Debbie Ross with her Labrador Moses and Clyde Watson practice a water search Saturday near Mayflower. (Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/RUSSELL POWELL)

BY EVIN DEMIREL
ARKANSAS DEMIREL-GAZETTE

Atop an antenna, an orange nylon flag waved limply above a white car parked on a gravel road in the Camp Robinson Wildlife Demonstration Area on Saturday.

Around it, swirled wind carrying scents for bloodhounds, German shepherds, Catahoulas and other dogs belonging to Search Dog Alliance of Arkansas members.

Saturday morning, 42 certified handlers and 12 instructors from around the nation gathered in southern Faulkner County to help the all-volunteer, central Arkansas-based organization train and evaluate dogs and handlers in the rescue of missing, drowned and other deceased people, its founder Kathy Zasimovich said.

It was the fourth and final day of the alliance’s third annual seminar, said Zasimovich, who works as a deputy emergency manager for Lonoke County.

“We are working to let people know we are just one part of a larger search-and-rescue community,” Zasimovich said, adding that the alliance includes noncertified ground-search personnel and responds to “call-outs” by official law enforcement or other governmental agencies.

The alliance founded in 2007 also teaches children outdoor-survival skills and, if they become lost, how to respond to search-team members’ voices, Zasimovich said, adding that her bloodhound, Ariel, “has grown up with England Primary School.”

Alliance members contribute “full-time work” hours, said Michelle Mace, who like Zasimovich wore a green neon T-shirt with “Lonoke Co. K-9 unit” on it.

The three-person, six-dog K-9 unit is one of nine alliance-affiliated county units, Zasimovich said. The alliance is helping start two others, she added.

“I do dog grooming in my spare time,” Mace said chuckling, referring to her nearby “Ultimutt Pet Spa: Mobile Grooming” van.
“And every once in a while I get to see my kids,” she added. “You really can’t train too much for this.”

Zasimovich said, “It’s life and death. And when it is death, we want to bring closure to the family.”

On a nearby nursery pond, specialists helped train cadaver dogs, which specialize in finding drowning victims and other corpses.

Lisa Higgins, a 31-year law-enforcement veteran who regularly works for the FBI, explained the importance of cadaver dogs. “When we ask a diver to go down, we’re asking to risk a life for one that can no longer be saved,” Higgins said. “You want to tighten up that area up as small as you can, so that the risk is minimized as much as you can.”

To do that, dogs are taught to home in on where the smell breaks from the water’s surface because that point is closest to the submerged body, Higgins said.

She used an apparatus on a wooden pier overhanging the pond to simulate a cadaver-finding scenario for a search-boat-bound black Labrador retriever named Skywalker.

An air tank helped funnel the scent of a bloody piece of gauze through a hose that eventually emerged from a bobbing device on the surface of the pond.

Skywalker’s trainers encouraged him as he tasted the pond water, using “Jacobson’s organ” in the roof of his mouth to help “smell out” the odor’s source. He signaled by barking before finding the bobbing device.

Higgins encourages rewarding the dogs with whatever they most enjoy, but whether a toy or food, it should be scooped from the water, she said.

“The idea is to make the dog think if you bark your toy jumps up.”

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