Why do you do SAR?

This is meant to be an interactive, get to know you kinda blog.

It's kinda funny, the idea sprang from someone's misconception on my motives behind SAR, but then I posted a short statement on Facebook and got some interesting replies. So interesting that I thought it deserved more attention. So many of my friends, even if they are only FB friends do this endeavor we call SAR. I think it is a good thing to share....it reminds me of the human element of this, our inner feelings, motivations, and the overall ability of mankind to be good, honorable, kind, altruistic...........in a time when the world seems to be much less kind than it was when I was growing up as a kid.

So I wrote a very very short version on FB. Here is an extended version and some additional experiences. I encourage you to write yours below in the comments or even better on FB if you have not already. It is a chance for all of us to get to know each other better and understand that very human side of each of us that is good and kind.

In 1998 I was living in Dallas with my ex-wife. One night we were watching the 10pm news. The news cut to a segment about a little girl who was missing. In the clip they showed search dogs (german shepherds) searching for her. She and her little brother had been abducted by their mother's live-in boyfriend. He had stripped her little brother naked and left him to die in a cemetery. Authorities found him alive but hypothermic. The little girl however, was found the next day murdered, having been raped and dumped in the river. It was tragic, .......made me sick to my stomach..........I still cannot understand why or how someone can do that to a child..........

My ex began telling me I could do this. I could train dogs for this. After all, I had been training dogs since I was 8 years old when I trained my first obedience dog. I taught obedience classes for my vet and Petco. I had done the majority of the work for my parents kennel as neither of them had any patience at all and as I grew up with the dogs as my playmates and siblings, I learned not only from experts in obedience, schutzhund, confirmation, etc. I also learned from interacting and watching the dogs. My breed of choice was of course then GSD's and after I had graduated from college and settled into adult life, I went in search of a good GSD to start my own kennel with the thoughts of obedience and agility competitions. Instead, I got into therapy dogs......but again, that is another blog.

I then owned a very nice young male who was out of good bloodlines and was one of the best males I had ever had. He was sound, had great nerve strength, was benevolent, and loved to play fetch. For our wedding gift my mom had given me a bitch from a nice kennel in TN and I planned to raise pups out of them eventually for competition.

I was in the process of getting ready to move to College Station so my ex could go to college for meteorology and so, while it remained in the back of my mind, I did not pursue SAR in Dallas. I also decided after doing a little bit of reading, at 4 years old, my boy was too old to start, so I would have to wait for a puppy. I decided I would look into it after we moved which we did in the fall of 99.

In the spring of 2000, we had our litter of pups. I picked out a couple I liked and we planned to start with a local team we had met at the annual Texas A&M Vet School Open House. They recommended we start the pups around 12 wks, so that was our plan.

As it happened it was just me. We separated and divorced that year after she ran off with the fed ex man. (not another blog. LOL). So, I began training my Allie pup in the fall of 2000 and the rest as they say is history.

About 5 years into SAR, I worked an hr search for a missing young lady. The family was on scene and were not secured from the searchers. At the end of the day, as we prepared to go home, the mother of the missing girl came up and asked to pet the dogs. We of course obliged. This was the first time we had come face to face with the family. We all felt a little awkward. Then the mom started hugging each of us. Through tears she said, "Thank you for coming and looking for my daughter, it made me know that she still matters". We all choked back the tears ourselves, but the reality of what we did had truly slapped us all in the face. Before then it was training aids and odor.......now it was a real human being.......someone's family, child......baby.

Through the years, there have been moments that I considered quiting due to all the politics that go on in the SAR world......but then there were moments like above which reminded me why I chose to continue. It made the work meaningful to me. In the beginning I did it because I was motivated from an indecent I had seen on TV. I continued because the glaring truth of the pain the families with missing loved ones go through slaps you in the face and you realize that through our efforts, even if we find nothing, sometimes our presence alone can numb some of that pain and offer comfort that someone is trying to find their loved ones. The few times you can give closure to a family, you feel your humanity the deepest and it is profound, painful yet comforting ..........to know what you did made a difference for someone. That you brought them home to their family.

I always say that the live find dogs get all the glory and rightfully so. They saved someone's life and it is an awesome thing. They are hero's as are their handlers, but never underestimate the gift given by a cadaver dog to a grieving family. It allows them closure so they can go on with their lives and in doing so may actually save their lives as well. Grief can be a heavy burden to carry..........



And so you begin your journey for one reason or another....and you continue it year after year, through heat and cold, good times and bad, politics and irritation for reasons that become even more meaningful with time to the soul......

I once heard at a NASAR conference that the average lifespan of a K9 SAR Handler is 3 years.................really? 3 years? Thats all? That is not even long enough to get your feet wet. I wonder why those people quit. Was it not what they expected? too hard? cost too much? too much work? not the glory they were thinking?.........What do you think?


