom nudges and leaps by her with expectation of a good game of tug. I hold him back while interviewing my found person, ensuring she is ok to walk out. The evaluator give the ok for her to play with my dog and he gets his reward, a tug toy from my back pocket and a very happy team mate giving him a very good game of tug.