A Wyoming snowstorm races in bringing buried secrets to the surface.

A stray dog just dropped a bone at animal control officer Allan Carstair’s feet – a human bone. K9 cop Kelly Noveno is certain it’s connected to a recent disappearance, but with a snowstorm bearing down on Conard County, the two must hunker down in Allan’s cabin to continue the search. But their long held feeling are rushing to the surface, making this search more complicated than ever.

For once I actually liked the premise of the book (I’ve started and put down three other fiction books relating to SAR dogs).  Three missing teenagers, a dedicated cop, a significant other that wasn’t an idiot and a blizzard of epic proportions bearing down.  Add to that mix a Belgian Malanois and it seems like a no miss.

Rachel Lee even held my interest through the first third of the book.  Her writing was precise and effective,

"The gravel parking lot was clear of all but one vehicle, an aging pickup truck.  Neon signs in the windows didn't yet shimmer with life and wouldn't until Rusty officially opened his doors".

No mistaking this establishment as anything but a road side honky tonk.

And she developed the external conflict well, the storm and the grief of the parents of the missing girls heightening the despair of the searchers.  Been there, done that.  When a young one is missing the toxic mixture of grief, anger, anguish and hopelessness from the family descends upon us out looking for them.

But, there wasn’t any real conflict between the hero and heroine. He had the required PTSD from his military service.  Which supposedly made him able to help the heroine work through her anxiety about not being able to find the teenagers.  And the villain was just the village idiot, plopped in the story because there was a villain needed. Any conflict with him just felt forced.

The dog work…leaves a lot to be desired.  We are required to train at least 16 hours a month with our dogs. That’s industry standard, to keep both the dog and handler sharp.  The story took place over 3 weeks, but there was never a peep about training.

Then the dog was able to scent a glove from the suspect.  From a moving car. Sigh, a dog’s nose is amazing, but really?  And when at the suspect’s house, the dog had no reaction?  Then three weeks later was able to track from the body to where the glove was.  In the middle of Wyoming, during winter.  The dog should be a member of the Avengers, because he’s got some amazing super powers.

Then they had a dog trainer that brought 4 cadaver dogs to search an area that a family pet found a bone.  It wasn’t the fact that a family pet found the bone that made me mad, that happens all the time.  It was the fact that the AC was given a trained HRD dog to work the scene.  WTH?  It’s crime scene.  You don’t just waltz in with a dog and search away. Any defense lawyer would have a field day with that.

Then there were a couple of other things that were so dangerously wrong, I wanted to directly email the author.  The main one, the AC took a sick raccoon to the veterinarian to be treated for rabies. Raccoons die from rabies because there is no treatment. And people die from rabies when bitten by a rabid raccoon.  Argh.

Oh and one more thing.  A body doesn’t decompose to bones in less than 3 weeks, in Wyoming, in winter.

When I was reading back over my critique about the dog work, I had to laugh.  I can suspend disbelief when I read about shapeshifters, angels, vampires and dragons, but don’t you dare lie to me about search dogs!

So on a scale of:

4- keep it on the shelf and re-read

3- it took a week to read 

2- give it away

1- burn it

I give it a 2.5, because it took a week to read and I'll be sending it to the used book store. 

.

Blackjack

A strong name for a strong dog.  A dog that should have had his strength celebrated.  But he wasn't.  He was tied to a box at the back of the property.  The only reason I was there was someone in the family had finally stood up to the owner and said enough was enough.

People tell me that putting a beloved pet down must be the hardest part of my job. It's not.  It's the old dogs chained to a box at the back of the property, forgotten, except to have food thrown at him occasionally.  Those are the ones that hurt.

Last Friday was a miserable day.  Cold, raining and he was my last appointment of the day. As I pulled up to a neatly kept double wide, I scanned the yard for the dog.  Because I wasn't sure this was the right place.  Then I saw the box.  And the worn circle of dirt that was this dogs' existence for 16 years.  A circle of flooded mud, with a heavy chain staked in the middle.  The box a collapsing homemade affair of plywood.

I stomped up the stairs cursing the rain, angry that I had to do this.  The woman that opens the door tells me that her daughter, the one who finally made the appointment, wasn't here yet.  I didn't care, I was starting no matter what. 

