Yet ANOTHER story about us

[azsnowman]

can't stay buta second here, still trying to learn to type with one hand LOL!
AnYway, here's yet an other story about our K9 unit, we had NO IDEa that this article wasbeingdone!

dennis


Combined units rescue lost campers





By: Jo Baeza, The Independent 11/02/2004







WHITERIVER - Three people were rescued from rugged areas on the Fort Apache Reservation in two separate incidents this month.

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On Oct. 2 the White Mountain Apache Wildlife and Outdoor Recreation Division received a call from Gary Cornwall, the leader of a group of fishermen camping on Black River, that one of their group was missing.
Glenn Cromwell, acting chief ranger, said the group from the Valley went down to Black River to fish. They parked in George's Basin. From there it takes about an hour to hike down into Black River with camping gear.
One of the group, Paul Paulette, 40, of Mesa, fell behind the others. He met up with a group of four Marines that were off duty, and decided to follow them down into the canyon, as he thought they were going to the same camping area. The problem was, the Marines were going west and his group was going south.
He stayed well behind the Marines because they were shooting along the way. The Marines came to a steep dropoff and rappelled down the cliff. Paulette threw his camping gear over the cliff and eventually got to the bottom. By that time, he knew he was in the wrong place.
In the meantime, the camp leader of Paulette's group noticed he was missing. They waited for him a while. When he didn't show up, the leader hiked back up the trail to their vehicle thinking he might have gone back to it. It was getting dark, so he went back down to the camp to wait until daylight to look for Paulette.
Cromwell said, "The next morning, the camp leader came out and drove all the way back to Whiteriver to call Game and Fish. There are no towers down there, so cell phones don't work."
The dispatcher called the only two rangers on patrol, Cromwell and Lambert Crocker. Most of the game and fish staff were in elk camp acting as guides for the Trophy Elk Hunt.
The rangers contacted the White Mountain Apache Police Department's Apache K9 Unit, the Whiteriver Fire Department, and Gila County Sheriff's Department Search and Rescue Unit out of Payson. "We knew where he might be, and thought we might be doing a rope rescue," Cromwell said. "We thought he might be injured."
All the units set up a command post in George's Basin and began the search. Two dogs with the Apache K9 Unit picked up the lost man's scent, but by that time it was nearly dark.
"About 8 p.m. a sergeant from Gila County called the DPS chopper from Flagstaff by satellite phone," Cromwell said.
They sent the group leader back to his camp and he asked everybody to pack out.
The chopper arrived and within 20 minutes spotted the lost camper about two miles downriver from his group.
"We waited until morning to go in," Cromwell said. "Personnel from Whiteriver Fire Department, Gila County, and Game and Fish hiked down into the canyon about 7 a.m. and reached him about 8:30 a.m."
By the time they got back on top, it was about 11:30 a.m. Paulette was uninjured, and he drove back with others from his group.
On Monday, Oct. 4, tribal rangers received another emergency call at 9 a.m. from the leader of the Anasazi Camp, a Mesa-based outdoor behavioral Healthcare Program for youth 12-17. The group of approximately 20 was camped near Cibecue.
Cromwell said, "They told us two kids left camp in the night, and they didn't know where they went. They thought they were headed back to Mesa and got lost on the way." The runaways were 15-year-old boys from Texas and California.
Cromwell and Crocker left from Whiteriver as soon as they got the call. "It took us about two hours to get to Oak Creek Ranch," Cromwell said. "Navajo and Gila counties told us they couldn't help because it was a runaway situation."
Cromwell crossed the boys' tracks at a junction, and they decided to ask the Apache K9 Unit for help. Another ranger, Victor Larzelere, also came to help from Maverick Camp where he had been working on the elk hunt.
The dogs were tired and it was getting late, so they called for the DPS Helicopter. The chopper searched, but couldn't see anything. "The kids didn't want to be found. They were hiding," Cromwell said.
They called off the search until 8 a.m. the next morning. Cromwell took Dennis and Michelle Denton and two of their dogs in a 4-wheel drive pickup and headed out over rough, washed out roads in the direction they believed the boys were traveling. The dogs picked up their scent.
Cromwell said, "About 9:30 a.m. we were driving along the ridge. I spotted two kids heading north. They started running. Victor started running after them." Larzelere caught one of the boys and put him in his truck, but the other one got away.
The chopper was making sweeps, then went back to Flagstaff to refuel. The dogs and their handlers were taking time out to rest in the shade up on a ridge.Cromwell and Larzelere decided to drive up to the reservation boundary.
Cromwell said, "The other kid just walked out on the ridge. The dogs saw him. The kid knew there was no way of getting away and he was tired, so he didn't run. When we got there we told him he wasn't in trouble. We were just trying to see if they were OK. We gave him some of our food and water."
The boys told the rangers they didn't like it at camp, so they took a few things and left Sunday night. They were trying to get to the road to Young. Cromwell said, "They said they were cold and couldn't sleep at night, and they kept hearing things."
The rangers turned the boys back in to the Anasazi Camp leader.
The camp calls its participants "Young Walkers." In this case, it was appropriate. The boys walked about 26 miles before their unwanted rescue.



©WMICentral 2004

[TazzyD]

May I ask how your dogs were trained? Do they get a toy reward or something similar? Also, does it bother the dogs any when they don't make a "find" on a search? Sorry if these are ignorant questions but I've always been curious.

[azsnowman]

Hi Tazzy,

No, these are not silly questions nor are they ignorant by any means. It takes 18 months of HARD, dedicatedw ork ,training to get a dog certified, well, it also depends on the dohg to (sorry for the typos). For tracking dogs like ours (we do the training)....you start them out with very short tracks (trails)....usually scented with hot dogs or some sort of treats ON the track, you would step on the hot dog, crush itinto the ground with your foot and walk a short distance and give the dog a command to go "look, seek, find" whatever you choose, making sure that this word is used ONLY during the training processas not to mess up the dogs thinking! Along with *baited* tracks, we start them off by doing runaways, where the person (victim) literally *RUNS* off, whistling for the dog, calli ngit's name to get the dogs attention.

The reward they get at the end of the training OR a real search are *special* treats we've found at PetSmart, we call it *Dog Logs*, it's a rolled type of dogfood and they go NUTZ overit, I have yet to find a dog that doesn't like it! This is the oNly time they receive this treat.

We ALWAYS end the training (even ifits been a bad training session) OR a search without finding the victim on a positive note. Now this is pure speculation on my part but I honestly believe that the dogs DO get VERY depressed (such as it where)when they do not makee a positvie find!

Dennis

[TazzyD]

Dennis, thanks for the response. I realized after I had asked the questions it would be hard for you to type because of your hand so I really appreciate you taking the time and effort to reply to my questions. I've always been curious about the training of search/rescue dogs, especially since I watched a report on them after the attack on 9/11. They had a booth at our local mall with some dogs that do rescue work but there were so many people gathered around them I just gave a donation and left without asking my questions.

I know some (probably many) would say it's anthropomorphizing but I think dogs do sense what's going and react with feelings of sadness and happiness.

Thanks for the great work you and your dogs do to help others.

Now if I could only just get mine to "sit".

I'll have to look into those Dog Logs for my babies.