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By the Way: Dogs, volunteers drive this search engine

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When I think of searching for missing persons, my mind summons up hikers lost in the mountainous terrain and vast canyons of the American West. When I think of Bucks County, I do not think “wilderness.”

But then, I suppose any place can be a wilderness if you’re lost — if you’re a senior who has wandered off, a child with autism, an injured hunter or a person who is mentally challenged.

I was surprised to discover that an all-volunteer search team can be called to Bucks for various rescue missions in a less-threatening landscape.

I was even more surprised to discover volunteers in the nonprofit organization virtually wrap their lives around their required weekend training.

“Mother’s Day, Father’s Day —it doesn’t matter. We’re out there training,” said Joslyn Tomlinson, a volunteer with Chesco Search Dogs. The group, founded in 2014, trains and provides K-9 teams to search for missing and lost people as well as to detect human remains. She said four of Chesco’s team members live in Bucks County.

Tomlinson, a Warrington mother and part-time secretary in the Central Bucks School District, and her German shepherd, Chi Rho, were among the volunteers called to last July’s flash flood in Upper Makefield that claimed seven lives.

It was one of four Chesco searches in Bucks last year, she said. The memory of searching for victims, finding their scattered belongings after that wall of water swept them away is still vivid — and troubling.

“Just knowing what a person’s family is going through and bringing closure to them helps me to deal with it emotionally,” she said.

Tomlinson described Chi Rho as an air scent dog working off a lead, moving back and forth in a given area to pick up the scent of a person. The dog is sometimes out of sight for several minutes at a time so the handler has to trust the dog and listen for an alert.

Training is constant and trust is paramount, Tomlinson said. “We have to make sure we’re up to date on everything.” The 7-year-old Chi Rho is just one kind of search dog.

Others are tracking and trailing dogs. Both work from a scent object, such as a piece of clothing from the missing person. They wear harnesses and their handlers have them on long leads as they pursue their individual modes of searching. Some dogs work only on land, some on water. Others are trained to search for human remains. These now are referred to as HR dogs rather than cadaver dogs.

Chesco Search Dogs is based in Chester County but answers calls from police and firefighters in all of Pennsylvania’s southeastern counties as well as bordering Delaware and Maryland. A police report must be filed before a rescue mission can begin.

Also responding to calls for assistance in Bucks is another nonprofit search group, Pennsylvania Wilderness Search and Rescue (PaWSAR), founded in 2009. The eastern division of the statewide agency is headquartered in Lancaster. Some of its territory overlaps with Chesco’s and the organizations do occasionally work together.

Like Chesco, PaWSAR also uses dogs in search and rescue missions, but it also does man tracking, according to John Norris, PaWSAR’s chief.

While his own background is in the military, he said his volunteers come from all walks of life. “Some are medical, yes, but we’re able to find a role for everyone to fit into,” he said, citing the need for volunteers with communications and logistics skills, K-9 handlers and many others.

“Field volunteers must be physically fit and able to hike with a pack for distances over varied terrain in any conditions,” he noted.

Members are also expected to provide their own personal equipment, he added.

“Last year, we had 23 recoveries,” Norris said.

PaWSAR’s primary mission, like Chesco’s, is the safe return of a missing loved one to their family.

Kathryn Finegan Clark is a freelance writer who lives in Durham Township. She can be reached at kathyclark817@gmail.com.


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Kathy Clark, Chesco Search Dogs, search and rescue, missing persons, Bucks County lost people

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