I'm hiding. It’s deathly quiet. I don't know if nature sounds have ever echoed louder in my ears. The only sound louder is my beating heart. I always knew it would come to this. I've been wanting to do this act for over two years now. Waiting, planning yet procrastinating. Until today. And now I can hear the dog coming. He’s been on the scent. He’s been on my scent. I can hear the handler yelling commands. They’re getting close. I shouldn't be surprised. I should have known there were better places to hide. I can see the dog now. This is the way it was always going to end.
(That my friends, is the hook. Always need a strong title and opening. Invested
now?)
OK, so the opening is fiction. (Or is it?) I’ve been doing a lot of reading lately. I feel like my storytelling has gotten better. So let’s start the story, eh?
Today
I volunteered some of my copious amount of free time to a search and rescue
(SAR) dog group. I’ve been wanting to do this for quite a while, but it never
quite aligned until today. I didn’t know what to expect, but I sure had some
high hopes. What I had in my head was I had the freedom to hide anywhere; up in
a tree, behind a dumpster (no, not in) maybe do some combat rolls or bear
crawls into another strategic position. This training is taking place on a
college campus.
I show up, there are 6 dogs with their handlers, and only 2 volunteers. I'll
admit, I'm a bit competitive. Even though I have no idea how this works, I
think I am prepared. I am wearing Earth tones. Shit, I even have a camo cap on.
A camo cap! Just like Halloween, I'm gonna make these dogs work for their
treats.
It’s actually very anti-climactic. For the first dog, they give me a Garmin GPS collar. Not to wear, though I'm pretty sure I could rock it nonetheless. They told me to bring a "scent article" like a sock or a bandana. On the ride up, they told me to place it in my waistband or shoulder. I chose waistband, because, let's face it, it's not like I never stuffed a sock into my crotch before. Before I arrive, I take it out and place it on my shoulder inside my shirt. I'm not an animal.
The most famous sock I could think of
Also, I did not shower today, so the dogs sure AF have a shot of tracking me
down.
All
these handlers are the real deal. Each one tracks their dog a bit differently.
There are tablets, body cams, SAR shirts/hats/long leashes, GoPros on the
dogs, GPS, etc. All the dogs have real deal harnesses-the kinds with their
names and phone numbers (well, the handlers’ numbers, pretty sure the dogs don’t
have their own phones. Maybe they do.) various SAR emblems and wording. These
teams are their own tech centers. This is a legit operation.
I’m instructed to drop my sock on the ground. Turns out I don't decide where to
go, they will walk me to a spot and I’ll stay there, waiting to be found. He
winds me through the campus. Eventually he finds a spot that he's happy with.
There's some tables and chairs set up in a breeze way. All I have to do is wait
and write down notes for this post. Also turns out today is move-in day on the
campus, so there's lots of 'contamination' the dog will have to work through.
As we're walking to my first location, the handler proceeds to tell me they had a case where a husband reported his wife missing. After 2 fucking weeks. I've seen enough movies of the week to figure out how this ends. I watch enough cops shows to know, 2 weeks and the trail is already cold. Hubs claims she stole $13k and is probably on a beach with her boyfriend. The dog gets an old jacket for a scent. He doesn’t pick up a scent around the house. Until he goes out the back and starts pulling directly to the garage. There is a scent in and around the garage. Skip to the end, turns out the husband murdered the wife. First, he tried smothering her, that didn't work. So he strangled her. And chopped her up. The strong trail was from him taking her in pieces to the car in the garage to dispose of. Why? Because the wife wasn't supportive of his dream to open a comic book store. But the mistress was.
Back to the present, let me get this straight, you're gonna have me sit on a college campus and watch all the college girls go by?!? Yea, buddy, today is a good day.
Y'all like dogs?
I can't imagine these kids even see me, especially on move in day. I'm not
super concerned about being an old man sitting by himself on a college campus
with what appears to be a shock collar on the table. Nope, nothing to see here.
The only thing I'm missing is a can of Stateside. I also note apparently, this
college immediately assigns a Stanley cup to every female student.
This reference only works if you are old.