The skies opened up as I was walking back to him.  And I started grousing to myself about how wet I was getting.  Suddenly, I realized it didn't matter.  If he could endure years of this, I could honor him by staying with him during these last moments of his life.  I could go home to dry off and get warm.  He never could.

He should have been wary. He should have been suspicious.  He should have been a resentful dog.  But, he wasn't.  

He hobbled over to greet me in the typical Lab fashion, on legs that were riddled with arthritis.  Backbone showing.  Eyes cloudy with age. And bumped my hand for a pet. 

I loaded up my syringe and unclipped his chain, a chain big enough to tow a car with, because he needed to be free one last time.  

It didn't take long, releasing him from his hell.  I stayed with him, whispering what a good dog he is, the best really.  Then the rain stopped and I went home.

Ode to a Bear Dog...or not

Pepsi the Bear Dog

      You never quite know what to expect when you pull up to a search.  All you know is there is someone lost in a vast expanse of forest, swamp, corn fields, mountains and other assorted terrain that normal people would take a picture of from their car.

     While training a SAR dog you’ve got to think outside the box when training so your dog can handle all the weird stuff that is thrown at her.  Dogs coming into your territory, bears chasing you out, deer running across her line of sight.

      A couple of evenings ago, training took an interesting turn.  As I was heading into the woods with Kell, my neighbor popped out to say that their bear dog slipped her collar and was doing her thing in the National Forest.  The dog is a sweetheart, so I thought this would be a good experience for Kell.  The distraction of a bear dog hunting up a bear.

     Oh, did I say that just a week ago I had two adult bears ambling through the pasture on an evening stroll, the neighbors have had their dumpster dumped and they’ve caught several of them on their trail cams.  And there have been plenty of sign telling me the bears are sticking around, torn open dead snags and bear poop.  Lots and lots of bear poop.

Hungry Bear

     So, I was okay with another dog running interference for me and mine since there was a very good chance we could run into Mr. Bruin.

Kell did her thing, found her sock with no problem. Then Pepsi did hers.  She dropped a spell over the two of us as we listened her baying on a scent high on the ridge to our south.   Kell and I stopped for a minute to listen to her and I think we both were a little in awe of the pure instinct that Pepsi gave voice to. I did wonder a little what Kell was thinking when she heard that.  Wishing she could follow or thankful she had a warm bed to sleep on every night? A little shiver of excitement or dread, I’m not sure, traveled down my spine. But, we continued down the trail back to the house.

Then Pepsi popped up in front of us, and I almost added to the bear scat found on the trail.  Because all I could think was she chased the bear back around us and we were walking straight into a very pissed off momma bear and her cubs.

Moral of the story?  It’s nice to have a bear dog clear the way in front of you, but it’s not good for your heart or your underwear when they end up behind you.

PS:  When out, later, on a ride on my horse, we scared up that momma bear and her twins.  Interesting ride after that.

No bears for me

Don't Be Fooled

It was one of those spring evenings that you dream about.  Cool breeze, low humidity and plenty of hours of day light after work.

Kell is insanely active dog. Always busy and looking for things to get into. Whether it is rounding up all the shoes not guarded by doors and baby gates, running down marks a 100 yards out in the field, following the horse on trail rides or hunting down my team mate that always seems to get lost (I always wonder what she thinks every time she finds Dan).

And this evening was scheduled for SAR training at a friend's farm. I wanted to try something different with her.  Teach her to use her nose every way she can, whether it be air scenting or tracking.  The hay field hadn't been mowed yet but there were paths knocked down that were only a third as high as the grass that was going to go to hay.

My plan was to have her find the article the subject left then see if she would track the subject along the mowed path or air scent through the unmowed grass.

She took the hard way.  Air scenting through the waist high grass.

That's were I was fooled.

It was only a 20 minute problem, with a fit dog on a cool spring evening.

She over heated.  To the point that she wouldn't give me her indication.  She had the classic "I'm too hot grimace", lips pulled back as far they could go, eyes squinting, thick tongue, the works.

It took almost 15 minutes under the cedar trees with judicious amounts of water poured on the pads of her feet and turning the dirt under chest into mud.

