Payback (The Canine Handler Book 1) (14 page)

Sarah pulled the container of baby powder from a front pocket of her BDUs. She kept it in a close spot for quick access. She liked to check the air flow and wind direction frequently while running a search in the woods. Even though the predominate wind direction normally didn’t shift, when trees, ravines and changing elevations came into play, they added further variables to how the wind blew and how the dogs worked.

As a canine handler, you needed to be able to “read the air movement” to support your dog in solving a scent problem. It could mean the difference between your dog making a successful find or possibly overlooking the subject.

Twisting the top open, Sarah held the powder at arms-length downwind of the other searchers and dogs. She squeezed off a few puffs forming a small white cloud. She watched how the powder moved. It danced and flowed and slowly spread through the pines until it gradually dispersed and altogether disappeared. Sarah mentally noted how the air pulled the cloud up and dropped it several meters away.
Hmmph,
she thought as she studied the movements. “Well that’s interesting.”

“Are you going to share your findings with us or will they remain top secret?” Dave mused.

“Oh, I don’t know. What’s it worth to you?” Sarah teased back.

“Does the powder really tell you that much?” Dave inquired. “How much effect will it actually have on how you’re going to work the dogs? I thought you just used it to tell the direction of the breeze?”

“Mainly, but it can tell you so much more. Air movement does all kinds of neat little things.”

“Okay,” Dave acknowledged sounding unsure.

“Since the prevailing airflow is from the north as it was in base camp, we can keep the search strategy pretty much the same as we had planned. But we have to keep in mind that there are more variables in the woods that could have many different effects on how human scent can pool in areas or be dispersed.”

“Oh.” Dave replied still not totally getting it, but he seemed to understand they didn’t have time at the moment for a deeper lesson. “Maybe we could discuss this more in-depth at a later date?” he asked more as a suggestion than a question.

“Sure,” Sarah responded automatically as she concentrated on what she was doing.
Date? Did I just say, “Sure,” to a date?

She needed to work the dogs across or into the wind to maximize their efficiency and effectiveness for locating a lost person. Since the follicles, or rafts, from people’s skin traveled with the breeze, having the dogs work into the wind, or across the wind, would give them the greatest opportunity to intersect a missing subject’s scent cone. It would put the dog in the best position to be successful. The further out a dog caught the scent, the wider its scent cone generally became. Air-scenting dogs are trained to work within these scent cones and follow them to the source, the subject.

Canine handlers know the subtle signs and changes in their dog’s body language and behavior. They can read when their partner has discovered human scent, as Sarah had proven the day before during the water search. There was no doubt in her mind when Gunner or Sam came into contact with human scent that didn’t belong to their search party. Handlers can also tell when their dogs are not working or are goofing off. Sometimes a canine needs to be re-focused, re-started on their task—but that was never the case with Gunner and Sam. They were devoted to getting paid by finding the subject and getting rewarded.

The dogs began to let out barks of frustration. Gunner and Sam were having a difficult time staying in a down. They were both shaking with anticipation. Gunner had started to whine obnoxiously. Tired of waiting for the game to begin, they broke position and stood in place.

“Settle,” Sarah spoke softly, but firm. Both dogs stopped moving for a moment and focused all of their concentration on her. They knew the command was meant for them to chill out and calm down, but it only lasted a few seconds.

“Hey guys,” Sarah directed to Kellee and Dave, “We need to go over the search strategy quick so we can get started. I really need to get the dogs going. They are on edge and tired of waiting.”

Sarah pulled the folded topo map out once again from her BDU pants pocket. She opened it just enough to show the 1,000-meter by 1,000-meter square they were in. Using the tip of a small twig, she pointed to a spot on the map. “We are here right now. We’re going to grid from this point west to east starting from this stand of pines to the park boundary here,” she continued to use the twig as a pointer to show the direction and area of travel. “We head out using a 90-degree bearing, turn north which will be a left turn, head about 30-50 meters on smaller sweeps, then head back on the opposite bearing to work back west on the long sweep.”

