Snapshot Sunday: Command Post Compliant

Like her mentor, Lilly, Pip is a great command post dog.

She can recharge her batteries, schmooze, and keep it all low-key if I get pulled into management tasks.

Puppy blogging resumes this week. We've been a little oversubscribed since Tuesday. PC and I and our friends and family and pack have had just enough time to care for the Roseannadannas' emerging social needs, not enough time to report on their adventures.

This is why we breed more working dogs.

Thank You

On July 5, 1991, Perfesser Chaos and I -- just engaged, still in graduate school -- counted out five fifty-dollar bills and came home with the better end of the deal.

Within a week we were semi-desperately looking for a bigger job for the little German shepherd we'd brought home to be our backpacking companion and my teaching assistant.

Within two months we were setting up puppy SAR runaway tasks, more or less with puppy in one hand and instruction book in the other.*

Within four months we had found our first SAR unit, and been informed that we'd somehow avoided ruining our puppy, who looked to be a pretty good SAR prospect.

Within a year (!) Lilly had fielded on her first search, and made her first live find. Precocious, much?

Over a decade of working partnership, thirteen and a half years of wisdom and tolerance and gentle companionship. Over half my SAR career under her tutelage.

Thank you, Lilly. Thank you for the last twenty years of my life.


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*NB: I recommend this route to no one.

Three Cups of Dog Shampoo

Back in March, while Japan bled and scoundrels found ways to make money off of it, I published this post, cautioning good-hearted people to be skeptical of the claims of certain charities.

Because when a panhandler rides a media snowball while throwing out vague images of rescued goggies becoming rescuers, apparently everyone whose job it is to scrutinize such things loses her damned mind. And puts up a Paypal button.

Why, it's almost as if someone claimed to have been lost in the Himalaya, and held prisoner by the Taliban, and also that he's building schools for girls in Pakistan for which you need to send him mor moneez. I mean, who would lie about something like that? And the media all said he was legit, so why wouldn't you trust those guys, they always check out the charities that they plug, right?

What kind of scoundrel solicits charity and then puts it in her own pocket, her friends' pockets, and doesn't produce anything like the claimed results? People call me a cynic ...

Anyway, within that post I used a SAR dog unit called CARDA -- California Rescue Dog Association -- as a foil. Because CARDA is everything that the NDSDF is not -- a lean, efficient, effective, highly reputable producer and deployer of life-saving canine SAR teams within the state of California.

And after reading CARDA's tax returns, I took them to task, because they utterly suck at fundraising. Because of this sucking at fundraising -- or rather, because they don't have any money -- the financial burden on their individual handlers is higher than it should be. And in this economy, that means that lost people may not get the help they need as fast as they need it, because a handler is calculating whether she can afford the gas to respond to a search -- among other considerations. Or a handler has to pass on a special training seminar because of the cost, and doesn't have that new or extra-honed skill when the time comes. Or a handler has to quit outright because of the overall cost of staying trained and responding.

Well, CARDA is having a fundraiser. If I upbraided them for not doing it before, I guess it is beholden on me to help them now that they are putting forth the effort.

So, if you live in California, go to Pet Food Express this Saturday, meet some of the search dogs who are ready to save your bacon, and get your dog washed. Buy tokens and use them later. Buy tokens and donate them. Buy some of that Natural Balance dog food -- it seems like a good brand. Just donate to CARDA outright.

All the deets are here.



If you have a blog -- especially a California-related or based blog -- post today or Friday. If you are on social media, post and tweet this.

Help people find out who really fields life-saving search dog teams in California, and help them continue to do so.

Why Auctions and Alcohol Don't Mix

Last fall I bid on some items at an auction to benefit the New York SAR Federation. A warm amber liquid was offered by a friend and accepted before bidding commenced. Got a nice tuggie toy for Cole, a gift certificate for a company that sells training gear, and this other thing.

It was a certificate for a very expensive collapsible aluminum police dog crate.

The catalog said that it was only 32" long, so it didn't get much in the way of bids. I walked off with an auction bargain. It was puzzling though -- why would a company that caters to police departments make such a small crate (and in only the one size)?

I've got donut-spare sized SAR dogs, and I'd always coveted one of those bombproof aluminum crates for car and airline use. Didn't think about the "collapsible" aspect until later. No airline will take one. Derrr... amber liquid.

Finally sent in the certificate a few weeks ago. My intent was actually to forward the thing to a friend with a smallish dog who is experimenting with crate destruction. But since I'd never seen one, and was concerned about the "collapsible" aspect, I didn't have it shipped direct. I wanted to inspect it first.

When the UPS delivery golem -- the jackass who throws my packages in the driveway, speeds down our lane, lies like a priest, and dented this very expensive item tossing it on the porch this time -- appeared the other day, I thought the giant box he hefted out was the six or eight trees I'd recently ordered

We opened it up in the living room:


It is 42" long. Catalog typo. It eats up the entire center of the living room. We've all been worshiping it, and PC tried to brain me with a femur the other day. Cole has learned to do a handstand in front of its open door. Rosie does her best Snoopy on the doghouse impression atop it.

It won't be going off to contain Ms. Maddie; the sides are wiggly, the aluminum stock is pretty thin, and I'm fairly sure she can get her jaws around the air vents and commence injurious mayhem. The top and bottom, however, seem to be engineered to withstand a tactical nuclear strike, and the door is Hannibal Lecter-worthy, and has a lock.

It would make an uber-cool end table if we lived in a giant loft served by a freight elevator and decorated in a sort of post-modern industrial ironic mode.

It is far too large for my car.

It does easily fold down into something the size of a giant radiation-shielded architect's portfolio.



Open thread: What the hell do I do with this thing?

Nine Questions I Would Ask ...

... if I was going to donate money to support search and rescue dogs, maybe because I felt awful about a big disaster.

1) Did I already pay for this?

Well, yes, yes you did -- if you are a US taxpayer.

The FEMA/DHS urban search and rescue task forces (USAR TFs) that are sent by the federal government to major disasters in the US and for relief worldwide are tax supported.

The task force members have their deployment expenses paid. Those who are paid firefighters and public safety personnel are paid for their time on deployment.

No donated funds are needed to deploy these task forces and their search dogs.

This is not true of local search and rescue teams called to local or regional incidents -- most of which are a single lost person, with no collapsed structures involved. The individual team members who respond pay all their own deployment expenses, down to the gas money to get to the search.

2) Does the charity that is asking for money field search dogs?

If the charity is this one, it does not.

National Disaster Search Dog Foundation acquires dogs, puts them through several months of training, and then assigns them to (typically) firefighters who have been selected by their employers to handle a dog.

The NDSDF does not field the teams. When they send out a fundraising appeal citing "our" search teams and this is reprinted in the press and on blogs and social media sites, be aware that the dog and handler are almost always employed by a big-city fire department, and are always members of a federal USAR task force that is responsible for their ongoing training, credentialing, and deployment.

Yet the print and online media, including media where the journalistic motto is supposed to be "Question Everything," and where grandiose claims from such "charities" as the HSUS and PeTA have been regularly skewered, have unquestioningly reprinted the NDSDF's press releases, generally including a "donate now" link.

When a press release invokes a narrative about animals + disaster + we need money, it is apparently unacceptably bitchy to apply normal doses of skepticism and scrutiny to the release or the entity behind it.

That's how HSUS raised and hoarded millions in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, while local animal shelters nationwide go begging.

The canine search teams are a small component of each USAR task force, but they receive the bulk of the media coverage.

There are two FEMA Task Forces sent by USAID to Japan. The Fairfax County, Virginia task force -- generally the "go-to" TF for international missions -- has six dog-handler teams deployed to Japan, none of them formed or trained with involvement by the NDSDF. But a google search on various terms such as "search dogs Japan" "disaster dogs Japan," etc. will invariably pop up the NDSDF logo and acres of regurgitated press release about "our dogs" and "our teams." And a donation button.

FEMA, and the individual task forces, devote more resources to operational matters than they do to public relations and fundraising blitzes. And it shows. The press agents of NDSDF crowd out coverage of the majority of task force canine teams. Those six dogs and handlers from the Fairfax County task force may as well not exist. The hundreds of other federal USAR teams standing at ready who met the standards without involvement from NDSDF are complete nonentities. And the many hundreds of seasoned SAR teams who not only respond to "normal" searches, but maintain readiness for disaster response outside of the federal system aren't even a dream.

