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By Jay King
HOMETOWN NEWS
When most people think of service dogs, they tend to either think of guide dogs who help the blind or police canines who search for drugs or fugitives, but there is another class of service dogs who perform an equally vital role but who generally remain in the background.
It will likely come as a surprise to area residents that the home of the South Carolina Search and rescue Dog Association (SCSARDA) is based right here in Spartanburg County, and for the past week the association has played host to an advanced training seminar that drew teams from all over the country.
According to Maria Claxton, SCSARDA president, it has been a major coup for the relatively young association to sponsor an event of this caliber and attracting internationally recognized trainers and teams from across the country to South Carolina.
“This is a big deal for us,” Claxton said. “These instructors are some of the best in the country.”
Claxton explained that the all-volunteer association is made up of dedicated handlers who devote a great deal of time and financial resources to be part of the relatively small but tight-knit world of search and rescue dogs and that the South Carolina team strives always to be professional and rigorous in its standards.
Misha Marshall, the association’s secretary and one of the team’s experienced active handlers, explained that to become a search and rescue dog handler requires a minimum of two years of training and a considerable investment in time each week to ensure that training remains fresh for both the dog and the handler.
A tax accountant by profession, Marshall became involved in the search and rescue dog scene in 2005 when she and her husband, Chuck, moved to the area from Washington, D.C. after Chuck retired from emergency medical services. Marshall had always loved dogs and wanted to do something with dogs but something that would enable her to serve the community. A search on the internet led her to SCSARDA.
Marshall outlined the extensive training both the dog and the handler must complete before becoming active on the team, training that includes survival and first aid skills as well as tracking strategies and other search and rescue techniques. Beyond that training, each handler and dog must be certified.
She said the team is very close-knit and works well together in a professional manner that never loses sight of why they exist and why they train so hard and so often.
“It is very rewarding,” Marshall said. “It’s not about playing with our dogs, it’s about some day saving a life. There are no egos involved – it’s not about you and the dog.”
She explained that the team deploys four to five dogs every time they are called in to help, which happens on average about 25-30 times a year. The last major search the team was involved in was the search for missing toddler William Eschenbach, a search that tragically ended when the boy’s body was found submerged in a river roughly a mile from his home in southern Spartanburg County
Marshall explained that in cases like the search for young William, time is of the essence and getting the search teams in the field as quickly as possible increases the chances for a successful search. She said six dogs were deployed for the search for the toddler and all led searchers to the river with one animal jumping into the water.
As stressful and tense as a search may be, Marshall said it is important for the handlers to maintain a positive attitude and continue to encourage the dogs in their efforts. Otherwise, a handler’s apprehension or negative attitude is picked up on by the dog.
“We have a saying that it goes down the leash,” Marshall explained. ‘I don’t care if it’s been two hours or four days, you have to maintain a positive attitude.”
Search and rescue dogs are not all the same, but the one common aspect of their job is that they are scent discriminatory. Because dogs have such a vastly superior sense of smell to humans they have the ability to track based on the smell of the missing person. Search and rescue dogs search either by following a scent trail left by a missing person or by methodically scouring a designated stretch of real estate in what is known as an area search. Both types of dogs are usually deployed to search for missing persons.
The other major type of search dog and the one to which last week’s training was directed is the cadaver dog. As the name suggests, these dogs are trained to zero in on human remains. Marshall explains that, unfortunately, the team’s calls consist of equal measures of searches for missing but living people as well as searches for bodies.
Because of the nature of the emotionally charged circumstances in which the team’s dogs and handlers frequently find themselves, Marshall said it is vital that the team members conduct themselves in a professional and often discrete manner. For a distraught family waiting for news of a missing loved one, teams have to keep in mind what their actions will look like to the family. She added that often teams will remain in the field even after it has become obvious that further searching will be fruitless. To pack up the dogs would signal to the family that searchers had given up hope.
South Carolina’s search and rescue team has 15 dogs and handlers, 14 of which are operational. Marshall said that the team has doubled in size in a year and is united by the sense that it is providing an invaluable service to the community and one for which the members prefer the satisfaction of a successful search to public kudos and news stories.
“You feel like you’re not just helping the community, you’re part of a team that looks out for each other,” she said.
The SC Search and Rescue Dog Association is a registered non-profit. To contribute to the association or to learn more about its work, visit the team’s website at www.scsarda.org.
jking@hometown-news.com
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