She pointed to the boundaries. “Kellee, can you keep track of our direction of travel, marking our boundary corners with flagging tape as we hit each one?” Kellee nodded and pulled her compass out of her pocket and set the bearing using the topo map to acclimate herself and the settings. Sarah shoved the map into a plastic casing that hung from a lanyard and put it around her neck. Now it would be protected from the elements and she could access it in seconds.

Sarah had stepped up. She had taken full control of her search task, the dogs and her team’s responders. The group was known as a strike team and Sarah had deferred to Kellee as the strike team’s leader. Kellee still let Sarah run the show and was in total support of whatever Sarah would need. Sarah was feeling more confident as she concentrated on the task at hand. It kept her mind from creeping back to the past.
This feels good, feels right,
she thought.
I just need to stay in control. Everything will be okay. Stay positive.

Dave’s job was to continue to man the radio and communicate with base. Handling a radio was second nature to him since he did that during his job. He asked Sarah where he should tread in conjunction with Sarah and Kellee and the dogs as they walked their grid pattern.

“Just stay to my left and Kellee will stay to my right, about 10 or 20 feet off my side and a few feet behind. Don’t get in front of the dogs, though. They may come around behind us and check our scent or come in for a water break, but let them lead the way. Try not to interact with them in any way. I like to stay quiet while the dogs are on task, other than calling out the lost subject’s name, but let’s keep the chatter to a minimum.”

Sarah looked over to where Kellee was standing, compass in one hand, GPS in the other. Kellee had been busy checking her bearings and plugging map coordinates into her GPS. “Are we r-e-a-d-y?” Sarah spelled to her two team members in a low, slow voice. The dogs were looking for any recognizable word to tell them to take off and start running through the woods. Kellee and Dave nodded their assent.

Dave picked up the microphone once again and pressed the call button.

“Base, Team Echo here.” Dave released the call button and waited a few seconds.

“Team Echo, this is base, go ahead.”

Dave called in the beginning coordinates and a loose basis of what their search strategy was. He let base know that Team Echo was starting their task.

Base read the coordinates back, stated Team Echo’s start time of 1000 hours and gave protocol for the team to check in every half hour from this point with their status, condition and coordinates.

Dave copied base, ended the transmission and clipped the radio microphone to the strap of the holster that wrapped around his neck and shoulder. Packing the rest of the radio back in the pocket of the holster, he turned to watch Sarah release the dogs.

Sarah faced east, the direction of travel she wanted to head off in. She picked the dogs’ leashes up slowly. Gunner and Sam turned to face Sarah, their eyes locked on her. The energy was thick as the dogs anticipated their release command.

They knew the start of the game had arrived and they shook with anticipation. Sarah had already removed their prong collars, refastening the leash to their flat collars. She didn’t allow them to work with much hardware. Sarah stood behind the dogs, their bodies facing east.

With her thumbs on each of the dogs’ quick-release snaps, she was ready to let them go. When they turned to look east in the direction of travel, finally, Sarah commanded, “Go Find!” She pressed down on the snaps to unhook them and not get in the way. Even so the dogs still managed to almost pull her forward into the wet soil. Sarah caught herself before falling face first into the dirt. Kellee stifled a laugh as the dogs kicked pine needles up in their race to begin. Teammates reveled in seeing their partners do face plants thanks to their working canines.

“Too bad I forgot my camera,” Kellee commented as she watched the dogs race away.

Kicking up loamy soil and a bit of mud, both dogs sprinted off in a frenzy. Sarah helped guide them in the direction she was heading by pointing and swinging her arms toward the southeastern line of the stand of pines. “This way,” she yelled. She over-exaggerated her body language at first to get their attention. It helped the dogs make the connection of the direction she wanted them to head.

Sarah, Kellee and Dave stepped into formation. Sarah situated herself in the middle in front with Dave on the left and Kellee on her right checking her bearing as they headed out in a quick pace.

Kellee set her sights on the furthest point she could see, a large pine that was cracked in the middle of its trunk several meters down their immediate line of travel. “See that split tree?” she pointed. “That’s where we’re we heading to. I’ll keep pace count as well,” Kellee offered.