3) Does the charity that is asking for money train the search teams?

This one is a bit trickier.

NDSDF says that they provide the firefighters -- most of them with no previous dog handling or training experience -- with professionally "trained" dogs. The implication is that the dog is a plug 'n' play component of the disaster search team, delivered to the handler pre-assembled and ready to go. Certainly superior to a handler training her own dog from scratch.

A review of the dog biography narratives on its own website reveals that it typically takes more than a year, often many years, sometimes, apparently, never, for a firefighter + NDSDF dog to pass a FEMA basic test.

Just like a civilian handler, or anyone, who joins a task force with his or her own dog, or joins a task force and acquires his or her own dog to train.

Meanwhile, NDSDF says that it is providing ongoing training to the teams.

But every FEMA task force is supposed to have its own training program and its own training officer -- for every canine handler, not just those who acquired their dogs from NDSDF.

There are 238 operational FEMA canine teams nationwide, most of whom train and qualify without receiving any money or support from NDSDF.

4) Is the provision of partly-trained adult dogs to firefighters the only, or best, way to provide quality disaster dog teams?

To answer the first part (only?), emphatically no.

Most disaster (urban) SAR handlers are still civilians who choose, raise and train their own dogs. Initially, FEMA only accepted operational handlers who already had search and rescue deployments under their belts. That way, when a team was deployed on a disaster, with its additional stresses and dangers, it would not be the first time that the handler and dog had done real-world work together. The working partnership was already "proofed."

Unfortunately, and for a variety of mostly bad reasons, FEMA moved away from exploiting the skills of experienced dog handlers and started to allow individuals with no canine experience to fill slots on its task forces. In some task forces, experienced wilderness handlers need not apply.

As for the second part (best?), I can give you my opinion as a SAR handler with nineteen years of experience.

There are two elements here: Do firefighters without dog experience make the best handlers, and do adult dogs who have been through several months of kenneling and training make the best search dogs?

I have seen no evidence suggesting that they do.

My personal experience with firefighter-first handler candidates has been that the small minority of them who are suitable need a lot of education about dog behavior and interspecies teamwork, and constant on-scene oversight, in order to work effectively with a dog. That's not oversight from the fire chief, that's oversight from an intimately-involved canine training officer with many years of canine SAR experience and good teaching chops. Conversely, too much oversight -- handholding -- just serves to nurse along handler wannabes who are not capable or not interested in developing the higher-level skills that make a truly adaptable and resourceful handler. Not just a guy who can, maybe, pass a test.

Working with a search dog is not like learning a new machine that also happens to be a PR goldmine. It is a humbling, life-altering experience that requires profound openness and health of ego to achieve.

My experience with young adult dogs recruited for SAR training has been that the only ones that typically succeed are working-bred animals -- field Labs and goldens, working GSDs and Malinois, well-bred border collies. And they generally succeed when paired with already experienced SAR handlers who went through a lot of trouble to choose their own dogs.

Interestingly, even for working-bred dogs, there appears to be no fast-track to operational status achieved by starting with a young adult as opposed to a young puppy. Takes the team just about as long or a little longer, on average, to get to operational status if the dog is two when they start as it does if the handler starts with an eight-week-old puppy.

This is assuming similar ability and motivation on the part of the handler, similar operational standards, similar availability of credentialing procedures. (In this post-NIMs world, availability of credentialing and backlogs for evaluation and classes are a real issue for all kinds of emergency providers. When one's dog isn't getting any younger, it's beyond frustrating.)

Time to certification is important because, assuming total "trainee" time elapsed is the same, you get more bang for your buck starting a puppy and getting him operational by age two than you do starting a two-year-old and getting him operational at age four. Right?

Depending on breed, most SAR dogs retire at between 8-12 years of age, if there are no special medical concerns. Border collies and English shepherds often go longer. Rottweilers and bloodhounds, typically significantly shorter. Working-bred dogs of all breeds usually have a longer career than those who are indifferently-bred or show-bred, in addition to qualifying at much greater frequency.

The difference in return-on-investment in the dog's training for a six-year career vs. a ten-year career is significant -- for handler, for the unit, for the lost person.

In the case of dogs who have not been bred for work and well-raised, the training time is increased, and the chances of the dog ever becoming operational (again, assuming the same talent and motivation in the handler) are much lower.

My biggest objection to starting with adult dogs is that one loses the concentrated learning period of young puppyhood, in which the pup may be essentially imprinted with a commitment to scent games, as well as learn to be fearless in the face of all kinds of challenges. The best person to provide that kind of upbringing is the pup's handler. Good breeders exploit the learning window from birth to eight weeks, too. Many a star SAR dog's training effectively begins in the womb.

5) Is the firefighter + "pretrained" canine candidate team the way forward for disaster search and rescue?

I sure hope not. The NDSDF would like it to be, and are setting out to make it so using charitable contributions from nice people who want to support search and rescue.

If that were to happen, it would be both the result and cause of an ongoing redefinition of the job of search dog and search dog handler that, in my opinion, does not well-serve the public.

High standards are not the same thing as cookie-cutter methods.

In fact, I maintain that the two are incompatible.

An aside. NDSDF has a strong bias towards Labrador retrievers; that's not just shown in their numbers, that's something they state outright. They think that Labs are, as a breed, better candidates for disaster SAR than other breeds. That they fit the NDSDF's cookie-cutter training methodology.

Their own results do not bear this out.

72% of the dogs "graduated" and assigned to handlers by NDSDF (from the bios on their page of current teams) are Labradors or Labrador mixes.

I don't know what the intake v. graduation rate is, because they don't publish it. (Remember, "graduation" is not operational status. It is NDSDF's term for being assigned a handler and leaving the kennel.)

The rest of the dogs are of very few breeds: border collies and border collie mixes, golden retrievers, German shepherds, and one Aussie and one Catahoula.

50% of total Labradors + Labrador mixes have qualified under a FEMA standard.*

63% of border collies + border collie mixes

67% of German shepherds

83% of goldens.

Is NDSDF so institutionally breed blind that they ignore their own results? Are they graduating and assigning to wannabe handlers Labradors that have little or no hope of qualifying because of this bias?

It would be nice to have hard figures on the dogs they take in for training -- which ones wash out during training, and for what reasons, which ones fail after being assigned a handler, which ones ultimately qualify under FEMA and in how much time. For now, there are just a lot of questions about why the NDSF's favorite breed is not, apparently, their own most successful breed.

6) Is the firefighter + "pretrained" canine candidate team a more efficient or cost-effective way of providing disaster SAR teams?

NDSDF took in well over 3.3 million dollars in 2009, per their 990.

They don't state how many trainee teams "graduated" from their program in that time, or how many of their previous graduates qualified as operational with their FEMA task forces, so it's impossible to say what the per-team cost of becoming operational is.

They don't say how many of the dogs they take in as candidates wash out before being placed.

They don't say how many handlers wash out and have their dogs repossessed and reassigned after "graduating." There are some references to these events in some of the dog biographies.

With a great deal of tedium, one can get something like a figure for how many total dogs provided by the NDSDF have qualified with their FEMA task forces. This meant going through every individual dog profile linked on this page, and reading not only the dog's vital stats, but also the secondary page of narrative. In some cases the narratives and the vital stats disagreed on some point, and I had to try to make a judgment about which account was correct. Profiles don't consistently give dates that the dog was acquired or "graduated," but most have a birthdate, which is likely estimated in some cases.

They list 82 dogs, born between the years of 1996 and 2009. These are only dogs that are currently assigned to handlers. I did not include deceased and retired dogs listed on other pages, because NDSDF doesn't provide enough information about them to compare them to the ones on the main page. (I'm skeptical that a Labrador born in 1996 is still operational, but she's on the page, so gets counted.)

Of these, as near as I can determine, 41 have passed some kind of FEMA test, either just the basic, or the basic and then the advanced test. Exactly half. I did not include dogs that have passed a "state test," including the Tijuana state test, because I have no way of knowing whether those tests are, in fact, comparable to one administered by FEMA. I don't know whether some of the dogs who at one point passed a FEMA test have had their certification lapse, either because they didn't re-test at the appropriate time or because the failed a re-test; regardless, a dog who passes the test qualifies as operational for three years, unless injury or some other contingency intervenes.