I am now at 11 years and while I know more than some, I know less than others. I have been ever so lucky in my short career thus far to have had some awesome mentors who I have the utmost respect for. SAR is a continuum, a dynamic process of learning that never ends............and those moments when the politics get too much, I remind myself of the moments like the one above and WHY I do this comes flooding back and wipes away all the anger and frustration from the part that means so little (politics).


It is not for fame. It is not for glory. It is because it is my way of giving back, helping someone in need, giving a family closure..........and that is why I do this.


How bout you?

My first SAR Dog

We write to express ourselves, we write to remember…….

Saying goodbye is not an easy thing. So why write down the memories happening when one has to say goodbye to a being that is so much a part of one’s heart? Why intensify, record the pain? Because wrapped within the sorrows of saying goodbye are the memories of that being’s life. Good memories, funny memories, heart-felt moments, lessons learned and happy times……memories we do not wish to forget and so……………..we write to remember.

Your first sar dog …………they are the teachers. They bear the brunt of our youth, our naïvetés, our infantile handler hands. They must be selected by God himself to bear out our mistakes with kind hearts and willing minds……….and show us the way……….light our path for dogs to come. It is those first dogs that shape who you become as a handler no matter how short or long their careers. They hold an immense task wielded them by the powers that be to make a SAR dog trainer out of us, not just a mere handler. God bless the first dogs…………they have courage and heart and strength that mere pets lack, even those who fail to become SAR dogs……..in their attempts……….in our attempts to force them to be something they are not they accomplish their task……….TO TEACH US……it is our simple task only to listen. We simple minded humans whose egos often are larger than our knowledge, who believe we are the masters………yet we are simply the conduits for their service and for their successors to come.

Your first SAR dog may be anywhere on the continuity of quality. It may be the super dog, who needs you only to follow and learn. It may be the mediocre dog who teaches you to be a good trainer, not just a handler, or it may be the dog never intended to do this job who teaches you humility and purpose, who challenges your integrity to strive for nobler goals.

Those few handlers who rise to the challenge to be trainers, learn from those super dogs, that in choosing the right dog, there is little the handler must do besides light the path, hold on to the leash, and reward the dog. They learn from the mediocre dogs that focus, reward systems, and timing are keys to turning a mediocre dog into a great dog. These dogs are indeed not mediocre, but they require a steady hand to focus their drive, channel their energy, establish their reward system and the wisdom to know those right moments to reinforce…….timing………..they make trainers out of us………and then there is the one that should never have been chosen to begin with………they force us to face our own egos, they force us to make choices and do the right thing and wash them from training………..they make us choose integrity. Which dog you get……….imho……depends on a little luck and which dog you need………….and sometimes……..you get a little of all three lessons in one dog because that is what you need.

Allie was born into my life at the end of one era and she lead me through the darkness into another. She laid on my chest at 5 wks of age as I mourned the death of my marriage and dealt with a painful divorce. I know, we men are supposed to be rocks, right?.....…She would lick the tears from my face and did not seem to mind that I laid on the couch for hours with her too depressed to do much of anything. But her presence forced me to carry on, to care for her. I HAD to get up and take care of her and her 5 brothers and sisters. She and her siblings gave me a reason to get out of bed and continue putting one foot in front of the other till I could do so on my own.

When Allie was 3 mos. of age I checked out a local search and rescue team. It all sounded good and I needed something to focus my energy and mind on, so I joined the team. Unbeknownst to me this would began a chapter of my life that would not only change my direction but would become the passion that drove me forward in both my personal and professional worlds. It is to Allie that I owe so much of who I am now.

After doing SAR training for a year and a half, I QUIT the team I was on and vowed to leave the SAR world behind. I had been involved in the “dog world” in some respects since I was 8 years old when I trained my first obedience dogs, and I had never met a more petty group of “dog” people than those who were on that team (we didn’t do any outside training and I had not met ANY outside members of SAR, so that was my entire impression). Let’s just say my first jaunt in the SAR world was far from a good experience and we will leave it at that.

I sat it out for the summer while Allie slowly drove me crazy at home. Her energy was more than I could stand and after a while I contacted a couple of friends who I trained dogs with and asked them if they would like to continue this SAR dog training? They said yes, and from it Cen-Tex SAR was born. Allie was the genesis of the team and to whom we owe a great thanks for it’s being. She was in her own ways a super star and her heart is as big as Texas. She certified as a therapy dog early on and loved people. She loved demo’s and as the crowd cheered she would become excited and bark in anticipation of the run! She eventually taught us all to loose our self in the reward………..that squeeling like children and cheering was ok if the dog liked it, and she loved it. 