Even though they had an idea of what to look for in terrain changes as they approached their eastern boundary, it helped to keep a pace count. It kept their travel distance more accurate. Kellee’s pace count was approximately 65 steps to every 100 meters traveled, more or less. She had beads that hung on a cord on the front of her pack strap. For every 100 meters they traveled, Kellee would pull a bead down to the bottom of the cord. This way, she wouldn’t have to remember in her head exactly how many hundreds of meters they had traveled.

“Off on a new adventure!” Dave stated enthusiastically as they started their task.

Sarah smiled at Dave. She thought his energy and outlook were thoughtful, almost innocent.
Sometimes hokey,
she thought,
but always in a good way
. She knew he loved the outdoors and was fascinated by the working dog discipline. It was hard not to get caught up in Dave’s eager vigor.

But thoughts of who was missing, thoughts of past memories almost made her shiver. Sometimes she could feel the physical pain that worthless POS had inflicted on her just with a memory. Without thinking, she touched a round scar just inside the small of her right collarbone.

Pushing those thoughts aside, she concentrated on what she was doing. She needed to stay alert and ready.
On the defense!

She looked up toward the split tree where they were heading just in time to see both dogs disappear deeper into the woods and out of sight. For a moment her anxiety shot up and she breathed in deep.
They will be okay, let them do their job!
Sarah tried to calm herself with her own words of wisdom. She lengthened her stride and quickened her pace following Sam and Gunner’s lead.

Sarah’s nerves settled down each time she caught a glimpse of the dogs as they hunted for the lost person. Sarah wore a huge smile. The missing subject had put a black cloud over the day, but she couldn’t help feeling proud of Gunner and Sam. Watching the dogs take off with purpose and loving what they were doing was pure joy. They meant the world to Sarah. More than just pets, they were her whole life. She didn’t know how she would react if anything ever happened to them.

There was always a bit of apprehension when you turned your working canine free to work a search. Especially in a wooded area where the visibility was limited. You had to trust them. It was no different for Sarah. There were always unforeseen dangers. One never knew what they would ultimately encounter while working in the field on a search.

She wanted to get through this with no injuries to her team or her dogs. They had worked so hard to get to this point in their search career. It had taken almost two years to train Gunner and Sam to be able to pass all of the tests that led up to the final evaluation and become a certified team. It had been challenging and demanding, yet rewarding work.

She was finally to a point in her life where everything was looking positive. She had a good job she felt made a difference in people’s lives. People counted on her to make quick, correct life-saving decisions in her emergency operations position. She had gotten her degree and was looking forward to a possible career with “the agency,” as she referred to the FBI. As a part of the canine team, she witnessed not only the benefits her organization had to offer, but also the camaraderie between first responders. She thought of her county position co-workers and her search teammates as the closet thing she had to a family.

Sarah looked around to Kellee at her right and Dave a little behind her on her left. Dave smiled. She couldn’t help but know by now that he was interested in her.
Interested in me? Or my dogs?
She liked Dave. She liked him as a co-worker and friend.
Nothing more, nothing less. At least for the moment.
Sarah still wasn’t ready to open any in-depth emotional doors.

It had been hard enough to let Kellee through and open up to her emotionally. To allow her into Sarah’s personal space. It had been a relationship which developed over years. She found Kellee to be a very trusting friend and confidante. A good person.

But most important, Sarah saw the care that Kellee gave to her dogs. Sarah had learned early in life that the way people cared for their animals told a vast amount about them as a person. She had seen the animal brutality in her past from the same people who raised her. Their treatment of animals reflected the same as their treatment of children in their care. Sarah was forever grateful that Kellee was in her life. She felt extremely lucky to have found her.

Sarah concentrated on the terrain in front of her. She stepped over several downed trees and broken branches. They had been ripped from the few hardwoods that stood intermittently among the native species during the recent thunderstorms.
The winds must have been pretty violent through here,
Sarah thought as she navigated through the obstacle course.

