In July 2010 it came to the attention of the team that there was missing woman from Herkimer who has been missing since Aug 2009.
We were requested by the family to help look for their missing sister, Lisa. This became a joint effort between Eagle Valley Search Dogs and New Jersey Search and Rescue.
The search date was set for Aug 28th. Karen Pardini and I arrive the day before to meet with the family and discuss some strategies and walk the area of PLS (point last seen).
Saturday morning all dogs and teams arrive at staging, are given assignments and off they go. There are three teams in the field, I stay back with Scout until needed and Karen stays to run communications.
Approximately three hours later Karen gets a radio communication from Task 3 which is Sue Lavoie and her dog Summer along with Bob Langendoen both from New Jersey Search and Rescue, they will notify Karen via land line.
The call comes and Karen gives a thumb up. Sue Lavoie and her dog Summer have made the find, this is what we train for!
I contact the State Police and the family. They have been waiting for a year living with interrupted grieving, now they can go forward and have closure. The family arrives. It’s a bitter-sweet emotional moment for everyone. This “cold case” comes alive, Lisa Bowolak is no longer just a name and a picture stapled to a telephone pole. She is a woman with family, friends, and ties to a community.
Congratulations to Sue Lavoie and her dog Summer and to all that participated.
Four of us decided to celebrate the new year with a weekend of training. Katie Danzig, Karen Pardini, and Sarah Sherburne spent the better part of Saturday and Sunday, January 2nd and 3rd, with me at the Family Foundation School, along with all of our dogs: Abby and Raven, Ripley, Scout, Katya and Suki. Oh, and don’t forget Lily, our beagle. She’s not part of the team but she keeps the other, bigger dogs in line. We also watched Buddy Meyer’s dog, Max, for the weekend. Altogether that’s eight dogs, four handlers and one husband, mine–Sid Parham.
Truth be told, much of the weekend went to dog walking and dog obedience. With three German shepherds, two Dobermans, and Mallanios there were lots of little ranking issues to deal with; but nothing a five-minute down stay couldn’t handle.
Karen rewards Suki after she makes a building find
Abby and Raven squabbled just like the two sisters they are. They also have a wonderful time playing with each other. But there were a few times when their exuberance got out of hand so we cooled things down with a few time-outs. I don’t think there was a single second of actual canine aggression. But SAR dog handlers need to respect the sensibilities of the average person. Civilians are put off by dogs growling at each other–even when it’s perfectly normal doggy communication.
Lily’s little and it’s a good thing. If she weighs much of the shepherds she’d be the alpha bitch. As it was we caught her trying to dominate the Mallanios, Max. I can’t figure out any G-Rated way to explain what she was doing to him.
The new year brought our first serious winter weather. Snow on the ground. Snow falling. Bitterly cold temperatures with a significant wind chill. Large area search problems were out of the question. So we decided to focus on snow burial, HRD, and a little navigation.
Matt dressed for the weather
Two students from the Family Foundation School, Jens and Matt, prepared the sites for the snow burial problems and acted as subjects. They had a ball playing in the snow. Our two youngest dogs Abby and Raven, had no difficulty finding them.
Jens after a hard day in the snow
We spent the rest of the weekend indoors as much as possible using an unfinished building to train in human remains detection.
Katie and Karen took lots of pictures. Here’s a great sequence of Abby doing her first Snow burial.
Wednesday, August 26th 2009 we responded to Knight’s Eddy, NY to help locate drowning victim HIN HON SIU, age 36, of Jamaica, New York. He had drowned on Sunday, August 23rd. He had been rafting with three friends near the Staircase Rapids when his raft overturned and he did not resurface. Rain has swollen the river on the 23rd making the rapids more dangerous than usual and hampering rescue efforts for the next two days. U.S. Parks Department Officers called me late Tuesday morning and we made arrangements for the next day.
Wednesday was the first day that the river was calm enough to search effectively with divers. The dogs were tasked to search just below the point last seen. If they could pinpoint an area, they could reduce the amount of river bottom that divers needed to search. Three teams from Eagle Valley were deployed: Findling and Stryder, Pardini and Suki, Warren and Quax. A fourth team was deployed from Ramapo Search and Rescue Dogs. All four teams completed their assignments and reported the dogs were alerting in a single area just below the point last seen (PLS). Divers were sent to search that area.
Meanwhile, I put together a second round of assignments. The trickiest part of searching the river is getting the dogs and boats to the places that need to be searched. I enlisted the help of a Pennsylvania Environmental Conservation Officer whose name I can’t remember who has lived his entire life in the area and knew every road, trail and boat landing.
Local Guide and EVDOGS Handler Liz Dalton
Amir Findling came prepared with a complete set of maps for the river from the point where the boat capsized down to Port Jervis. We both thought it likely that the body had already resurfaced and traveled beyond where the main search effort was focused. After sinking to the bottom for a period of time, drowning victims resurface. When they resurface depends upon several factors including the water temperature. The warmer the water, the sooner the victim surfaces. We were looking at a three day interval in August. If the body hadn’t become stuck, wedged in between rocks or debris, it very likely had already surfaced.
