For example, that you had to spend three years as an assistant before you were given the opportunity to train your own dog. Thank you for asking me.ĬONAN: And it's fascinating to me, there was so much I did not know about what you do on search and rescue teams. SUSANNAH CHARLESON (Author, "Scent of the Missing): Thank you.
Susannah Charleson's book is called the "Scent of the Missing." And she joins us now from our member station KERA in Dallas. That's at npr.org, click on TALK OF THE NATION. Email us: You can also join the conversation on our website. If you have experience with search-and-rescue dogs, tell us your story, 80. After three years as a field assistant on a search and rescue team in Texas, she started to train her own golden retriever and tells the story of her partnership with Puzzle in a new book. She clipped the photo, and when she found it again six years later, helped convince her that this was the work she wanted to do. Fifteen years ago, after the Oklahoma City bombing, Susannah Charleson couldn't forget one picture of one dog in particular, a golden retriever sitting next to her exhausted partner, both members of a fire rescue team that had worked all night. But almost - after almost every disaster, dogs arrive to search for both the living and the dead. No disaster is exactly the same - fire, earthquake, hurricane. But if Puzzle ever indicated to Charleson she did not want to work, Charleson would assume she was sick or injured, and not put her in the field. There is some language handlers use to indicate "ready, set, go!" to their dogs, and generally the hardest thing is holding Puzzle back till its time to search. "This is what they love to do," says Charleson. To date, Puzzle has never declined to work a search. Still, Charleson tells NPR's Neal Conan, "a not uncommon assumption is that search dogs only find the deceased." In fact, Charleson clarifies, the first thing the dogs are certified in is "live finds," or recovering missing people when they are still alive.
And when the space shuttle crumbled over Tex., police called in Puzzle. Search-and-rescue dog handler Susannah Charleson and her partner, a golden retriever named Puzzle, work with the elite Metro Area Rescue K9 unit in Dallas, Tex.Ĭharleson tells the story of their partnership in her book, Scent Of The Missing.Ĭharleson and Puzzle have worked all kinds of cases, from a teen who disappeared, to an Alzheimer's patient who wandered off. Susannah adopted Puzzle as a puppy, and Puzzle has since adopted a cat, Thistle. Susannah Charleson and her search-and-rescue dog, Puzzle.
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