Most of the downed tree limbs were covered in heavy, hairy looking vines. There were thick sticker bushes wound within the trees and broken branches. To add to the situation, the mosquitoes and no-see-ums were out in full force. They seemed to be thickest among the jumbled piles of disarray, hovering right at the height of the searchers’ faces.
Thank god for gaitors and bug spray,
Sarah thought.
Glad I remembered to treat Gunner and Sam as well.

“Heading to that large oak,” Kellee stated, pointing toward a big, mature tree with leaves that were just starting to announce autumn. The trio was close to the end of their first sweep. This one would finish at the eastern boundary of the park. Sarah knew what trails intersected near the boundary. She knew the forest would dead-end, opening up to private property.

Between being familiar with the area and understanding the topographical map, she was aware of what landmarks to look for. She also knew they wouldn’t have to walk all the way to the end of their boundary. The dogs would have already covered and cleared the area. Gunner and Sam helped save time and energy. This allowed the search team to start their sweep back toward the western boundary quicker.

When the team came to where they would turn in a 90-degree angle to their bearing for their shorter grids, Kellee pulled out her fluorescent orange roll of flagging tape. She unraveled a long strip and tore it off. Locating a branch to attach it, she hung it just above head height.

“Need help with that?” Dave offered.

“Nope, got it,” Kellee replied as she pulled the branch down lower to make it easier for her to tie. She pulled out two more strips and hung them along the same branch.

The flagging tape marked the team’s turn near the boundary in their sector. They would be using quite a bit of flagging tape during this mission since their sector encompassed a large area. They would not come back to pick up these strips of flagging tape so their team made sure all of the tape they used for training or during searches was biodegradable. It would take time, but eventually the tape would break down and deteriorate altogether. Once Kellee had tied the tape off, she took out a black permanent marker and wrote along one of the strips of flagging tape. She marked the team’s ID, date and area.

The team trudged on. Sam and Gunner had settled into their air-scenting work and were staying on task well. Sarah and her team couldn’t see the dogs all the time, but could hear their bells in the distance.

If the dogs happened to be several hundred meters away though, they might no longer be within earshot. If it had been a while since she’d heard the bells or the saw the dogs, Sarah would stop and listen closely until she could see or hear them before she moved on again. Each dog wore a bell with a different tone so she could tell which dog was where. Gunner’s tone was low and had a longer ring to it while Sam’s was higher pitched and shorter.

Most canine handlers worked only one dog at a time. Sarah hadn’t planned on allowing both of her dogs to work together on the same problem or search as they did now. But somewhere in their training, it was realized that Sam and Gunner had such different searching styles that once on task, they worked independently.

The dogs didn’t interfere with each other’s working ability. They actually ended up complementing one another and this helped to clear an area quicker and more effectively. Although it was unorthodox in normal air-scent canine training circles, it worked and the team had allowed Sarah to continue to use both dogs in this manner.

“Hey Kellee, we’re going to go about 50 meters to the north on the short grid before heading back west for the second long sweep. I don’t think we need to run the long sweeps too close together since the dogs are covering the ground well in the open pines.”

“Sounds like a plan. If we run into a thicker area or more downed trees, we can always tighten the space up and run the sweeps closer together,” Kellee responded.

It was close to noon. The sun was high in the early autumn sky. Sarah looked up toward the tops of the towering pines. They were taller than they should be and stood planted in rows like soldiers standing at attention. This was one of Sarah’s favorite places within the park. It reminded her of a setting for a horror movie. It was quiet and serene, but felt as if something lurked deep in the forest, waiting, just beyond their grasp, watching.

She heard the dog’s bell before she saw him. Sam returned to Sarah and banged his head hard against her leg where the water bottle hung off her belt loop.

“Easy, Sam!” Sarah reprimanded the dog as she rubbed her thigh. “I’m sure that will be black and blue tomorrow.”

She called and whistled for Gunner. He eventually came bounding back with his tongue dragging the ground. Covered in mud with a vine stuck in his bushy tail and dragging behind him, he looked bedraggled. “Well, you’re a sight!” Sarah laughed. Gunner was like a bull in a china shop. He would plow through anything to check a scent or cover his sector.