Let's just look at the dogs born from 2005-2009. Some dogs have neither birthdates nor any operational data -- they may be older or younger, but they don't have FEMA certs according to NDSDF, which is fairly motivated to be up-to-date on such announcements. But of the 31 dogs placed with handlers and still out there (so not counting any that have been definitively washed out, retired, or died since placement) who were apparently born between 2005 and 2009, eleven -- just over a third -- have (according to NDSDF's website) passed a FEMA basic test. None have passed an advanced test. That's 3-4 teams per year passing a FEMA test once they are out with a task force. Can that be right?

Million dollar search teams?

Here's another interesting thing.

NDSDF makes a big deal about "rescued dogs becoming rescuers." They say they scour the pounds for candidates. Save those crazy dogs that are so unsuitable as pets, maybe on doggie death row as unadoptable, but are just born to pound the rubble.

Makes good copy, doesn't it? I have an adopted dog in training for SAR myself, and I can tell you straight, Cole's narrative can draw tears of joy from a cinder block. It is an m-fing great story.

It is not, however, the most efficient, cost-effective way to consistently bring dogs to operational success. And NDSDF's own numbers demonstrate this.

Of those animals (born 1996-2009) whose source could be determined from their biographies, 20 were breeder donations or purchases (puppies), 8 were donated by owners, 13 came from guide or service dog organizations, 14 came from rescue groups, and 19 came from shelters.

The breeder-sourced puppies were all (from what I could tell) good working-bred dogs, as were quite a number of the owner-donated young dogs. This is as it should be.

Here's the rundown on the outcomes for these dogs since 1996, broken down by source (as well as could be determined from the dogs' biographies -- what NDSDF has chosen to publish)

75% of the dogs donated by breeders and paired with handlers passed a FEMA standard, and a third (25% of the total) of those passed the advanced test. That's the best group. If they could deliver those results consistently, my hat would be off to them.

64% of dogs from rescue groups passed a FEMA standard.

62% of owner-donated dogs passed a FEMA standard. This group is mixed between dogs donated by working handlers or from working breeding, and "failed pets."

34% of guide/service dog "career change" dogs passed a FEMA standard.

26% of dogs from shelters passed a FEMA standard. A near mirror-image of the breeder-sourced dogs.

Remember, these are just the numbers for the dogs on their website who are still out with handlers. It does not include washouts from training, or dogs that have been washed out definitively since being sent home with a handler. We don't know about those dogs. And they don't publish enough data about retired/deceased dogs to compare them to current dogs.

From the available information, it appears that there is a significant advantage to taking a well-bred puppy selected by a knowledgeable working dog breeder, raising it in a savvy home (per the guide/service dog model), and training at a young age. Gee, who could have guessed?!

But what "We bought this puppy from a great breeder to ensure the best chances of success" doesn't do is raise a ton of money. The story isn't as good. It's unsentimental. Donors don't line up sobbing to hand over the simoleons.

The cost of a good working-bred Labrador, golden retriever, German shepherd or border collie pup ranges from $500-$1500. Some breeders will happily donate a promising pup to a good cause. Such pups are ready to start their training at eight weeks. They can be ready for operational testing by the time they are two.

So, is the project to rescue dogs from shelters? To maximize the number and competence of operational disaster search teams and minimize the time-to-certification to ensure the longest possible operational life? Or to raise the maximum in tax-deductible donations with a sounds-good narrative?

7) Is this charity a lean, efficient user of donated money?

Let's look at the largest search and rescue canine organization in the US for comparison -- the California Rescue Dog Association.

I choose CARDA because their operational standards are rigorous and well-regarded, and they are on the same sort of scale of personnel as NDSDF. Comparing NDSDF to a typical local SAR team with between two and ten operational canine teams at any given time, or to a single USAR TF, is comparing apples to watermelons. Also, NDSDF is located in California, as are most of "their" teams, and does a lot of fund raising in California.

CARDA has no paid staff. None. No full time PR people banging the drums for media coverage, no fund raising employees, no executives, no office manager, no paid or contracted trainers. It is, like almost every SAR unit in the United States, an all-volunteer organization.

CARDA is both a training and an operational organization. Volunteers train weekly in CARDA groups, have assigned mentors during their training period, and they respond to call-outs through CARDA. CARDA volunteers meet California state standards for operational competence.

CARDA handlers choose, train, and own their own dogs.

CARDA handlers complete required time as pre-apprentices and apprentices before they can challenge the operational tests. Operational handlers put in significant time as mentors.

Right now, this all-volunteer entity has at its disposal 123 trained, certified, credentialed, qualified, can-go-on-a-search-this-instant search and rescue dogs. That does not count dogs that may be certified but have been pulled from operational status due to injury or some other contingency. It does not count trainees. It's really 123 dogs that can work now.

The CARDA operational dogs are from 21 pure breeds, and also include eight mixed-breed dogs. Diversity is strength.

In 2008, according to their form 990EZ filed in 2009, CARDA spent $25,218. Total revenues were $29,579. That's just over $240 non-profit dollars spent per operational dog. That's two-four-zero -- not $2,400, not $24,000.

It gets worse. Better. Depends on how you look at it.

$18,688 of CARDA's income was member dues! Yep, the bulk of the operating expenses of the largest SAR dog organization in the country came out of the personal pockets of the very same people who are devoting enormous swaths of their own time and herculean efforts to volunteer.

Only $6,457 of CARDA's incoming money in 2008 was in the form of contributions or grants.

$52 of charitable money per operational dog. Dogs whose volunteer owners are shouldering the full cost of dog food, veterinary care, equipment, gas, vehicle maintenance, outside training, time lost from work ...

Grants and donations don't even begin to cover the cost of issuing that operational handler a radio. Which is the only thing the handler gets from the organization, and just about the only assets that CARDA owns.

Now, frankly, this sucks in the other direction. I was so gobsmacked that I called up a CARDA member I know and grilled her about it. Yep, CARDA bites at fundraising and public relations. Terrible at it. Too modest to toot its own horn. Refuses to even record the event when a CARDA dog finds a missing person, because of an overdeveloped "team" ethic. ("It would be prideful to admit that one of our own just saved someone's life ...") I would characterize CARDA as overly lean.

I upbraided my friend on behalf of her unit in what I hope was taken in the helpful, if exasperated, way in which it was offered. You guys should be bringing in more money, supporting your handlers, and reminding the public of the amazing service you provide.

The fact remains that the largest and most-respected SAR dog training, credentialing, and deployment organization in the US does its work on a financially threadbare shoestring, and does it damned well.

From 2000-2005 (the latest that full-year statistics are published) CARDA teams responded to an average of 318 searches per year. Those would have ranged from a single dog and handler deployed to check a suspected crime scene for human remains, to massive lost person searches involving hundreds of searchers and scores of dog teams.

They are running over 7,000 volunteer man-hours per year, just on search responses -- not counting an order of magnitude more hours spent on training, testing, and organizational chores.

8) Is this charity managed and run in a transparent and professional manner that is responsible to donors and does not enrich its principals?

You can download NDSDF's 990's here.

I have some questions.

For example, the same individual who receives $800 per month per dog for boarding and training (so she is technically not on the payroll, but a "contractor") is also serving an eight-year term on the board of directors.

Her assistant is her daughter.

That raises my eyebrows a bit.

According to page 7 of the 2009 990, no board member is compensated.

Ms. Davern's kennel received $148,629 for "handler training" in 2009.

There is also a line item for "trainers fees" (24c on page 10) of $210,333. I must assume that this is the $800 per month per dog collected by Ms. Davern's kennel for boarding and training, cited on their "Donate Now" page.

Apparently they don't consider $359,000 in no-bid contract work to be "compensation" to a board member. I guess that may be technically true. I'm sure this is all perfectly legal.

There are six total trainers on-staff for the "yield" of operational teams cited above. Their website does not indicate whether these people are all full-timers, nor what they are paid.

I expect it is probably significantly less than the $320,000 total paid to the top five salaried employees -- the Executive Director, the "Development" Director (which I understand to be "chief fundraiser") , a Business Administration Manager, the Manager of their project to build a multi-million dollar training center, and someone called a "Relation Manager."

