Scent of the Missing

by Susannah

  "Are you all right?" asks one. I'm not sure if he's asking about possible injuries or just my curious inability to run without falling. They aren't having any trouble with it, clearly. But then, they aren't learning how to run after a dog, and I haven't learned how to watch mine and where I'm going at the same time.

  In the stand of trees, I hear a yip, then a little grunt and a laugh, and I find Puzzle wiggling over Max, who's buried beneath a camouflage tarp. Max is an old hand at this and somehow manages to pet her, praise her, and extricate himself from his hiding place simultaneously. She is aware of her success and turns to each of us for the praise due. When the two field assistants compare GPS readings, she bumps them for second acknowledgment. I give her a treat and again, she accepts it politely but with no great desire, gives a halfhearted chew, and drops it. Wroo, she croons lovingly to Max and the two field assistants. I need better treats, I think, or maybe I just need to understand what really motivates my dog.

  I ran behind many other dogs before Puzzle joined me, and even as we train together, I continue to work as a field assistant behind certified dogs on actual searches. Though it's easy for a new handler-in-training to dismiss this opportunity, running behind other teams is some of the best handler training there is. Because field assistants operate at some distance from the canine unit, we are often able to see parts of the nonverbal communication between dog and handler that even handlers cannot see from their closer position. Our handlers all use similar commands, but from the moment of encouragement and release, the partnership is unique. There is much to learn.

  Jerry and Shadow have a relationship framed by easy camaraderie, absolute authority on Jerry's part, and their mutual understanding that she knows her job, he knows his, and Shadow doesn't need to be micromanaged. She isn't. She's a dog of great presence. Even strangers who meet her will mention the aloof carriage, the regal bearing. We call her "The Queen," not because someone came up with a nickname we all adopted, but by default. No other descriptor fits.

  Shadow works off-lead entirely. After Jerry's low command and a bob of her head in acknowledgment, she enters a sector with immediate purpose. She is not a nervous or an effusive dog; her assessments are cool, but the humans behind her can clearly see the process of her choice making. Left, not right, scent, no scent. She enters an area and meticulously clears it with wide, confident sweeps, Jerry following quietly behind. There is no mad dashing and great noise with a Shadow/Jerry search, but it is highly efficient. When Shadow enters an area of interest, she moves immediately to it, hones scent to the victim quickly, and sticks there. She's a talky girl who often discusses the find—in long strings of multiple syllables—with Jerry when he comes to reward her. Shadow likes her beef jerky. She will take it with great care, eat it thoughtfully, and then talk about it as a human might give several points of critique. If Shadow believes more treats are in order, she's not above putting a paw to your knee and telling you so explicitly.

  In contrast, Belle, a yellow Lab, is a dog of high energy and great dash, who quivers before her release and races into a sector at a speed even the most athletic of us could not match. I was a victim on one of her early wilderness training searches. Buried deep in brush up a small hillside, I remember hearing the distant "Find!" command and seeing Belle flash by below me within seconds, with her handler and a field assistant struggling through the brush in full gear behind. When Belle caught my scent and altered course, she leapt over brush and had to belly-crawl in to get to me. She remained there and had begun her happy bark of success well before handler and field assistant were able to clear the brush to get to us.

  "Good dog!" Cindi cried, waving Belle's beloved ball, her reward.

  "Oh ... good ... God," panted the field assistant, "the only way to follow Belle is stark naked and greased like a swimmer."

  Cindi learned early that working Belle was not so much a matter of keeping up as recognizing Belle's communication from a distance. Belle's signals are broad—fast and muscular, a lot of motion, a snapping at the air as she narrows to the find, and a bark of excitement to say she deserves her ball.

