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.
May 26, 2010 10 AM: Today is test day at the Southern Tier Police Canine Association 2010 Police Cadaver Dog seminar. If we pass, Raven and Ripley will be certified Police Cadaver Dogs through the Eastern Police Canine Association. This is Ripley’s 5th time through the process. We re-certify every year. Raven, my 2-year-old, is taking the test for the first time. Several other dog teams are testing today as well including Dick Szczesh and Amanda Scarpato from Amigo Search and Rescue along with their golden retrievers Buddy and Libby.
We have trained and prepared for what is ahead. Still I feel pre-exam nerves. When I got up this morning, I thought “Why am I doing this? I took vacation days to torture myself. ” The truth is my idea of a good time involves putting myself to the test. My guts are roiling. Breathe…..4 counts in, hold for 4, 4 counts out, hold for 4…repeat.. OK. that’s a little better. Pre-frontal cortex is back in the driver’s seat. My reptile brain is still sending out waves of stress but now it feels more like excitement than panic.
4 PM. We made it through all the tests. Both dogs passed. In fact, they did great. Tests are usually set up so that an average dog on an average day has a good chance of passing. They aren’t supposed to be tricky. Still, the buried hide was interesting and allowed the girls to show off a little.
We had an acre area mixed wood and field with a substantial incline. The parking area was on the top. There was a small drainage on one side, and a road on the other. Grass turned to dirt at the bottom of the area.
Sun's energy creates scent cone in opposite direction from the prevailing wind
My plan had been to work from the stream toward the road using the wind. But as I walked toward the evaluator to explain the plan to him, Raven had a head pop. Scrapping the plan I had just outlined I let her go. The sun’s energy heated the dark road surface, pulling the cool air out of the copse of trees creating a little micro current opposite the direction of the wind and a beautiful scent cone for Raven to work. The problem took less than 3 minutes.
The day was miserably hot and humid. To spare the dogs we worked each dog through a single scenario before moving on to the next. The dogs had time to rest and cool off. But I found the waiting a challenge. My ability to channel stress diminishing with each trial. By the last test, the vehicle search, I was sending tension like an electric charge down the lead to Raven. It wasn’t terrible; we did fine, but Dan Wilcox noticed, and that was disappointing. My goal is to keep up appearances from start to finish. We are making progress. Five years ago, at my first EPCA trial, I looked like a wreck the entire time.
Dan Wilcox EPCA Judge Ripley indicating on buried training aid
The truth is I am confident and competent. I know how hard and how often we train. I am good at reading my dogs and I am accurate in my assessments–cataloging our strengths and weaknesses realistically. That is the image I want to present. At the therapeutic boarding school I work at, nobody confuses expressions of doubt with lack of competence. But when I am hanging out with cops, the rules are different. If I want them to see the truth, I need to lie. To present as the confident and competent person I am, I need to keep any and all misgivings to myself. More than anything, for me, taking these tests is my way of working on my persona as a dog handler. So I will go back next year and try again. Maybe mirrored shades will help…..
Rip and Raven are certified in Human remains detection by both civilian and law enforcement organizations. They re-certify every year.
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.
K-9s Ripley and Raven both got a chance to demonstrate their abilities at the International Police Work Dog Nationals in Fayetteville, NC. September 20-25, 2009. Raven certified as a cadaver dog at the basic level. This was Raven’s first certification. Ripley certified in article searching and in advanced cadaver. She had passed the basic cadaver certification in May of this year. Since 2006, Ripley has been certified in human remains detection each year by the Eastern Police Canine Association.
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