And I learned so much………..I learned I wasn’t as good of a trainer as I thought I was. I learned that the old way of obedience training was not consistent with an independent working dog. I was too hard on her, insisting she obey no matter what, making her more compliant to me than to her victim. In doing so I crushed some of her spirit, and I learned the hard way from my mistakes. I learned to read my dog………I learned that I COULD call my dog off a victim, but if I did, she would not range but rather walk behind me obediently but as if to say, “you’re an idiot, do you have the nose?” The moment I would turn back to the direction from where we had come she would range again and go into her victim. I learned to keep my mouth shut and watch my dog and LET THEM WORK, to quit controlling their every move and guide their every step. I learned my role as the handler is to get them there and read the map, otherwise shut up and let them work. I learned………….

In her short career she obtained a national certification for area search and located a drowning victim on an east Texas lake, and she taught me so many important things for the dogs to come. She taught me humility and integrity. She had been a light for me in the darkest of times and led me to a place where I found friends and comrades and a sense of purpose to my life. Allie is my hero and she always will be no matter how short her career. She did a fine job of raising me and that was no easy job.

There were many laughs along the way. Her teammates learned to NEVER get ahead of the handler in training because she would do her jump alert to whoever was out in front of the pack. Many times she aimed low and put me on the ground. I learned early on to turn sideways and offer her my hip as to avoid such painful and embarrassing moments as such. Unwary teammates or newbies however were not spared at least one good pounding. No matter it was always followed with a “show me” and she would run bounding back to her victim. She loved to be held as she was as a baby and would solicit me picking her up and cradling her in my arms like a baby. Much to everyone’s laughter once she reached 70 lbs. She loved boat work and would start me down the road of developing a good water team. She made friends wherever she went, and in doing so, brought me along for the ride, teaching me to step out of my shell and live again. 

My first lesson in integrity was hard to swallow. It came on a bright, clear, sunny early April Day. She did not range well, she acted fatigued early in the work and though she found her victim, there was slowness in her step and a hesitancy that was unacceptable. Much to my entire team’s shock, I retired her from area search on the spot that day. In my mind all it would take was her to have one bad day on the WRONG day. My conscious would not allow me to field a dog, no matter how good she had done in the past, that was beginning to falter. I would not place that burden on my teammates, and I owed the victim she might be looking for and their family more. My first lesson in integrity had taken place. 

We continued to work HR for another year, but her little brother Pete had now taken over as the teacher. He was teaching me all the things a dog could be when everything comes together as it should and when you choose to teach with kindness instead of force.

My second lesson in integrity would take place at a NASAR HRD test. I had passed one section and mistakenly been sent to work in a negative area between areas (before the blank was part of the regular test). The more I tried to make her work, the more she shut down. By the time the evaluator figured out what was going on poor Allie was heeling next to me unwilling to range at all. I should have known she was trying to tell me there was nothing there.

We rested and then moved into the “right” area. She ranged, I read her, she caught something, I read her, she went right to it, I read her, I saw it, she saw it, then she walked off. I went with her, we gridded back by it, she looked at it, she went to the tree, then she walked off. Her trained alert was a bark. She refused. She nosed, she starred, she stood but bark she would not. I called the test……………No, I did not stick a flag in the area and tell my evaluator some lame excuse about why my dog located but did not indicate. I failed myself, I pulled my dog and in that moment, I retired her from all SAR work. Her job was done……..integrity lesson number 2. My evaluator thought I was nuts………..they were not accustomed to having someone say, “if she won’t tell me here, how can I trust her to tell me in the “real world”. We are done.” 

And so it was that our career as a SAR team came to a close. For a long while it felt as if I had gone through another divorce of sorts, I had lost my working partner who had become such a big part of my daily life……….but what was clear was that she was telling me she no longer wanted to do the job and I listened no matter how painful it was to my pride and in that the two of us have peace.

She has lived out her remaining years as a normal pet dog………running and playing in the backyard. No obedience, no requirements, no trainings to attend……..just relax under a big shade tree and chase the squirrels……… She taught me so much, and if I had it to go back and do all over again, I would. I learned so much I needed to know, I am not sure I would change my lessons. Perhaps I would change the way I did her obedience. She had good drive but was a soft gentle dog. With kinder obedience training her career might have been much longer and more successful. In the end however, the lessons I believe she was sent to teach me were lessons I needed most desperately to learn.

As she lay by my feet this afternoon, I know we are sharing some of our last moments together. Her body is weak now and though her heart is still strong, our time is drawing to a close. I know I will have to make that hard decision for her soon. Her heart is too big to quit………..and so I watch and wait for a sign that tells me it is time. That to go on is too hard for her…………and while I do, I remember all the times we have shared and tell myself I must for her be strong and do what is right ………..as she has taught me all along to do.

I write to remember……………as she shall always have a place in my heart that no other can fill, she was, is, and always will be, my first SAR dog.