  Max and Fleta's first dogs, Hunter and Saber, were two of the team's foundation dogs. They are the senior dogs of the team with a large number of searches behind them, and both now approach retirement. I regret that I came to the team too late to witness their early careers and the dialogue with their partners as it evolved, but I have seen the end result. Hunter has long been a hard-charger in the field, known for pushing through debris and digging out victims, if he must, to show Max where they lie. His finds will not go unnoticed. Saber, by contrast, moves like the senior statesmen of search dogs. He is calm, methodical, and precise, and true to his breed's background protecting sheep, Saber is known for an intense, protective victim loyalty at the point of find. A confident boy with a stubborn streak, Saber early taught Fleta how a search would progress and how she would pay attention to his signals in the field. With Saber, there is no room for sloppiness or inattention.

  Max began training his second partner, Mercy, a white German Shepherd, in 2001. Fleta's second partner, another Roughcoat Collie named Misty, arrived in 2003. On the surface, it might seem that choosing the same breed for second partner would make training the new dogs easier, but though the dogs shared a handful of common physical traits in the field, they were each unique—Misty as gregarious as Saber was cautious, Mercy's subtler signals demanding a watchfulness not required by Hunter's broad, masculine alerts. Every dog is a new conversation, says Fleta.

  I am learning to speak Puzzle, and maybe she is learning to speak me. We have a little time—hundreds of training searches to become fluent in each other, months of work before we will challenge our certification tests as a canine team. It is a rigorous curriculum for both of us in wilderness, urban, and disaster environments. Canine teams emerge from this prepared for all live-find work, whether a missing child in a neighborhood, five Boy Scouts lost in a state park, or an unknown number of survivors trapped beneath a building collapse. When I look at Puzzle, the prospect seems years distant, but sometimes she runs into her practice sectors with an intensity that suggests I'd better learn the grammar of her soon.

  Puzzle's eagerness is clear, but she has more energy than finesse. Her wayward motor skills are funny. On the "Find!" command, she gallops away with great joy, then slows to a thoughtful lope as she first enters an area that seems to have live scent. I watch her work across the wind and begin to refine how she uses her nose. From that easy trot, the first strong scent that snags her attention literally seems to hook her by the nostrils. I watch her pivot while the suddenly lifted muzzle appears to stay in one place. When she's got scent, Puzzle's nose directs all her actions; she turns where it goes, and simultaneously there's a little kick-in-the-pants movement and a quickening of gait. Her tail, once idly swaying, begins to wag.

  The closer she gets to the scent source, the quicker she moves. These early searches are easy finds. Though fully hidden, the victims are within Puzzle's access, if not her immediate sight. She pushes aggressively through brush to a scent source in the wilderness, but in closed building scenarios, where scent may slide along walls or hang in corners like ghosts, she must work harder to move from faint scent to stronger and strongest. I hang back while she mutters in frustration, clearly catching the scent but not able to see the source. It's the same kind of sound one occasionally hears from a person who's lost her car key in her purse: I know it's here somewhere, but I just can't find it. This is her problem to solve, and with a few words of encouragement (Work it out, Puz), I wait for her to find her own way in to the victim she cannot see.

  When she does, the transition from indication to alert is obvious. I see a bounce of excitement just before her bottom drops, her tail wagging hard enough that her whole back end sways. Occasionally she makes a little whine of pleasure, particularly if the volunteer victim is someone she knows well. Her early alerts are puppyish, and I wonder what she will keep of these markers as sh
e matures, and what she will lose. At this point, her final alerts have begun to evolve. They are clear to me and unaggressive toward victims: she no longer jumps on their chests, scratches them with a forepaw, or presses her face to theirs to lick. I hope her paws-off alerts will continue. I praise her hugely for them. Victim-passive alerts will be more appropriate in the field, where someone could be hurt or afraid of dogs, or if the find is located in the middle of a crime scene that would be better left unmauled by a happy, successful search canine.