As I understand it, these salaries are not out of line in the world of very large, high-overhead nonprofits. (The kind to which I choose not to donate, for this very reason.)

But remember, for CARDA -- and every other volunteer SAR unit in the country that actually deploys humans and dogs -- the figure is zero donor dollars spent on staff salaries.

And, among other questions, does it really cost three quarters of a million dollars to build a rubble pile?

9) Are these the guys who are going to save my bacon in a disaster?

The most important factor in lifesaving after a natural or man-made event causes building collapse is the speed at which help arrives.

FEMA task forces typically take days to mobilize, travel, and deploy.

If you are in the Walmart when the tornado hits and are buried alive under rubble and low, low prices, it will be your local first responders who stand a chance of finding you in time and getting you out. Wouldn't it be nice to know that they've had the resources they need to train to a high level of competence? Wouldn't it be gravy if the individual handlers were not straining their personal finances to be ready to save you?

The Task Forces, though trained for rescue, are typically active during the recovery phase of the search. Bluntly, they arrive in time to find the bodies. If there was a single live-find in rubble in the US by a FEMA-deployed dog team, I have not been able to track it down. The first live finds I can verify were several recently in Haiti. American teams had at least one live find in Mexico City; that was in 1985, years before the development of FEMA task forces with federalized disaster dogs. The dog teams deployed were volunteer wilderness handlers who had cross-trained for disaster.

Otherwise, twenty years without a single lifesaving find for the entire federal USAR system. (If I'm wrong about this, please, point me to the news articles.)

Pip and I deployed during the recovery phase of Hurricane Katrina. This was a state-to-state EMAC request for disaster-qualified SAR dogs who could work both live search and remains recovery. Not a very numerous resource. (This was the one and only time I have had any of my expenses covered in SAR.) Recovery work in a disaster is important work, but it is not the same thing as the high-pucker search that must be done in the first hours after an incident.


One reason we deployed was to hone our skills for the possibility of a future local disaster, one in which we would be the first responders, there in time to save a life. From that point of view, our time in the Gulf was time well-spent, though -- knock splintered wood -- we have not had call to exploit it as yet.

Well-trained and operationally-experienced wilderness search dog teams that are cross-trained for disaster first response and are close to the site of the disaster are the canine resource that is most capable of making a life-or-death difference.

When there isn't a "newsworthy" building collapse or massive disaster, these same all-volunteer teams are out pounding the ground looking for the missing hunter, the wandering dementia patient, the lost child. Saving those lives from "little" personal disasters.

Almost all are members of units that are 501(c)3 charitable non-profits, and are paid nothing for their time and effort.

None of them took in close to $3 million dollars in donations last year.

The next life they save could be yours. Your kid's. Or a total stranger's.

I don't know any who would turn down some help.


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* As elsewhere, I am only counting passing the FEMA test as a metric for the NDSDF-supplied dogs. This is because I've no way of knowing whether various "state standards" are comparable, on paper or as executed. NDSDF's stated purpose is to populate the USAR TF's with NDSDF-supplied operational USAR dogs, so I think this is the fair metric by which to gauge their success.

Take Two, They’re Small

It was a great compliment to a newly-minted dog handler to be asked by my training mentor to evaluate a litter of puppies to identify the search and rescue prospects.*

The big litter of superficially near-identical black German shepherds was from her own breeding, offspring of two SAR dogs. The buyers were a family from Pennsylvania who already owned two of her dogs, both operational SAR dogs. It was time for them to start bringing along a new pup to eventually succeed their oldest bitch.

After messing with the pups for the better part of a day -- observing the litter interact amongst themselves, taking them out one at a time for some formal puppy tests and informal play and mild stress, watching them move -- I arrived at the same answer that their breeder had. “Either of these two bitch puppies is an excellent prospect. And I can find no reason to prefer one over the other. I think they might be actual identical twins.”

A few days later Martha and Dan, SAR dogs JT and Schatten, and Martha’s two teenage boys arrived in an SUV the size of a city block, to visit for a few days, train, and choose their new puppy.

I liked them. We had a lot of fun navigating the baffling New Hampshire topography behind Annabella’s cabin. It was refreshing to cross-pollinate with handlers from another unit who were not using the interaction as an opportunity to gain local political advantage or attempt a mean-spirited alpha roll on the New Kid.

Martha agreed about the two bitch puppies. She spent three days with them, and could find nothing to favor one pup over the other. So she took them both.

Annabella tried to talk her out of this course of action, but in the end relented. Martha and Dan insisted that each one would train a pup.

Less than a year later, Perfesser Chaos took a new job. We packed up Lilly, two cats, all our crap, and the lives we had started in New England and relocated, Clampett-like, to Pittsburgh. We weren’t close enough to Martha to join her SAR unit, but it was nice having a friend and guide in the general area. Their spacious home, set back in the woods near the Laurel Ridge, was our rural refuge, as Annabella’s Unabomber cabin had once been.

Things were not going as one would hope with the puppies, Lauren and Danielle.†

They were still physically indistinguishable (to me) -- color-coded collars were a necessity. But one puppy (I cannot remember which one, seventeen years later) had taken on the role of leader, the other of follower. It was fortunate that the dichotomy was as strong as it was; that’s probably what spared that family the fun of littermate bitches deciding to kill one another at unpredictable intervals.** The fact of the relationship -- the absolute need that dogs have to define their roles relative to their packmates -- cause the identical puppies’ personalities to diverge much more dramatically than they would have under other circumstances.

I cannot remember a single dog who was raised with her mother to adulthood who could be successfully trained for a Guide Dog. Where two litter mates are raised together in the same home we have had the same results. Puppies raised in homes where there are dogs not related to them have never been affected this way by the association with other dogs ... In the case of two litter mates raised together, one becomes a successful candidate for Guide Dog work and one fails, even if their aptitude tests were equal.

Clarence Pfaffenberger
The New Knowledge of Dog Behavior
Howell Book House, 1964 (p. 125)

Lauren and Danielle presented a classic picture of this kind of squandered potential, except that neither were heading for the success promised by their early puppy profiles. They were co-dependent, whining and pacing incessantly whenever separated from one another, even if one of the other dogs was there. Their obedience and general response to human leadership was sketchy at best. I would not consider them housetrained. They barely paid attention to what their humans wanted. They lacked the aura of intelligence and awareness that JT exuded. And neither puppy was all that committed to working. The noses functioned, but the fire did not blaze.

Indeed, at a year of age, they were still “the puppies.” At two, three years of age, “the puppies.” No real progress towards operational status that I could see, and general arrested development compared to their own older dogs, and other SAR dogs of the same cohort.

One divorce and many life changes later, Martha and Dan split up “the puppies.” Each ex-spouse went away with one good older SAR dog and one unfocused, slightly neurotic, unfulfilled young pet. Neither ever fielded a second SAR partner.

Well what does all that matter to me? you say, I just want dogs as pets.

Two puppies will keep one another company, so I can go to work and not feel guilty. It’s a lot of fun watching them play with one another. And they never have to go through the full trauma of leaving their first family. They’ll be friends all their lives, so we don’t have to identify other dogs with whom they can socialize. Throw in a fenced yard -- no need for time-consuming leash walks.

Oh the temptations.

If I wasn't so aware of the number of hits this post is likely to receive from people looking for validation for a decision to buy two puppies, I'd give you the phone number of the clients who called me two weeks into their two-puppy adventure. They were "smart." They didn't buy littermates (partly because they had a thought of breeding the two German shepherd pups in the future.) They got a big robust bitch puppy and a smaller, more retiring dog puppy who was a week or so younger, from a different breeder. The two pups commenced ignoring every human directive, enticement, and entreaty, while the bigger pup began mercilessly bullying the smaller one.

When they called me, this couple who had successfully raised three children had not slept in a fortnight. I felt as if I'd come to help the parents of quadruplets who were both suffering from post-partum depression.

I was able to help quite a bit with puppy management, training, general stress levels. This was a couple who really wanted to do right by their dogs, had high expectations of them, and had found themselves completely unprepared for the onslaught.

I’m down to one Indiana Plague Puppy; Donna went home this morning. They are about 13 weeks old now, several weeks older than the optimum age for going to their permanent homes. Puppy care just got harder.