Kell needs to learn to pace herself.  But, I, as her handler, need to know how to keep her safe from herself while she learns that pace.

Lesson learned?  Tall grass is hard to work through and carry twice as much water as you think you need.  Even if it is only a 20 minute task, it could be the difference between life and death.

Where upon a SAR dog handler got bored

I’ve been a canine search and rescue dog handler for close to 20 years now (good God!! Has it really been that long?). Six dogs through state certification, without a wash out. So, I’ve either been very, very lucky or had good dogs. Or maybe a little bit of both, with great team mates to train with.

I finished off Tally in HRD, she's my 3rd HRD dog,  and thought, “Now what?” I was bored. Training became boring, throw some source out, feed the dogs when they find it. I felt like Fred, the Dunkin Donut baker, “time to make the doughnuts”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2AGc70Eq9k

Finn, my first real search dog, half of my heart, the dog that I did everything with and he always asked to do more,  had also started his final decline during this time.

A text would come through announcing a search. Live find, HRD whatever, I resented being called out. A sabbatical was becoming more and more promising.

This past April 1st, I posted on Facebook that I was retiring from SAR.  No one took me seriously, but most didn't know how close it was to being true.  I was tired.

Then this thing happened:

Glendair's Celtic Kestral, from my Tally

From the first she ran through life at mach speed.  Nothing and no one got in her way.  If there wasn't door to go through to get to the other side, she made her own.  Or even if there was a door, she liked to make her own.

That's 1/4 inch reinforced glass, with pieces of glass that landed 3 feet out in front of where it was supposed to be.  She didn't die, she didn't break her neck or fracture her skull.  Just two small lacerations for her trouble.  The local TV station was there that day, doing a story on us.  Thank god, they weren't recording...I'm not sure I would want to hear what I actually yelled, after the sonic boom of her head shattering the glass cleared from my ears.

The next week she considered jumping off of a 12 foot high concrete wall to a concrete slab below.

Climbing the pile at 16 weeks

I got health insurance on her the following week.

She helped me rediscover why I started this obsession in the first place.  The joy of getting into the forest, following her as she explores the scent on the air.   With her help, feeling the direction of the wind current (no puffer bottle needed, just the nose twitch that says the current has changed). Learning to understand what her body language was telling me. The concentration in her face as she tries to figure out where that scent went when she dips into the drainage and it floats over her head. Following her as she quarters through the scent cone and watching that cone get smaller and smaller the closer she gets to the subject.

The shear joy as her body starts to wiggle from nose to tail when she's in the strongest scent pool and knows she's about pounce on her subject.

Then trying to think of situations that might confuse her, so she learns how to problem solve.  And watching that brain work as she conquers each goal.  She keeps me on my toes, and figures things out before I even know what goal we are working for that day.

I hope you never get lost. But if you do, this is what you might see just before your human rescuers get to you.

I hope I get to see this for many years to come:

     Too Soon

     He was magnificent. Big, beautiful, bold, and ball crazy.  He answered the call through cold and wet and muck and mountain laurel and dark.  He was able to bring two people home in his career. And he was only 8 years old when it all came to a crashing end.

     He was not the most social of dogs, Chessie’s rarely are. They like their person and not much else. He liked to wreak havoc in his world.  Stirring up trouble everywhere he could, mainly because he was bored when he wasn’t searching. So when not searching, he appointed himself the job title of “pot stirrer”.  He had his job, and get out his way when he was working. Self-appointed job or out in the search field.

     He ended up with his handler (who was a pointy eared dog lover from way back) after basically being dropped on her door step as a puppy.  He was suffering from puppy strangles and looked like he was at deaths door. His face and muzzle swollen to two or three times its normal size.  Gobs of green pus rolling out of his eyes.  And skin lesions everywhere. A little prednisone, some antibiotics, and a tincture of time, viola, a Malinois in a floppy eared body.

     He was a thing of beauty when he was in his search harness. He cleared logs with wings on his feet; crashed through underbrush, ripping hide from his side with nary a sound; climbed mountains with springs in his legs; and danced across rubble like it was a ballroom. All the while not so patiently waiting for his handler to catch up with him. But that’s the case for most of our search dogs.