In a relatively short amount of time, the first good boi finds me. I’m told each individual dog can have their own ‘sign’ that they found their target. For the first dog, he touches me with his nose-pretty sure we do NOT call this “boop” in the SAR world. After the dog gives the sign, then I can acknowledge them. The collar they gave me tracks the path they led me as opposed to the path the dog took to find me. I think there’s something to do with how many turns the dog took or something. All this tracking creates a bunch of nerdy data that, I guess, is good? I have no real idea.
On
the way to the second spot, the same handler tells me a story about a Holly
Grim. "And let me tell you, it was grim what happened to Holly." You
can see the full deets here
(fair warning; it is a bit more disturbing.) Not for nothing, but I do feel a small, very
small, sense of pride welling up, as I am doing some sort of good. Even if it's
sitting on my ass. But today, I am serving my country, GD it. Now I can get stuff cheap on GovX.
I'm also happy this second space is inside, so I'm curious to see if the dog
can find me. I'm especially fortunate, because there is a bathroom. It wasn’t going to be much longer until my scent was
going to get a lot easier to discern. Also, nothing sketch about some old loser
sitting in an empty hallway. It would be nice to at least some sort of shirt or
vest that says something like K9 search team or something just for the day. However,
watching the people outside is fun. Not that I have any regrets or anything,
but I never went away to college. I suspect if I did, I would be a very
different person. This campus life seems kinda nice.
After
navigating through a campus full of people moving in, sure enough, the good
girl appears at the door. She comes in and walks her way to me. Her sign is
jumping on me with her front paws. And I’m fine with this.
For the third dog, the handler asks, "Would you like to hide in a creepy
stair well?" WOULD I? I feel like there is at least one ghost here for me.
Of course, Sadie finds me pretty quick. Felt like I could have spent some more
time there.
 |
| Oddly comfortable |
To be clear, these aren't the official K9 police dogs you see on TV. None of these handlers are police. They are all volunteers. Police will reach out for them when the need arises. Most times it's to locate people who wander off. The cases I describe above are rather rare, but of course it's the type of cases they're will bring up first. None of these dogs are drug sniffing dogs as far as I know. Some are trained to be cadaver dogs. My use of the term 'police dog' in the title is a bit of creative license, though not totally untrue.
Speaking
of wandering off, these SAR teams get a lot of cases of dementia patients wandering
off. I learned dementia patients will often tire and lie down. I also learned
where a dog loses a scent tells a story. When the trail suddenly goes cold,
often times that means the target gets into a car (sometimes against their will.)
They’ve had cases where the trail ends at a train station. Sometimes the dog
can pick it up at a later stop. Or the police can get video around these points
to keep tracking.
4th dog they hide me in these ticket booths that are all huddled together outside
under an eve. Cool and creepy in an abandoned amusement park way. The
spiderwebs are everywhere, as is the smell of exposed, dry weathered wood. I'm confident it won't stop the dog. Even as I crouch down to hide totally from
sight, this German Shepherd jumps up and puts his front paws on the top of the
shelf of the window. Found by a good boi. But it's still three tickets to ride
the merry go round.
The fifth and sixth “finds” go by relatively quick as this is getting to be a long day for the dogs and handlers. All these handlers are volunteers. They don't get paid by the police or anything. None of them are young. One handler is 81. He just got laid off last week. And he is close to completing his first app that helps track and train SAR dogs. Me? Way younger and write great blogs no one reads and funny jokes no one laughs at. Another set of handlers drove 2 hours for 4 “finds” with their dogs. The other volunteer today? In her 70s. If there’s anything I'm walking away with this from, it would be I am so thankful there are people and dogs like these folks.
If
you think an experience like this is cool, I am confident there are similar
organizations looking for volunteers near you. You heard this thing called “Google”
or “AI?” At least for this group, they do encourage families to participate. This
is also a fun date idea, Unless of course you plan on offing your significant
other at some point. Pretty sure that goes without saying. I really don’t know
of many volunteer opportunities where you can just sit on your ass (and write)
and do good.
BONUS CONTENT
With that solid opening-can you tell I’ve been reading thrillers recently?
I
rarely use my own pics for KT. It’s always been some weird line about privacy
for me. In this instance, the photos seemed necessary
Ironic this happened the day after On Patrol Live's Dog Day Weekend
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