Four puppies was herding a troupe of striped-assed baboons. Two puppies are half as many as four -- half as much poop, half as much cuddling, half as much training, half as many little ferrets diving for the door or scattering like cockroaches when I needed to contain them.

Two puppies is not, however, twice as many as one. I haven’t yet suffered through a sleepless night of foresaken wailing. I could gate the two of them in the puppy-resistant kitchen for long periods and they entertained one another. I called the puppies, and if one was inclined to come to me, the other almost invariably followed. If I corrected a pup for mouthing me while she was in a ripping frame of mind, she just turned to her sister and piled on -- redirection always available..

In short, raising two puppies rather than one makes it easy and apparently consequence-free to neglect them both. It is the canine developmental equivalent of parking the toddler in front of Gilligan’s Island with a bag of gummi worms and a loaded diaper.

He’s not just less likely to get into Stanford in the long-term; he’s significantly more likely to treat you to phone calls from the school principal and later, the police chief. Or, better yet, to be living in the basement eating your Hot Pockets when he's 35.

I departed from the easy path in several ways. I separated the pups for some period of time every day, taking them each out for leash walks that were, from the standpoint of exercising puppies, entirely gratuitous. They ate from separate bowls, spent time in separate crates, had separate lap-times. But mostly, they were “the puppies.” Neither had launched out of her natal pack and into a new life in a human family.

There are things they ideally should have started learning at seven weeks -- the age at which they found themselves in the dog pound, riddled with cooties, and still a week from coming into foster care where we could begin to address their vetting and start matching them with potential adopters.

It’s neither wise nor productive to unleash two uncivilized puppies -- much less four of them -- into a non-puppy-proofed area of the house. While you are rescuing a shoe from one varmint, another one is behind the TV eating power cord. Whisk one outside when she circles and sniffs, and her brother is makes a deposit to greet you at the door on the way back in. So they lived in the kitchen and did not learn to leave my stuff alone and ask to go out.

One puppy sat sweetly for a treat or attention, another jumped on her head and started gnawing as the human reached down. Each learned that sitting sweetly for what she wants is asking for an ambush -- much better to keep leaping on my legs like a wild heathen.

Shout NO as a pup engages in suicidal or criminal misconduct, and his sister who was innocently playing with a new toy is hit with discipline shrapnel. Uh oh, maybe I shouldn’t play with my toy. Or, maybe this “No” thing is overhyped, and I can ignore it.

One puppy runs from the giant rattling monster garbage bin that is chasing her down the driveway, and her sister concludes that it must be terribly dangerous, and follows in retreat. The fact that the grown-up dogs and the human aren’t a bit worried about this thing doesn’t get through the collective puppy panic.

As a result, the last two girlpuppies were, as of 6 a.m., pig-ignorant barbarians compared to any single pup we have raised. The latest we have ever had littermates together was eleven weeks. At thirteen weeks, the girls were on the verge of overripe; when they had the rips, they were about as tame and approachable as these:


Which, frankly, they closely resembled in more ways than I care to contemplate.



The developmental window for primary socialization and learning has not closed. They will be just fine. And they are still miles ahead of our group-raised ONB puppies, some of whom were with their littermates to the age of eight or nine months.

One or two more weeks of litter-living, though, and these pups would be courting real developmental challenges.

Starting today I am sucking it up and raising one puppy properly, as if she was my own, until she goes to her permanent home. The adult dogs -- trained, civilized,‡ full members of a human family with all the privileges and duties attendant thereof -- act as uniform assets in the pup’s upbringing. They teach her things that can be best, or only, learned from another dog, and they reinforce the policies and procedures of the human household. But the real work will be down to me and PC. Little Susie is Canis lupus familiaris, not plain ol’ C. lupus. She needs to look to human beings for her physical needs, play, direction, leadership, an explanation of her world. As her foster humans, it's our duty to prepare her to keep doing that all her life.

And Miss Susie is already doing this; there is a dramatic change in her compared to last night. I liked her before; now I really enjoy her puppy company.

Here's some free unsolicited advice:

Never buy or adopt two puppies the same age to raise together. Especially littermates. Especially same-sex littermates.

Do. Not.

Here's some more:

If you are a breeder, or place puppies for adoption, never sell or adopt two same-age puppies to one home.

Never. Ever.††

You don't see that "never" here very often. Here's how important I think this is: It is more unwise to buy two well-bred puppies from a breeder who raises them skillfully and lovingly, and bring those puppies up together in the same household, than it is to buy a puppy from the deli case at Petland.

A breeder worth her salt knows this. She won't sell you a set. She most certainly won't offer, suggest, market, discount or hard-sell pups in pairs. Wanna test the balance between a breeder's behavioral savvy and her walletitis? Ask her to sell you two at once. If she says O-tay, walk away clean.

_______________________

* In retrospect, this may have been one of Annabella’s characteristically opaque Zen master lessons about what she thought I had actually done right with my first SAR dog, a truth that I later discerned about myself: I’m a fair to-middling-trainer. What I am good at is selecting puppy prospects who can withstand ham-fisted management, beginner’s mistakes, bad training methodologies, rotten timing, and the whole litany of handler incoherence -- pups who are nearly idiot-proof.

† Martha had a husband named Dan, a son named Dan -- why not just go with it again? Yell out “Dan!” and see how many beings answered.

** Two bitches in the same household who have each decided that the other needs to Go Away Permanently are among the least-favorite projects that face any dog trainer. When those two bitches are littermates whose owners earnestly believe they should loooove one another because they are sisters -- chewing up and swallowing a box of lightbulbs with a Betadine chaser ranks higher on the list of things to do today.

‡ And Sophia. Sigh. She is as God made her.

†† Of course not. Pack hounds. Buy whole litters of 'em and keep 'em in the kennel. It's all good. Carry on. I'm talking about pets, and working dogs that are not pack-hunting hounds.

Also, does not apply to cats. Kitten pairs work well, especially for owners who need them to be contented indoor latchkey kitties.

This One Goes to Eleven

The calendar got ahead of me.

Today is Pip's birthday. Eleven years old and still going strong. SAR dog, training partner, farm dog, pack matriarch, smartass.

The photo was taken last week. My "old dog."

Boy, here's a dog who has gotten me into a lot of trouble. If she hadn't been so damned much fun to work and train as a pup, I'd probably have quit SAR when Mel retired.

We had planned on another German shepherd to eventually take over Lilly's job. Had visited a breeder, met the dam, watched the sire on television. Great dogs, just what I wanted in a GSD. The litter was tiny, two males, and we were set on a bitch. So we waited impatiently until he bred her again, to the first sire's brother. Nice big litter, we were doing the happy dance.

And then they started dying. Mother was not producing enough milk, and breeder somehow failed to notice this.

By the time the breeder called us again, when the pups were a week old, half the litter of eight had "simply starved to death" and he was thinking of killing another weak pup. But no worries, we would have our bitch pup from the survivors.

No, worries.

Aside from our case of acute and debilitating WTF? about how a supposedly experienced working-dog breeder could fail to notice that his apparently overworked, undernourished bitch couldn't feed her babies, we knew enough about perinatal development to worry about the future of the survivors -- bodies and brains deprived of nourishment when they most needed it. We declined a puppy, leaving a pissed-off breeder who lectured me on how this kind of loss was "normal," as if I'd just fallen off a turnip truck.

So now it was a big problem. We'd devoted over a year to a puppy search, and over a year waiting for "our" German shepherd pup, and Lilly was not getting younger, her hip sockets were not getting any rounder or deeper.

Meanwhile, back at the AMRG ranch, our teammate Barb had been on her own long quest for a first SAR partner, and I'd been helping her.

She wanted a dog that was smaller than a German shepherd, but had a temperament like Lilly's, didn't shed much but was furry, would be healthy and long-lived. Border collie was clearly too high-strung, and the taillessness of Australian shepherds was a problem for her.

I'd heard about these dogs called English shepherds years before, when we still lived in Boston. "Like an Aussie with a tail, but calmer." We'd looked into them, but ended up finding Mel to become our second SAR partner and the transcendent dog whose soul merged with and vastly improved my own.

So I helped Barb find a nearby breeder who seemed to be on the right track, and visited to look at the dogs she was using. Saw a male and a female there on the dairy farm and had an instinct -- "Wait until she breeds these two to one another, your puppy will be in that litter."