     His career was cut short by a horrible disease called Degenerative Myopathy. It is a disease that is as cruel as it is devastating. His mind still sharp, but his rear end quit working. He was supposed to be able to retire when it was time and enjoy a well-earned rest.  But, maybe, just maybe, that would have been shear torture for him, not being able to work.

    

     It was a beautiful sunny and cool morning. We followed an easy path, one that wouldn’t tie up his barely functioning rear legs in knots.  Put his harness on, with the bell. And he changed from an old tired dog that didn’t understand what was happening to his body into one that we remembered from before.  His nose in the air seeking that scent, ranging far and an extra spring in his step that we hadn’t seen in a long time.

     He found his last person, then left us in the arms of his handler, crunching on his favorite ball and talking smack.

     There will never be another one quite like him. 

Uzi, you son of a bitch, you will be missed.

It's just a dog

Except when he isn't. Just a dog. 

Trapper was an elkhound shepherd mix with a little West Virginia Mountain Walkin’ dog mixed in. Nothing special, no titles earned, no tricks learned, no search and rescue finds.  Just loved and adored by his family. 

The first year of his life was a horrible mixture of abuse (outright- being kicked while chained) and neglect (no food or water or shelter).  But, somehow, he kept a flame of self-respect and pride burning.

That flame was covertly and sometime not covertly fed by his neighbors.  During his first winter, the son would sneak over before the school bus came, and tuck him under his coat to warm him.  The father started checking on him to make sure he had food and water. And once stopped the owner during a “training session” that seemed nothing more than a kick the dog festival. The family dog, a Golden Retriever, would go and play with him.

Then the family moved away and left Trapper behind, tied to his box. It was probably the best day of Trapper’s life, being left like that.  The neighbors took Trapper in, not realizing what was ahead of them. He was a difficult dog to get to know and a difficult dog to accept.  He growled at everyone. He wouldn’t go in the beautiful dog house they got for him; he’d rather pee on it and sit on top of it. And he wouldn’t come in their house.  So rather than make him, they accommodated him. They put a strong roof over his pen to keep the snow out in the winter, rain out in the spring and the hot sun in the summer.  During the winter, the walls were stacks of bales of straw covered with ply wood.  In the summer, it was just plywood, used to keep the wind out.  It took three years to teach him to accept a dog house and they did it once piece at a time.  The floor first, a couple of walls at a time and finally the roof.

He couldn’t trust this wonderful family at first, he didn’t know how to, he was never taught that humans can be more than a source of pain.  But, I am sure he remembered a little of what they did for him.  Because with patience and kindness and a lot of time, they won him over.  They allowed him to be the dog he wanted to be, not a fenced, leash walked city dog.  But rather confident unconfined protector of his domain.  He would have been euthanized long before now for biting, or killing small pets, if someone tried to turn him into a city dog.

But his confidence shown through.  He was never argumentative, or acted like he had a chip on his shoulder.  You just couldn't make him do anything, unless he thought it was his idea first.  Even to the end of his life, he didn't trust humans to make any decisions for him.

And that’s why his owners called me. Cars were never going to be his idea of a good time, and he wasn't getting in one.

I only got to meet Trapper three times, all within the last 10 days of his life.  But, for some reason, he struck a chord so very deep in me that I mourn for him almost as much as one of my own.  I don’t know why he made such an impression on me but he did.  And I guess I just need to accept it.

He was hiding under a lilac bush the first time I came to his house.  His owner and I pulled the big branches out of the way, and I politely asked if he would come out and let me take a look at him.  He laid there for a moment, thinking that proposition, and me, over.  And decided he would allow me to take a look at him.  I think that was the moment I fell in love with him.  The utter dignity and strength, even as sick as he was, was evident. 

Unfortunately, there wasn't anything we could do for him.  That’s wrong.  There was a lot we could do for him, but he told me in no uncertain terms that it wasn't going to happen to him.

I saw him my third and last time last night, under the faint glow of a flash light in the field of his choosing and lying next to his devoted dad, asking as only he could, to be allowed to pass with the dignity he’s earned. 

And I helped him the only way that was left.

Good night, Trapper.  I feel lucky to have known you, even if it was only 10 short days.