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Recovering New Orleans
By Regan Michelle White
Although named for the mythical Irish warrior Finn who
protected Ireland during the 4th and 5th centuries,
handler Kathleen Connor jokes that “my Finn is more of a momma’s boy than a
fearless warrior.” Connor implied that the appellation was perhaps more apt
since Finn also means “fair-haired” and he is a yellow Lab. Despite his momma’s
boy personality, the name may suit him better than his handler gives credit.
Finn is a certified Search and Rescue dog. He does wilderness, water, cadaver,
and recovery searches.
In order to get certified, the team was required to complete
a 40-acre day evaluation, a 40-acre night evaluation and a 160-acre day
evaluation that tests the dog’s ability to continue searching efficiently for
extended periods. “It also tests the handlers ability to implement a search
strategy effectively, knowing at all times via map and compass where the team
is in the search sector and to monitor their dog,” Connor said. “We are not
allowed to miss any subjects that are located in that search sector and we only
have six hours to do so.”
Due to the very nature of search and rescue work, the
frequency of Connor and Finn’s deployment from their home near Harrisonburg, VA
is sporadic. Some months they are called out every week and other times they
can witness a three-month spell without a single call. Connor estimates that
she and Finn average around 20 callouts a year. Typical searches the pair are
called out for include drownings, house fires, lost hikers, lost children,
Alzheimer’s patients, lost hunters, suicides and the hijinks of young men with
too much to drink.
The dog team must be recertified every two years, thus
training, training and more training is paramount to an effective team. Many
times this training requires travel to other states. Finn has trained from
Michigan to Mississippi, from Utah to Pennsylvania. Connor tries to attend at
least one seminar a year. This past year, she attended one that worked on
‘Cadaster’ dog training, or training a cadaver dog in a disaster situation. “As
luck would have it, I completed the seminar about two weeks before I was
deployed to New Orleans,” she said. “They called it cadaster, but there is no
training in the world that could prepare a dog team for what it was like in New
Orleans.”
A team of two dog handlers – including Connor – and four
support staff left for New Orleans on November 13 and returned November 21. It
took the team 18 hours over the course of two days to drive there. “It was not
really a search and rescue mission, it was described as a recovery mission,”
Connor said. “We were in the 9th Ward, right next to the levee that
broke. We searched about a thirty block area.” Every morning the team would
arrive at the staging area located at a former elementary school. The team
would then receive their assignment for the day, round up the fire and police
force members that were to accompany them for the day and then head out to the
assigned sector. “We needed the police for protection,” Connor said. “We were
more at risk from the feral dogs than people. Although, by the time we left
more and more people were entering the area illegally, some to loot – for what,
I don’t know, because there was nothing left – and others to gawk.”
Members of the fire department came along to aid in breaking
down doors and moving heavy obstacles. Connor and her team would quit for lunch
around noon when they would head back to base to decontaminate by washing the
dogs in a diluted solution of Clorox and Dawn dishwashing detergent and then
rinsing them with a diluted chlorhexidine (antibacterial) solution. “In the
afternoon we’d head out for another couple of hours of searching, come back, go
through decon (decontamination) and head back to the hotel,” Connor said.
“After dinner, the group would get together to discuss what happened that day
and what we could do the next day to improve. Then (we’d) collapse into bed.”
In terms of the task at hand, Connor explained that it
wasn’t the work itself but the magnitude of its scale that was stupefying. “The
actual work was not bad, just overwhelming,” she said. Connor described how
during their first morning in the 9th Ward, everyone went for a tour
of the area to be able to familiarize themselves with the devastation and the
magnitude of what had occurred. “It
took us several hours until we could get our minds wrapped around the situation
and actually work,” she said. “I was petrified that Finn was going to hurt
himself and was almost afraid to let him work. But when I let him out of the
van he attacked every situation, every rubble pile, every destroyed home with
complete confidence. I knew that I was going to be the weak link in the team
and that if I didn’t get myself together I would take us out of the equation
quickly. I gained my confidence from Finn. He never blinked or shirked at
anything I asked him to do, whether it be a destroyed home where I couldn’t see
a darn thing in the rooms he went through or climbing to the top of a 30-foot
rubble pile chasing a scent.” When asked to attempt to compare it to other situations
she and Finn have braved together, Connor’s reply was swift and decisive,
“There is no comparison.”