The litter of five from Dust-Dee and Cocoa was as good a working litter as I'd ever seen. When Barb and I visited them at five weeks of age, I thought "Any one of these could make a SAR dog."

When our hopes for a German shepherd died along with those unnourished puppies, Theresa let us line jump. Barb got first pick, we got second. There were three bitches to choose from. Two nice, normal, balanced girlpuppies who performed beautifully on their puppy aptitude tests, and one cartoon lunatic whose response to adversity was to flip me the middle toe and ransack my gear box for a toy she'd seen ten minutes before and wanted, dammit.

Barb's Rozzie grew into a lovely, gracious, sensible dog. She was our dog-niece. And she lost her career to sickness and died far too young; I still believe it was goddamned lawn chemicals that gave her seizures and then, years later, finished her off.

We took the nut. Took her home on April Fool's Day, and ever since she's amused herself by making fools of us.

She spent her first months with us with her head inside Lilly's lupine maw. We later determined that the Old Lady had been injecting brain tissue -- and personality, character, attitude and highly specific memories -- via her impressive fangs.

Her operational testing for SAR in fall of 2001 was delayed by months when we all lost our damned minds, and every potential evaluator was either queued up or actively sifting through rubble for remains. By early spring, Lilly was more than ready to hand over the reins.

She has birthed and raised eighteen great puppies, and adopted one more.

Groundhogs tell their children tales of the bogeypip.

Baby chicks run to her for protection.

She stole and tried to nurse kittens when she was still a virgin bitch. Their mother resolved the conflict by curling up against Pip's belly and nursing her babies there, which was completely satisfactory to everyone.

She's been on ten commercial flights and has, despite her powers of invisibility in the normal course of travel, become legendary at the Denver airport as the dog who negotiates moving sidewalks at a dead run.

She has vanquished breakers in the Atlantic, Pacific, Gulf of Mexico and a couple Great Lakes.

She has carried a backpack and ten unborn puppies to 14,000 feet.

She has climbed and crawled and chimneyed through caves.

She can tell a totally untrained dog to go to the corner, lie down, and damn well stay there, without lifting her head from her paws. That dog will obey.

She is the only ES I know -- other than some of her children -- who has green eyes.

Troops of scouts, whole elementary schools, and hordes of adults are entertained by her tricks. She is most entertained by herself when she can make a monkey of me by accidentally not on purpose doing the tricks in the "wrong" sequence, but always in a way that fits with the patter of my narrative.

She would rather be a dead dog than a show dog, Republican dog, or just about any other kind of dog I might name to her.

She knows what to do about bears.

She rode the roof of a house into a boat slip during Katrina recovery search, swam back to shore, shook herself, and ran back to the top of the rubble pile to resume working, tail wagging, while the nice firefighters restarted Mommy's heart.

She tells me whether a foster or a client's dog is okay or screwy. If she really likes another dog, I know that the dog is totally cool, even if he needs a lot of manners.

She can look kind of lazy on search tasks, until she detects a whiff of scent and sews up the problem in a few minutes. Her find distance is significantly longer than Sophia's. Working hard and working smart aren't always the same thing.

She thinks rather well of herself.

When I'm not glowering about being the butt of one of her unevolved jokes, I am inclined to agree.

If Rosie Can Walk on Water

GPS track of a short trail I did with Rosie at training last week.
Aged about four hours.

Some pup, trailing across Lake Arthur* that way, eh?

As Perfesser Chaos set out on skis to lay the trail, our teammate Rebecca -- who had declined to emulate Our Lord And Savior yada yada yada -- asked me how we expertly determined when the ice was thick enough to walk (or ski) on.

Oh hell, I dunno. I just watch to see if there are ice fishermen and tracks, if there's snow on the ice. And it had been bloody damned cold for a while.

At the end of training, after the trail had aged in the stiff wind for several hours** and I prepared to run it with Rosie, I did start to wish I had made myself a set of these guys. Wondered whether the snowshoes that more safely distributed my weight would also trap me underwater with their drag. Happy thoughts!

Strange that a claustrophobe such as yours truly can cheerfully negotiate cave crawls so tight that one must exhale before pushing forward a few inches, but the thought of all that cold water under my feet was intrusive and gave me serious wiggums. When I'm frustrated about some weird fear or obscure superstition that has a dog hung up, and wishing I could figure out what was going on in his furry brain, it pays to remember that I can't even fully delve my own tangled neurons and force them to make sense. Or even explain why they don't make sense.

My goal for the task was to present Rosie with a trail where there was absolutely no terrain or vegetation to hold the scent.

Of course, there's no avoiding the fact of the ski tracks and their visual cue. If there had been lots of falling snow or hard-blowing powdery snow, they might be filled in after some hours of aging, but there wasn't. So PC started out in a tramped out trail used by ice fishermen and then diverged from it when it turned more northerly. The older, more traveled trail was downwind of his, so it did present a little challenge at the divergence -- the ridges of the sled tracks held as much scent as PC's ski tracks, and significantly more scent than the smooth snow just downind of them. Rosie did great on that.

PC bushwhacked through a dense pine plantation on the east shore, and then cut back to the other side and up through some fairly thick woods to finish. Nice short trailing task with an interesting technical challenge. Also, I used a small keychain multi-tool that had been sitting out for a scent article, so that was a nice challenge. Should have been. Rosie has mad scent-article skillz, so it didn't faze her a bit.

When Rosie finds something challenging or somehow unsatisfactory about a trail she -- and I know this will come as a shock to those who have met her -- talks about it.

Bitches about it, at rhythmic intervals, all the while working her fuzzy butt off.

The smooth going afforded by the lake ice allowed me to capture this on the video setting of my regular camera, which happened to be secreted within my fleece layers.

Video starts around 2/3 of the way across the ice on the return leg.



So here's my question, for all who read this post today, the day it is posted, or tomorrow, Tuesday, which are the last two days you can vote for Cole and help him win big money for National English Shepherd Rescue --

If a snarky, loudmouthed little bitch (and her dog, too) can track across a lake -- the scary cold lake -- to make a video for you to watch, then can you take a few seconds to register, a few seconds to click, and a few minutes to harass your friends to vote for Cole and help more dogs in need make it out alive?

We're down to the wire here. Vote tallies do not seem high enough to launch him into the finals unless we have an exponential surge today and tomorrow. So vote for Cole. We're not asking you to walk on water.
_____________

* Okay peanut gallery, smart guys, tell us why the water is pinky-purple on the map. (Yes this is one I always pose to my map & compass students.)

** We don't make our subjects sit at the end of the trail while it ages. PC did several training tasks in areas west and north of his trail during this period, then returned to a hiding spot at the end of it when it was time for us to run it.

Operational

Congratulations to Terrie Kirkpatrick and Brandywine Tia Maria.

Front Range Rescue Dogs' newest operational airscenting SAR team.

Agent X-10 Reports for Duty

Today, November 30, is The Shelter Pet Project's "Celebrate Shelter Pets Day."

If you have a Facebook account and a dog, cat, ferret, rabbit, pony, gerbil or manticore who came from an animal shelter or rescue, please share his or her story there, and tag The Shelter Pet Project in your note. (You have to "like" TSPP first. And what's not to like? Contrast the positive, clever, pro-animal and pro-adopter message that The Ad Council has devised to promote adoptions with the weepy and fraudulent attempts to dun TV viewers perpetrated by the ASPCA*and HSUS**, and tell me which one has actually helped animals.)

I could tell you about my first shelter pet, Shannon, the golden retriever puppy dumped in a ditch suffering from mange. The one whose need for training led me down a less-traveled path when I was eleven years old. Shannon deserves her story on her own time.

There was Kuttatoa, good old cat. He came from a shelter in the north suburbs of Boston that doesn't seem to exist any longer, or has changed its name. We'd just bought our first puppy, and no one at the shelter seemed worried that our intact German shepherd pup would miscegenate with the kitten, a curious notion that now prevails at at least one Pittsburgh-area shelter.† Lilly and Kootie were fast friends. He was not a bright cat, but the job description of "family pet" does not require or favor genius, evil or otherwise. He got along with everyone, every species, even pesky puppies. For the last seven years of his life he endured several chronic health conditions that required daily pills and periods of regular SQ fluids. He took the pills without drama or complaint, and sat on my lap and purred when I poked a large-bore needle under his skin to give him fluids. Seventeen years of loving companionship.