We planned to search at least 6 miles from the point last seen. This was both our experience with fast moving water, and was also indicated in Bob Koester’s Lost Person Behavior. 95% of drowning victims on rivers were located within 8 miles of the pls. If I had had more dogs, I would have extended the search area out the full 8 miles. We had three other dogs teams that hadn’t been deployed yet, me and Ripley, Katie Danzig and Scout, and Dick Szczesh and K-9 Buddy from Amigo Search and Rescue Dogs. The three teams that had been out in the morning were also ready for a second assignment. The plan was to search high probability areas–places where a floating body might get stuck on shore or in strainers along the river bank.
Amir came prepared with arial photos of the river
Just as we were getting ready to deploy the second round, a kayaking found him washed up on shore. He was found where we planned to deploy one of our teams–5.6 mile from the PLS, near an access point my guide had identified. I was glad the victim had been found. Diving is always dangerous. Having recently completed a course in lost person behavior, I was also gratified that we’d come up with a good plan.
Delaware River from PLS to where subject was found
What about the dogs who alerted earlier near the point last seen? Divers recovered a shoe positively identified as belonging to the victim exactly where the Ramapo dog indicated. Most likely the dogs were alerting on the shoe and possibly other items belonging to the subject. It is also likely they were alerting on the residual scent left by victim who had been in that spot for at least a day, probably two. Its likely he was under the water Monday and most of Tuesday. Once he had surfaced the journey downstream would not have taken long. His final location was out in the open, clearly visible to any river traffic. I had been on the shore since early that morning. There was no recreational traffic early in the morning. The first rafters started passing our location at Knights Eddy just an hour or so before he was located. The victim was probably seen by the very first kyacker that went past him that day.
K-9 Scout and handler Katie Danzig passed the requirements for Basic Cadaver certification at this year’s International Police Work Dog Association Annual Trials held in Fayetteville, North Carolina and hosted by the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office. This is the second independent agency that has certified Scout in Human Remains Detection. K-9 Scout and Katie Danzig were certified through the Eastern Police Dog Association in June.
The following is a post Kate Danzig wrote in May. A cautionary “tail” about trusting your dog…
I had been waiting for this day for a very long time and it was finally here,test day. I was ready, but better yet Scout was ready.
Coonhounds are referred to as independent hunters and Scout is just that, independent hunter. I rarely get those looks from him asking me for help. Matter of fact I don’t think I’ve ever been asked. So on that Thursday when asked by the IPWADA tester, Deb Palman, to see him work prior to testing,work he did. It was flawless. I was filled with confidence for the actual test on Friday.
It’s time, we drive up to a meadow, I park my truck and I get Scout out of the back. I walk about 100 yards up to the meadow from the road and I ask him to go to work. He takes off in his usual style. A slow cantor and then he stops, I ask him to go to work again. Nothing. He just stands there staring at me. I can tell already this is not going to happen. I might as well have been asking him to knit a sweater. That look of, “You want me to do what?” After about forty minutes of pleading and prodding, I call the test. It’s hot and I know my dog. Something is bothering him. I say to myself maybe it’s the heat. First hot day and it’s to much for him. I’ll try again tomorrow.
Tomorrow is here. Back to the meadow, up the road, out of the truck, ask him to go to work. The same response. Again it’s hot, and again I know something is wrong. Is he responding to my now lack of confidence, or the heat? Does he have a headache? After about forty minutes I again ask to stop the test. It’s over. We didn’t do it but I will try again. Chalk this one up to a learning experience. I’m still confused.
It’s Sunday and I’m ready to go home. The team gets a call out for a missing person in Copake, NY. Off goes most of the team except for Rita,Sarah and myself. We stayed back due to some mechanical trouble with Rita’s truck.
Missing person is found, mechanical trouble is over and I’m on my way home calling my family to break the bad news about Scout not making the cut. There’s always next time.
It’s Monday. I’m home on Long Island and it’s morning. Busy getting kids to school, making lunches, packing school bags. Everyone is gone and it’s just me Scout and my little dog Holly. Take the dogs for a walk and when I get back everyone gets a treat. But they must sit first. Holly sits but Scout won’t. I ask again I get no response. Just a partial rear almost touching the ground.
I start to examine Scout’s hind quarter and there it is. The base of his tail is twice it’s normal size. Off to the Vet we go. After a brief exam it’s time for x-rays. It’s not the heat, it’s not my lack of confidence. It’s a compression fracture at the base of his tail.
I waited a very long time for test day and for awhile I never thought it would happen. All I know is he’s ready.
_________
Scout’s tail got better and he went back to work. Katie and Scout tested successfully with the Eastern Police Canine Association in June. Scout is now our team’s only single purpose, Human Remains Detector dog.
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