Every day in New Orleans held something different for Connor
and her team. Some days they went over what other dogs had previously done to
either confirm finds or confirm that nothing was found. Then when addresses of
people reported missing started to come in, Connor and her team ventured to
take a look at those sites. “What was interesting was trying to find addresses
where there were no homes left at the site,” she said. “We started doing what
we called signcutting for houses. In the wilderness, when we are trying to
track a person we cut for sign, or signs that a person has passed through an
area such as broken twigs, footprints, bent grass and trash. When we were
signcutting for houses we learned to look for pushed over fences and damage to
adjacent buildings that the house may have run into.”
In terms of search and rescue mechanics, Connor explained
that a dog’s search for remains is essentially the same as a search for live
people. “Finn’s developed enough savvy to know when we are looking for live and
when we are looking for deceased,” she said. “The situations are usually
completely different and he’s learned that when there are a lot of people
standing around and waiting and he is searching a small area, he knows we are
looking for the dead.” To start him, Connor asks Finn ‘to go find’ and then he
searches the specific area. “He usually keeps his nose to the ground to try and
pinpoint the exact area where the scent is coming from,” she said. “However, a
lot in the environment can disperse the scent. It is then up to me as a handler
to read what Finn is telling me and interpret what is happening in the
environment so that I can report where the scent is originating from.”
Connor noted that various factors affecting scent in New
Orleans included mold, mud, open windows, holes in roofs, fallen ceilings and
overturned furniture. “Even in the debris piles in the open, the scent can do
tricky things,” she said. " Wind was significant (in New Orleans) and when it
swirled around the piles it deposited scent everywhere. Scent sticks like glue
to wet wood so even if there wasn’t a body there at the time the dogs were
indicating, it means there had been a body there." Connor admitted that she
felt like she was letting the firefighters down when Finn would indicate,
emphatically, and they’d dig down to bare earth and there was nothing. One of
the firefighters told Connor that he believed the dogs were indicating
correctly and that bodies had in fact been there, but that not only had Katrina
flooded the area but then Hurricane Rita came through and moved the bodies
again. “Then there was still the mud and the mold we had to deal with,” Connor
said. “Every day as I watched what Finn was doing I was better able to
interpret what he was trying to tell me.”
Connor noted that Finn is particularly suited for search and
rescue work because he has a small build and is very agile and confident. “He’s
able to think through problems as in where the scent is coming from in a
difficult situation, he’s not fazed by strange things and he’s willing to work
even in the toughest times and continue to work even when tired,” she said. She
added that he is particularly skilled at problem solving. “If he can’t get over
something, he’ll figure out how to go around,” Connor said. “When I let him out
of the van in New Orleans, he took one look around and went ‘Yippee, yippee,
let’s go and do this thing!’ and attacked it without looking back.” About Labs,
Connor loves their zest for life and willingness to do anything that is asked
of them.
When not on call for search and rescue work, Connor is
making housecalls for her veterinary practice. She specializes in small animals
and also offers veterinary acupuncture among her services. In addition to Finn,
Connor has a 16-year-old American yellow Lab that she rescued from her first
job out of vet school and is also training a young female black Lab explicitly
for cadaver work. In May, Connor lost her first search dog – a yellow Lab named
Ben – to cancer. “Everything I’ve done, I owe to him,” she said.
In truth, Ben is very much the reason Connor is involved in
search and rescue work. Eight years ago, she saw a demonstration given by Blue
and Gray SAR Dogs – the group she is currently with – and she joined them
without a dog. She spent the first six months practicing and then started
looking for her own dog when Ben literally wandered into her life. “He was a
stray off the streets of Harrisonburg and he made me fall head over heels in
love with the Labrador breed,” Connor said. “He was the kindest, gentlest, most
patient, forgiving dog I have ever had the privilege of knowing. I made untold
mistakes training him, but he waited for me to figure out how to fix my
mistakes and then went on. Because of his tutelage I was able to learn how to
train a search dog. Then when I got Finn, I was ahead of the curve and was able
to train him to a higher level than Ben.” What keeps Connor invested in the
work is “the thrill of watching my dog do what he is trained for. It astounds
and amazes me every time we work.” Her greatest challenge is “trying to think
of new ways to present problems to my dogs to keep them thinking and not
reacting.”
When not on the job being posed with new problems to figure
out, Finn likes to take it easy by sleeping or going on hikes or trail rides
with Connor. According to Connor his favorite food is “anything that tastes
good,” although she does most of her training with him using low-fat chicken
hot dogs. For his hard work and dedication as January’s Lab of the Month, let’s
hope there’s plenty more of everything that tastes good in his future.
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