Lost and Found: Fido to the Rescue

Scout discovers the quarry during a training exercise with DOGS-East, a canine search-and-rescue group based in Virginia. (Dogs-east Photos)

Scott Hegland could hear the tinkle of the bell on Sadie's collar from where he lay on the damp earth. Then he saw the black Labrador retriever pause on a ridge above to scan the woods.

Hegland stayed still and did not call out. If he really was a lost hiker or an Alzheimer's patient who had wandered from home, he might be unconscious from a fall or from hypothermia. It was Sadie's job to find him, regardless.

This was no game of hide-and-seek. Sadie's owner, Chris Haymaker, was directing his dog through the forest as part of a training exercise with DOGS-East, a volunteer canine search-and-rescue organization based in Virginia. His hope: to become "operational" and go on missions with the group, an admirable goal, but far from easy.

DOGS-East and other similar groups in the area, such as Mid-Atlantic D.O.G.S. of Rockville, are volunteer groups. Most welcome anyone with a dog to apply for membership. Their standards, however, are rigorous, and their commitment to the life-and-death work they do is intense.

On average, progressing from Haymaker's "applicant" status to operational in DOGS-East takes 18 months to two years of training with the group one day each weekend and working independently at least once during the week. Haymaker and Sadie have been training for about five months; Hegland, 54, of Stafford, and his yellow Lab, Valkyrie, who will do their own search later, have been training for eight months.

Once operational status is achieved, the obligation level increases. Members continue to train every weekend with the group and are on call "24-7," says Sharon Jones, a DOGS-East member for almost 20 years. The organization responds to about 70 calls a year, often at night and in bad weather. It's no coincidence that most members of DOGS-East don't have children. Members also bridge the gap between donations and the expense of travel and equipment with their own money.

So who are these people, and why do they do what they do?

For starters, they are dog lovers, one and all. Some, like Haymaker, 33, a volunteer firefighter from Spotsylvania, Va., have experience in public-service work, although that is not required. For example, Jones, 44, of Bumpass, works in a plant nursery.

"I'm combining two major loves," says Chris Ronsisvalle, 46, of Fairfax, a defense contract manager who is an operational member of DOGS-East. "I spend time with my dog in the woods, and I do a service for the community."

"I've always had dogs and trained them," says DOGS-East President Tracy Valentin, 36, of Warrenton. "After Sept. 11 [2001], I thought it would be rewarding to be able to help."

That may mean searching for a 7-year-old who has run away from home. Jones and her border collie, Marcus, recently found such a boy after he had been missing for 12 hours. Valentin and her black Lab, Cooper, were vital to the effort, too, because they helped narrow the area in which their "needle in a haystack" might be found.

Fall is an especially busy season for DOGS-East -- lots of lost hunters -- but members search for missing people year-round. They respond to calls from the Virginia Department of Emergency Management and assist federal, state and local law enforcement in crime investigations. Some DOGS-East teams are trained for cadaver searches and are called to look for suspected suicide and homicide victims.