  On a Saturday morning in late spring, I lie wedged beneath two slabs of cement tilted sideways over chunks of concrete and mangled rebar. I've been here about an hour, a buried volunteer victim in the debris pile, as a series of experienced and less-experienced search dogs work across the rubble to find me. I will be here a while, still. I've been well hidden below the crush of rock, and from where I lie, I can see little in the dim light—cement, a piece of what appears to be plywood, and, if I turn my head slightly, a few tufts of wild grass stretching up through rebar. The air that reaches me is warm and spongy with drizzle, but the cement itself is still cool from the night before. Over time, some of that cool has seeped into my bones. My left foot, wedged sideways in a ballerina's turnout, has gone numb. The rest of me feels plenty, though. Some of the cement beneath my back is jagged. There's a hard chunk of something pressed against two ribs. One piece of cement against my forehead is mercifully smooth, but if I turn my head to the left, a raw piece of metal snags my ear. This is not the most comfortable hiding any of us does for the search dogs, but it is some of the most realistic.

  Between dogs, there is a debriefing for the previous handler and a briefing for the next one. Sometimes, if the wind is right, I can hear the handler's command and the occasional eager woof of the responding Lab or Border Collie or German Shepherd. Other times, I can hear nothing more than the whistle of draft side-winding through shattered cement. I have been here only a short time, but in the gaps between dogs it's not hard to think I've been forgotten even in this soft little while. I've started the day with a good breakfast and a quiet walk to the debris pile, and though I am in this place on a voluntary basis and I have no injuries, it's not difficult to imagine the fear and hopelessness of a victim caught, much worse than I am ever caught, for hours, even days, in the rubble following catastrophe.

  Dog Number Five is ready to run, and from far away I hear the "Find!" command and a few distant thumps that may be running feet. The voice sounded like Deryl's, which means the dog searching will be Sadie, a German Shepherd. The wind has lessened, and within moments I can hear Sadie's progress around the pile and Deryl's footsteps after her. I hear the scrape of her claws as she scrambles upward, and then a moment of silence, as though she's poised to make a decision—this way or that way in the sticky air. It's an instructive moment, listening to the rhythm of the working dog in progress.

  I hear Sadie's definite change of gait, beginning with a soft lope that quickens, a pause, and then the scrambling sound of the dog moving upward. It's a little difficult to be sure where she is as I hear her moving across the pile, until I hear her pad into a nearby vertical structure. Its floor is smooth, though littered with a scatter of heavy dust and bits of concrete. I am close, and I can hear the softer movement of Sadie circling inside it and then the quicker sound of her exit. She has rejected that space for a possible living victim. I hear the closer scrape of her climbing paws. Plywood lying nearby creaks, then makes a shuddering sound as it bears her weight. Above me, I hear a huff of breath, a mutter, and as I wind my hand up to touch her forepaw, a woof as she signals to Deryl she's made the find.

  Though I have hidden in the debris pile countless times across the past five years, I still feel a surge of relief each time one of the dogs find me, here or any other place. Their successes increase my conviction and confidence in the work.

  Two nights later, wedged into a closet between a wall and three stacked fire mattresses as we work on urban searching, I sit in the dark and listen to first Shadow and then Misty find me. Though I am two rooms away from the "Find!" command and do not hear it, Shadow's easy tread is so distinctive that she's unmistakable. I always think of Shadow searching with the precision of a surgeon: opening a space and making decisions as she moves, with great efficiency. As her pace quickens, she begins talking to Jerry long before she reaches the closet, where she puts her nose to the crack beneath the door, huffs, inhales, and huffs again. Then she talks—a long string of dog syllables that have an almost human cadence. She's got me. Jerry knows it. And when he opens the door, Shadow peers in at me and gives me a little hmph —like is-this-the-best-hide-you've-got in you? It is.

  I take Shadow's apparent condescension as a challenge. For the next dog, I decide to lie between the fire mattresses in the same closet. They are heavier than I might have guessed, and little air gets through. It doesn't take long to break a sweat lying there, and I hope this isn't one of the brand-new dogs—then I realize: I have the brand-new dog, and she's out there and I'm in here. I hear the distant "Find!" and the sound of a dog on the move, and so I lie still, wondering how sweat adds to the overall composition of my scent. I can smell me, and I am not impressed, but I wonder if the coming dog notes only the chemical change: Susannah freshly glazed with fresh water, salt, glucose, ammonia, and lactic acid. Oh, and she's lying on mattresses that have hadfifty-six—no, fifty-seven—other humans on them. Two of them wore Old Spice.

