"Good Boy!" playing the corpse for a search & rescue dog

Vegor Pedersen

Originally from California, I have spent the past decade living in Utah. I work for Utah Valley University as an academic advisor for the Department of Communication. Outside of higher education I specialize in graphic design, public relations and the occasional film project.

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"Good Boy!" playing the corpse for a search & rescue dog

The wife and I ducked out of work early this afternoon so we could pretend to be lost. A buddy of mine at UVU, Scott Hammond, has been training his Golden Retriever, Dusty, to perform search and rescue for about a year now. Errin and I being dog lovers have been talking about helping out for months now, but today we finally did it. For the "victims" it is a pretty easy deal...you just get lost. Well, it was easy for me. Errin had a much tougher area to be lost in and consquently she looks like she has been attacked by the Swamp Thing.

Scott and his friend Jan are part of Rocky Mountain Rescue Dogs, a group of volunteers that spend years training their dogs to find folks lost in the woods. There are very few happy endings on these rescues, Scott tells me that most of the time it is a dead body that they are looking for. Still, it seems to be a very rewarding way to spend time with your canine. The training is quite rigorous and there are many certifications that both the dog and the handler must pass. You can also tell that working with these amazing animals is a lot of fun.

Scott and his group are always looking for folks to help play victims for an afternoon. If you live in Utah County and this is something you might be interested in let me know and I'll hook you up.

http://www.rockymountainrescuedogs.net/