The chill of autumn was in the air but nearly 200 people still donned their trail running shoes and took part in the second Big Lick Vet Tails & Trails K9 5K and one mile walk Saturday at North Cross High School. The proceeds benefited the Virginia Canine Recovery Team based in Roanoke.
Natalie McLaughlin is the owner of Big Lick Veterinary Services and coordinator of the event. “We decided that we wanted an event that you could do with your dog, that was dog friendly, and also to support the Virginia Canine Recovery Team, the VCRT, which is a search and rescue group.”
Mark Pollard and his wife, Rachael met up at the event. He’s stationed at the Pax River, Maryland Naval Air station, while Rachael lives in Portsmouth, Ohio. It’s her first 5K. She’s a teacher and says, “I haven’t done anything since August.”
Mark isn’t a novice, however. “We gotta run at least a mile and a half every six months. 5K is a decent, every day run. We were planning to meet up and I was looking at things to do while we were here.” Mark signed them up and says Rachael loves animal. They planned to run as a team.
Three dogs, part of the human remains team, were on display. Moki is a 4-year-old female Yellow Lab; Savannah is a 3-year-old Golden Retriever, and 3-year-old Hale is a Vizsla.
K9 Forensics Handler Carol Gilbert says, “You can specialize actually, even in human remains, a number of different ways. For instance, a human remains dog can do disaster work, or they could do forensic work, or even cold case work. And although our team does not do it, you can even have human remains dogs that specialize in archaeology. And these dogs will go back as far as say 20 to 40 years, but a very good historical dog can go back to Native America.”
And you don’t have to have a purebred to train to be a search and rescue dog. According to Gilbert, there are many breeds that make good search and rescue dogs but, “Some dogs are not so good because of their drive.” She says Jack Russells, Labs, and Goldens make excellent search and rescue dogs.
Training starts by using a source that the puppy likes and making it a game. “For a lot of these dogs, we use hair, fingernail clippings, skin, stuff like that.” Then you start hiding the material and have the dog search in various weather conditions. “You can get a dog with a high aptitude up (and running) in about six to eight months. But once you do that, it’s like you’ve gotten to the top of the hill and you can see the rest. So once you get there, you get your Wilderness Certification.” Then the handler looks for more training and certification in water, vehicle, buildings, or recently deceased.
Members of the Virginia Canine Recovery Team travel all across the Commonwealth and West Virginia, Ohio and Arkansas to assist human first responders.
Gilbert says they’re always looking for people who might have dogs that would be interested but also in field support helping the handlers watch out for danger with their dogs.
For more information, contact www.virginiarecoverydogs.com