  The coming dog is Misty, the Collie who moves through the large room like a thoroughbred on light feet. I can hear her steady gait quicken, then a pause as she picks her way through a series of ladders lying flat. At the door of the closet, I hear her breathing change from a pant to the rounder huff, huff, huff of a dog drawing scent into the cavern of her muzzle. She paws at the closet door, scratching and huffing with excited certainty. I hear a single little squeak. When her handler, Fleta, opens the door, Misty makes short work of finding me between the mattresses in the dark. I am a lovely, living human sandwich lying there. She is a tall, beautiful dog with a long nose, and she snakes between the mattresses to give me a joyful kiss on the mouth.

  Months later, the sun is merciless on us one morning as the dog teams work scenarios involving debris, damaged cars, and the "burn building"—a concrete, one-story house routinely filled with wood and hay and set ablaze for training firefighters to put out. Today is more like summer than spring, and the burn building is stifling. A recent training burn has left it sooty and rich with the scent of charred wood, and with the iron windows latched closed, the structure has little air movement, making it harder to search. My eyes tear immediately when we enter. I imagine Puzzle's overwhelmed nose. Is an environment like this the olfactory equivalent of eighth-row center at a Metallica concert?

  We need to work quickly too. We have volunteers sweltering in there, despite their gel-filled "cool down" neckerchiefs. The burn building is no place to be slow. Handlers and victims come out from that hot space bathed in sweat; the dogs make their finds and dash free of it as though their tails were afire. I have a bandanna tied around my forehead, but its cool is long gone. Perspiration has soaked through it and run into my eyes. On our last search in the burn building, I have to follow the vague, light swoosh of Puzzle's tail out of the darkness, the sweat having literally blinded me in the short time it took to clear six rooms and extricate a single victim.

  We sit in rehab for twenty minutes, drinking water. I swab Puzzle's paws with cooling alcohol, then wipe my face and put on a new kerchief for the next round of searches. Puzzle lies in the shade of the fire hose rack and lifts her nose as the other dogs and handlers work across the various scenarios. Hard work today, but she twitches each time she hears the word "Find!" the command and its response now a reflex of muscle memory.

  The heat from the debris pile radiates so powerfully that my face stings as we work it. I wonder about the dogs' paws as they scramble over its jagged, tumbled surfaces, but they give no sign of discomfort. Puzzle loves wo
rking debris, and she watches as the certified dogs circle the pile thoughtfully, choosing the tidiest way to a find, or dash across it with the precision of a tennis pro's return volley. A youngster still, she searches debris with a technique somewhere between the two—a mad gallop around the pile to what seems to be the best point of scent for her, then a happy scramble across its surfaces. She is still a little small and clumsy. Some leaps onto rubble require a second or third effort. Some finds must be achieved a different way. We work several debris searches, then stand down to rehab again, crossing the long stretch of green grass toward a shady area with more water and, for Puzzle, a couple of pieces of watermelon, a favorite post-search refreshment in the heat. The watermelon is no longer cold or even cool, but the deep pink chunks are sweet, and after a bite or two, we both feel energy begin to return.

  Border Collie Hoss isn't feeling well today. He sits in the deep shadow of the ladder tower, watching the team work. He's alert, but his expression is tired and there is a sense about him of overall malaise. Hoss is a hard-working dog and compulsive about it too. He has worked a couple of searches at the training site, but Terry has noticed he's "off" and knowing that Hoss will rarely stand himself down, Terry has decided to let him rest for the remainder of the session in the shade in the back of the truck. His dog is obedient, but from his tucked posture and watchfulness across the training field, it's clear Hoss is at odds with himself. He feels sick but still wants to search. The truck is a good vantage for this boy who misses little. Over the course of the morning, he watches the FAS team rigging extrication systems and supervises the dog-and-handler teams working at a distance.