BREMERTON, Wash. –
Tim Rice, a Puget Sound Naval Shipyard & Intermediate Maintenance Facility sheet metal worker with Shop 17, sheet metal shop, spends much of his spare time looking for lost people, or training to find lost people. He works with his partner Kimber, a two-year-old Belgian Malinois, as an area scent team. Together, they are Dog Team 76.
They are called on various missions looking for missing hikers, elderly folks, missing children and sometimes even people who have committed suicide. They are part of Kitsap County Search Dogs, which is a volunteer group who work most often for the Kitsap County Sheriff’s Office. They also work for other sheriffs’ offices in western Washington when requested.
“I do this because I would want someone searching for my family member if they were lost or missing,” said Rice. “It is very rewarding to help others in such a crisis, and to give families and friends closure to the situation. Kimber does it only for a toy, love, and the desire to please me.”
Their specialty is finding human beings, dead or alive, in a large wilderness areas. Since Kimber is off her lead (leash) as they do this and they work in remote areas, specialized training is required — a LOT of specialized training.
“The certification for us as a team starts with me,” said Rice, who is a veteran of both the U.S. Coast Guard and the U.S. Navy. “I have to know wilderness survival, first aid, CPR, orienteering (navigating with a map and compass, as well as GPS), helicopter operations, as well as passing a fitness test. I have to able to hike with a 48-hour pack, which weighs about 30 pounds for a given distance and terrain. All certifications must be renewed every two years.”
Kimber must have an American Kennel Club K9 good citizen certification. She must pass her Kitsap County test by finding two people in a 40-acre piece of wilderness, in two hours. To be certified to work outside of Kitsap County, Kimber must be evaluated while working the same problem by an evaluator who has never seen her work. There are 25 subtasks they are evaluated on as a team. Rice estimated it takes 800-900 hours of dog training to be proficient enough to pass every certification.
The team works into the wind when possible, trying to determine if someone is in an area, or not, explained Rice. If Kimber smells a human, she leaves Rice to find and contact the person. Then, she must re-find Rice and perform her trained response; tugging on a toy he wears on his belt. Kimber then leads him to the lost person.
“Since Kimber works off lead, I need to be able to navigate her through voice commands and hand commands,” Rice said. “She must be able to go over, under, around or through anything we may encounter in our search area. There is a command for every action or direction I want her to take. She has to trust me, as I have to trust her. From thousands of hours of training and from more than 30 real-world searches, I know what she is thinking. She knows what I’m thinking. We are one.”
PSNS & IMF allows Rice up to 40 hours of admin leave a year to support search and rescue operations. Given the large areas of wilderness in western Washington, Rice and Kimber are called up often.
“I always use all of the admin leave when spring comes,” Rice said. “Then I use my own leave to support the missions. The most rewarding searches are by far the ones when a child is found alive. Even if you are not the team that makes the find, it is awesome feeling to know they are safe.”
Rice purchased Kimber from a breeder renown for raising top-performing working dogs, specifically the Belgian Malinois breed.
“The Belgian Malinois is a great choice for police, military, and search work,” said Rice. “They are highly intelligent, very agile, have a high drive to work and are very handler oriented. When we start putting on the gear to play the find-the-person game, she changes into work mode. It’s like having two dogs in one. The girl loves and lives to work.”
People interesting in assisting the group during Saturday training can volunteer to be hiders or support personnel.
“We always need to keep changing who our dogs are finding to keep it new for them,” said Rice. “We are always looking for support personnel to be part of our teams as well. We go out as a team to search an area. We have the handler, the dog and at least one support person.”
To learn more about volunteering, or to learn how to become a search and rescue volunteer, go to www.kitsapsearchdogs.org.