Listen to “The American Canine” podcast to hear Josh Gerstman and Heather Jo Cutting discuss their 20+ years of search dog experience with host Tony McFee. The conversation covers their first exposure to search dogs through to search and rescue becoming their lifestyle. They also describe finding suitable puppies and the training required to become certified search dog team. A great listen!
K9 Oso and Heather take to the sky! Thanks to the King County Sheriff Office Air Support Unit, KCSD recently had it’s 2018 helicopter training at Banderra airfield east of North Bend WA. All the dogs had a chance to practice loading into the helicopter with and without the engines running. The handlers and dogs then put on their harnesses and were hoisted up into Guardian 2 as it hovered 120 feet in the air. While it is a fun ride, it is serious business and on those occasions when helicopter transport is required KCSD dogs and handlers are ready […]
K9 Oso and his handler Heather passed the KCSD airscent pre-test on Saturday finding both his ‘subjects’ in less than 90 minutes. The team is now available for missions within King County. Oso is an expert locksmith/escape artist as well as an up-and-coming search dog and is named after Oso, Washington where Heather participated in the search activities after the tragic 2014 landslide.
The Issaquah Times has a great write-up on the King County Search Dogs that describes many facets of the unit’s mission and training activities. It features Issaquah-resident Joan and her dog Artoo and includes a gallery of wonderful photos from one of our Wednesday evening training sessions.
Listen to a great in-depth interview with KCSD’s current President Heather Jo Cutting being interviewed by Sean McDaniel on ‘The Dog’s Way” Podcast. Learn about: How and when King County Search Dogs are called out, What sort of dogs are good for searching in the pacific northwest, and the training required to be an effective search dog. You can hear the entire podcast using the embedded player below or by going to ‘The Dog’s Way’ website.
#KingCountySearchDogs has some news! We have two new dog teams qualified to deploy on in-county airscent missions and two new human remains detection teams! Congratulations to the following dogs (and their humans.) K9 Tule (in-county airscent,) K9 Artoo (in-county airscent,) K9 Jack (human remains detection,) and K9 Natick (human remains detection.)
Tule and Mathew passed their airscent certification test with flying colors last Saturday and are now ready for in-county and out-of-county search missions. A wonderful accomplishment! The test subjects were especially happy that Tule found them quickly on such a cool wet day. CONGRATS MATHEW & TULE!