We now live with five dogs. Two cats. Six goats. A colony of rabbits, and countless poultry. (Literally. I haven't tried to count in a while.) Foster dogs and other temporary residents come and go.

None of them are pets.

Some of them are pets.

There are a couple of laying hens who are welcome to stick around when their productive years are over. The barn cats have an open invitation to the house, which they accept when the weather gets really wicked, and are affectionate lap cats when I have a moment to sit in the barnyard. The goats have names and abundant personality.

But everyone here has a job. I extract the rent in milk and eggs every day. A goat who eschews brush-clearing to scream for the grain-bucket will find himself hungry. A rooster who doesn't protect his hens makes excellent curry. A non-mousing kitteh would probably find herself re-situated as a house cat somewhere else.

And then there's the dogs.

Pip and Sophia are the two currently-operational SAR dogs. That's a full-time job; anything either of them contributes to the workings of the farm or to my training practice is gravy. Pip provides a lot of gravy. Sophia does try with the goats, and can sometimes be borderline useful.

Moe is medically retired from SAR and from assisting me with client dogs. Before the farm, he was unemployed, unfulfilled, and bored. Here he has naturally taken on the duties of Director of Homeland Security. He does delegate quite a lot of the critter duties to the youngsters, but when there's a serious threat, he's the one leading the charge.

Rosie is long-overdue for testing to operational status as a trailing dog. Also a full-time job. She is also my farm shadow and chief goat-beater-upper.

We did not need a fifth dog.

We've had, I think, twenty-two foster dogs pass through our home. Several who I really liked, who fit in beautifully, who people predicted "Oh, you're keeping that one, how could you let him go?"

And they've all moved on -- Rudy and Zippy and Teddy, Spike and Gary and Sparks, Mr. Barry White. I've loved them all, and I've let them all go. Some have needed help from the deepest pockets of my trainer's bag of tricks, and some have just needed a place to take a deep breath before moving on to a forever home.

I've written about Cole before. I tend to get a bit sappy when I discuss the little dude, and the condition is fairly contagious.

When he was seized from his abuser, Cole was about four or five weeks old. (I estimate, based on his presumed litter seeming to be about seven or eight weeks old when I first met them a few weeks later.) Yellowstone County gave a letter designator to each location on the property where animals were found, progressing alphabetically, and a number to each animal prefixed by the location designator. One day I'll write about the legendary "J" pen.


The trailer where Cole and a dozen other pups were found was designated X. The last place from which living or dead dogs were removed. Cole was the tenth pup removed from the X trailer. To Yellowstone County, the law, the judge, the keepers of proof, he became Evidence #X-10 in Case #DC09-018.‡

I've never found out who named him Cole. I'm just grateful there was someone who cared enough to do so.

The shelter where Cole lived for the next nine months was unique. On the one hand, the consistent nature of the sheltered population and the dedication of the employees and many of the volunteers simplified the work of raising and rehabbing. On the other hand, Evidence #X-10 could not go for a damned walk. The law in Montana would not permit his caretakers to take him out from behind the walls that formed the sheriff's perimeter. He couldn't be fostered in a home. A good-faith legal effort to have him declared fungible property, post a bond for his "value," and release him for adoption failed. He and his relatives continued in limbo.

I'm told that initially normal dogs who spend a long time in shelters develop "cage rage," become depressed, are rendered unadoptable.

Maybe. Maybe in your "shelter." Maybe if no one cares enough to exercise, play with, and train the dogs. Maybe if there is no volunteer program, because volunteers are troublesome. Maybe if the staff and volunteers are presided over by decision-makers who assume they are stupid and untrustworthy. Maybe if there's no commitment to ensuring that every dog who comes in "normal" gets out alive, and -- dare we expect? -- no worse for the experience, and perhaps improved significantly.

I've watched ordinary people with little or no dog-training experience do extraordinary things in the past two years. Enough so that I now question the idea that anyone, properly motivated, is "ordinary." Certainly there are stupid and untrustworthy people. They need to be fired to make room for the others, the ones who will rise to meet extraordinary expectations.

Despite the significant problems that Cole developed as a result of growing up in a kennel environment where he could not take a damned walk, stretch his legs, have some peace and quiet, he was not "ruined." Despite the fact that in just about any shelter in the land he would have been snapped up at eight weeks -- that puppies growing up in a shelter kennel is, under normal circumstances, simply unnecessary and easy to avoid -- he came out ready to flip into greatness.

A word about getting working dogs from shelters. SAR, specifically, since that's the world I've lived in for nineteen years.

Generally, I'm bearish on it. For first-time handlers, especially those who don't have significant experience training and observing the training of a wide variety of dogs, there are too many pitfalls. It's not as bad as buying a dog from show lines or taking a show breeder's ego-donation, by and large, but taking a shelter pup of unknown provenance does not bode well for your prospects of finishing out as an operational team.

The dog's genetic heritage matters. It just does. When we assess purpose-bred little puppies as working prospects, we are assessing them against a background of their parents' and other relatives accomplishments, and their known upbringing. We have a good idea of the pups' eventual size, health, and athletic potential, and can make reasonable prognostications about his temperament, drives, and amenability to training. We stack the odds, and it usually works. Doesn't mean that the handler can't screw up -- most higher-order failures to become operational are handler issues, not dog issues -- but he's swimming with the current, not against it.

That said, the side-of-the-road litter of "I think these are mostly ______" has yielded more than a few good operational dogs -- mostly for experienced handlers, or SAR-experienced or dog-experienced first-timers who had good supervision in both selection and training.

For experienced handlers, there are many treasures to be found among adolescent dogs in pounds. The failed pet may be the working dog waiting for his employer. While the shelter's belief that Joey in run 14 would make a great SAR dog is seldom a spot-on assessment, there are plenty of good prospects for the patient, persistent, experienced, dog-savvy handler and trainer to consider. The important quality for a handler who decides to choose his next partner from the shelter or rescue population is the ability to say no. He will pass on many dogs before seeing the genuine glint of diamond.

The thing to which I say hell no, as a training director, is the half-baked notion of a first-time handler that she can take a troubled dog -- often a shy and fearful one -- from a shelter (or anywhere -- I see as many coming from show breeders) and simultaneously rehabilitate that animal and progress towards operational status in SAR with him. The two projects are not compatible. There's plenty of room for sentiment to drive one's altruism in both fields, but some laudable sentiment is not the same thing as unrealistic romanticism or a generalized savior complex.

So I've always personally started with purpose-bred puppies. Twice I've made my own -- pups who were started on SAR conditioning as soon as they left the womb, if not before.

But once in a while -- Once in twenty-two times? Once in two-hundred-twenty-seven chances? -- a dog will come along who won the genetic lotto, even if his breeding was random, or ill-considered, or whoknowswhat. He's likely to be characterized as "troubled" in ways related to "too much dog" by the shelter or rescue workers, or at the very least, considered a pill in the kennel.

With the right guidance, he may be just the guy to report for duty.


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* One animal shelter, in New York City, only for animals confiscated from New York City, and not very many of them. Most homeless animals in NYC languish or die in the pound run by public ACC.

** No animal shelters. Five times more money goes into the executive pension fund than is disbursed in wee grants to animal shelters. And yes, I know they provide some money to the SPP. As long as it flows in just one direction, we're good.

† No shit. We were turned down to adopt a neutered cat because we have one unspayed bitch. I'll write more on this later.

‡ That's his actual seizure-day photo. For scale, the sign is, I think, standard 8.5 x 11 cardstock.

Snapshot Sunday: 100 Miles

A just-completed-69-miles runner's-eye view of the Wolfkiel Aid Station, where AMRG provided medical support and search-and-rescue standby for the Oil Creek 100 foot race this weekend.

Because a marathon is just not hard-core enough.

Most interesting medical event of the weekend: Twenty-something male runner complaining of abdominal pain radiating sub-sternal.*

After sufficient discussions, a Hx of a defective pyloric valve, possible celiac disease, and oh yeah, this exact kind of discomfort from time to time whenever he inadvertently eats wheat, any potentially alarming element was quelled.

___________________

* Chief complaint -- feet hurt. Ya think?
Lotta that going around.

Snapshot Saturday: Follow Me?