“Hey guys, I’m going to make the dogs take a short break, give them a quick check over and some water. Dave, can you call into base for any updates and give them a safety check on us?”

“Will do.”

Sarah asked both dogs to lie down. She pulled out two soft collapsible water bowls and poured a small amount of water into each one. She sat the bowls in front of the dogs. Sam tentatively lapped his water up and took his time. Gunner on the other hand, drove his whole snout into the bowl spilling most of it. Sarah started to reprimand Gunner, but ended up laughing at him instead.

Both dogs had such opposite personalities and Sarah thought that’s why they got along so well. Sam, always the more cautious, methodical dog, complemented Gunner who just threw everything to the wind. But as far as air-scenting and working dogs, they each had a tremendous work ethic.

While both were trained to air-scent, if they came across a “hot track”—a recent track from a human—Gunner would check it out, but Sam would put his nose to ground and follow the track as far as he could. Gunner would continue to keep his nose high and work what scent he could find floating on the air currents.

Occasionally, Sarah noticed the dogs come across a strong scent clue during training and she could see their different behavior unfold. Other than cleaning out a few burrs from the dogs’ coats and pulling the vine from Gunner’s tail, they were fine. Once they had consumed enough water and cooled down a bit, Sarah was ready to release them to get back to their job. Everyone seemed rejuvenated by the break; the searchers each drank water and ate a granola bar as well.

Sarah grabbed both dogs by the collars allowing them to stand up from their downed position. She pointed them in the direction she wanted them to head. The dogs pulled to be let loose, but didn’t tug as hard. They were easier to handle since they had burned off a lot of energy, but eager to get back to the game. When both dogs were looking west, Sarah commanded, “Go Find!” and released them. The dogs raced off together at first, but quickly fell into their own rhythm and search pattern.

“Okay, let’s do this!” Sarah exclaimed with enthusiasm. She looked at her two sweaty partners with a hint of sarcasm. When she saw Dave she couldn’t help but laugh.

“What?” Dave had dirt smeared across his forehead and cheek. He must have wiped his pants after sitting on the ground, and then wiped his brow, leaving a few dark streaks across his face.

“Oh, nothing,” Sarah responded and looked at Kellee who was also trying to stifle a smile. “Maybe you need to look in a mirror.”

“We can’t take you anywhere!” Kellee added teasingly.

“What?” Dave touched his face with the tips of his fingers and could feel the dirt stuck to his skin. “Oh, this is just my last-minute camouflage paint,” he said laughing at himself. “The dogs won’t be able to see me now.”

“Good thing they rely on their nose and not their eyes,” Sarah joked back.

The three picked up their packs, hiked them up on their backs and headed off in the direction of the dogs. Dave did a quick 360 survey to make sure they hadn’t left anything behind. He then looked around the area they were headed. Keeping safe was a number one concern. Taking care of your own safety first while on a search task was top priority, then your teammates and the missing subject. You were useless to help others if something happened to you.

Moving forward on a long sweep, Sarah continued to dodge spider webs and low hanging tree branches. She was shorter than Dave and Kellee which made it easier. When the other two ended up walking face first into a web, Sarah couldn’t help but laugh. After walking through one, it was hard to get over the feeling that there was a spider on you. It would give you the creeps. Sarah knew by experience and it gave her the heebie-jeebies just thinking about it.

Sarah was lost in thought as the trio moved along, quietly following the compass bearing. She was getting ready to call out to the dogs to check their location when she heard a sharp cry from one of them. The trio stopped in their tracks.

Sarah’s anxiety shot up and she called out with alarm in her voice.

“Gunner! Sam! Come on guys,” she yelled and whistled as panic rose in her throat.
Oh my god,
she thought.
I hope they’re okay.
Anxiety caused her to break into a sweat as the search team stood waiting and listening. Everyone held their breath not making a sound as they listened intently for the dogs. Sarah could hear her own heartbeat pulsating in her head.