This is Sophia, barking on a SAR refind.

She is demanding that I follow her to the person she has found.

It is fortunate that humans do not have stop-action eyes.

The Big Door Prize

You don't volunteer for charity work with the expectation of getting something fungible or material in return.

If you do, it's no longer charity, and you are no longer a volunteer, you are a poor businessperson or a disappointed office-seeker or a swindler or something else entirely.

At the same time, it is ungracious to refuse that which is spontaneously given in appreciation of your work.

Maybe just that enameled fifteen-year-service pin. A bottle of good wine. Souvenir t-shirt. Sixteen-year-old single malt. A sincere thank-you. A hug, if it's not the bad touch kind.

And that which just grows out of the work.

Friendship.

Adam Smith notwithstanding, not every human interaction is an exchange.

My training colleague and friend Douglas, rejecting my self-characterization as a relative non-geek, challenged me to produce one friend from the past ten years I had not first met online.

As it happened, I had several. I would, however, be harder-pressed to come up with many who did not in some way come my way in the context of volunteer work. A few clients-turned-friends, co-workers, and neighbors about covers it.

When my friends in NESR made the commitment to the Operation New Beginnings dogs in December 2008, we anticipated much of what was to come -- the time commitment, lost income, days and nights of worry, scraping for funds, even the still-ongoing harassment.

We did not plan for the way in which our lives would be enriched by the friendship of other volunteers, adopters, donors. This was a gift unlooked-for.

When we agreed to foster dogs whose needs were significantly greater than any "normal" foster animals, it was for the sake of the dogs.

Back in January of 2009, we anticipated a fast(er) resolution to the ONB dogs' fates. Everyone expected that Linda Kapsa would cut a plea agreement within a few months at the most. Everyone expected that, before that time came, other rescue organizations would step up and help with fostering, rehabbing, and placing dogs.

Neither of those things happened; eight months later it was NESR with full responsibility for all the dogs. Not until they were adopted -- until they were adopted and then forever after, if any dog needed a new home at some later time, or any owner needed help in order to keep a dog.

On my first trip to Billings, Susan, an ONB volunteer was asking about how adoptions might be handled, and I ventured that some would be handled locally by local groups, and NESR would take as many dogs as we could.

"So you will take the really promising ones and adopt them to people who want an English shepherd?"

I was taken aback, but had to remind myself that not everyone knows how rescue groups (should) work.

"No, we will most likely take the least adoptable, since we have the foster homes that can handle them. We're not as worried about the easy-to-adopt ones."

I think she was genuinely astonished.

As it happened, the most troubled ONB dogs were divided (for foster or adoption) between the most capable of the ONB volunteers and the most experienced NESR foster volunteers.

"Troubled" is relative. There were the dogs such as Harry and Barry White, who had been in the worst condition when seized and/or made the least progress in custody. Dogs who suffered such severe kennel stress that they were difficult to parse in our interviews. And any dogs who exhibited worrisome aggression that had not been resolved while they were in custody.

One of those came home with me.

Unlike his presumed brother Charlie, Cole was not aggressive towards people.

His pathological aggression towards other dogs started when he was about eight weeks old. I witnessed the three brothers from what we believed to be one litter try to kill one another, with commitment and enthusiasm, when they still had only baby teeth that were fortunately not up to the job. They were three of seven young pups whose mother(s) could not be identified at seizure, and they wasted no time establishing Lord of the Flies protocols amongst themselves.



Later, as a teenager, he'd latch onto another dog so hard that, picked up at the height of the fray, he'd bring his victim into the air with him. The mere sight of an empty food bowl could elicit a balls-to-the-walls attack.

Cole was in solitary for months. At the ONB reunion, one of his caretakers said something that I'd somehow not appreciated before now: Cole had lived alone in the dark for twenty-two hours a day.

It pained those who loved this cheery, cuddly, playful teenage pup to know that he was so troubled, and was not only unjustly confined like all of his relatives, but isolated for their protection and his.

Douglas and I saw something else, something besides his seek-and-destroy attitude towards other dogs and his snuggly nature with humans. We saw an inborn desire to partner up with a human for a goal, and the self-assurance to make it as a working dog.

So Cole came home with me in September.

Within three weeks, he learned to put his damned tail down and get along with the resident dogs. Who liked him -- the clearest sign that the young fellow did not want to be That Dog.

Within two months, he was politely meeting strange dogs on the street. Pip adopted him as her son -- as if she didn't already have enough of them.

Within three months, he was controlling Sophia, our gormless social-climbing German shepherd, and enforcing a good pack order. Also working as our designated turkey hound. Progressing with SAR training. Ummm ... sleeping on the bed. My side.

After twenty foster dogs -- short-term fosters, long-term fosters, fosters with medical needs, fosters needing extensive training, perfect fosters who needed nothing but the right family -- we experienced a foster failure.

His Gotcha Day is Memorial Day. Best $200 I ever spent. A cheerful, loving, devoted, forgiving farm dog, SAR partner, and pack enforcer -- all for a couple of Benjamins.

This interaction with NESR may be an exchange contractually, but I did not get anything equivalent to my donation. It's as if I sent fifty bucks to the public radio and instead of a tote bag they sent back Tom and Ray in a wooden crate.

I went to the party to wait tables, and walked off with the biggest surprise door prize of all.

It gets better.

We took our first really big road trip. Perfesser Chaos, Pip, Rosie, Cole and me, two weeks with the popup trailer, to Montana and back.

Had I not had enough of Montana? I had not. Nearly six weeks in Montana last year, and I got out of Billings for one evening. I had never seen Montana.

And there was the occasion of the ONB Reunion, on the anniversary of the dogs' release from custody. So many human and dog friends who I'd never seen outside of the stress and deadlines of trying to do right by so many dogs with so few resources and so little time.

At Janeen's, part way, Cole got reacquainted with his brother, and declined to renew their nemesis relationship.

In North Dakota, he hiked the grassland, flushed grouse, and slept in the camper for the first time.

He was a Very Good Dog during the roadside emergencies occasioned by two trailer-tire blowouts. (Brand-new Carlisle brand Sport Trail tires, in case you were wondering.)

He got a stern lesson in campground etiquette from PC in the Custer National Forest after a serious lapse of judgment. I didn't say he was perfect.

And at the reunion, the boy who had been locked in solitary appointed himself the glad-handing Mayor of Dogville.

Now, no mistake -- when others offered to engage in hostilities, he was willing to return fire. I pulled or pressured him out of two scuffles, one directed at him and one between others, where he may have come to "support" me in breaking it up.

But overall, he stotted around the girl scout camp climbing into laps and offering play bows, depending on the species of each new or old friend.






He earned his CGC on Sunday, a clean and honest pass, no fudging. We had not prepared.

On Monday he advanced to a more advanced SAR task, in an unfamiliar and arid terrain, surrounded by cows, and working with PC, who is Not the Momma.

On the way home, we stopped at Janeen's again, and worked a bit with brother Charlie and maybe older sister Maddie, who each have their issues. After a few minutes, I took him off the leash. He continued to work, because I did.

And I finally saw that he is destined to be my next dog-training assistant. Not just a demo dog -- a job that can be done by any well-trained animal -- but a real partner.

He will step into the the massive pawprints left by Mel. Mel who used to bring clients to tears as she delicately calmed their fearful or ferocious beasts. Mel who thought ill of no one, but always had my back. Mel who could do her job without direction, while my full attention was riveted on our troubled student.

He will one day be that good. Not the same, but that good.

That day I got a call from a friend who had just been savagely ambushed by grief when she picked up her late dog's ashes. Listened and talked about the Old Man, these Great Dogs and what they do to us, requiring that we become better humans by believing we already are.

They create these magnificent places in our lives and hearts, and maybe one day, after they are gone, another Great Dog comes along and moves into that vacant space. Not to replace the maker, but to help fill the space with life rather than echoes.

And there was my Little Dude, romping on the lawn and flashing me a tongue-lolling grin that would make any other dog look like a dullard. On Cole -- who has shivered on a pile of frozen dogshit, who lived 22 hours a day alone in the dark, who once found an empty bowl to be grounds for attempted murder, and through it all has always believed that there has got to be a pony in here somewhere -- it just looks happy. All that knowledge, and he chooses happiness.

The biggest prize of all.