ATSAR- North Georgia’s Search and Rescue

It’s a call no one wants to get. Your grandmother with Alzheimer’s disease has wandered off and hasn’t been heard from in hours. The police have been looking for her but so far their efforts have been futile. It’s starting to get dark and cold, and no one is quite sure what to do next…

The phone rings in the houses of multiple volunteers. It’s the middle of the night and time to deploy. Within minutes, a team of volunteers and their dogs are on their way to start looking for your grandmother. Little thought is given to the time of night, how much sleep they got, or the tasks of the next day. Someone is missing and needs to be found as quickly as possible.

Those selfless volunteers are part of Alpha Team K-9 Search and Rescue (ATSAR), who are called by law enforcement agencies to aid in search and rescue efforts. ATSAR is an advanced, volunteer response team with the capabilities and willingness to respond to all types of search and rescue emergencies. They provide incident command, navigational support, radio operations, ground searchers, and highly trained K9 search and rescue specialists to urban, wilderness, and water search operations. They do not charge for their services and will respond to all types of search emergencies.

ATSAR receives between 30-50 callout requests a year, and deployed on 29 searches in 2009. They are most active in middle and north Georgia, though they do not limit their searches to specific regions. ATSAR volunteers have responded to searches all over Georgia and the surrounding states, and even spent nine days in St. Bernard’s parish after Hurricane Katrina blew through in 2005.

The Team

ATSAR is a team of dedicated men and women who are passionate about finding lost and missing people. The team consists of 15 humans and 11 dogs, including Hall County resident, Randy Cates and his dog, Zena. Nine of the dogs are currently certified to deploy and two are in training.

“Zena and I joined the team in 2007. At that time, Zena was only 8 weeks old when she started her career. Zena is trained in wilderness airscent – the ability to locate lost persons and alert the handler when she has a find,” says Cates. “She is also crossed trained in human remains detection. I personally love working with dogs and helping others in time of need. There is no greater satisfaction then being able to bring someone home alive to their loved ones or give others some closure needed in times of crisis.”

Passion is a great trait, but skill and dedication are essential. Being a part of this team is truly a commitment and not meant to be a hobby. To ensure they are ready to meet any need, the volunteers train together as a team twice a month. Additionally, each dog owner trains with their own dog(s) at least twice a week based on their schedules and availability. This is the minimum required to keep the dogs active and reinforce their skills. Additionally, to be ready for any situation, they hold training exercises at night and in the rain, snow, heat, and anything else Mother Nature can throw at them. They have families and regular jobs, and spend their free time training to give back to their communities in this unique way.

The Dogs

A dog’s sense of smell is between 1,000 and 10,000 times stronger than a human’s. That statistic is hard to fathom, but one that makes these dogs invaluable at their job. Think of it this way. You go over to a friend’s house and smell burgers cooking on the grill. Your dog smells the burgers (and probably goes to check them out), but can identify the grade of beef used to make the burgers, any other ingredients added to them, the level of doneness, and even the brand of charcoal used to cook them. They are that good.

There isn’t one particular breed that makes the perfect search dog, but some specific traits are needed. They should have high drive, be energetic, and have a friendly, social disposition. They also need to be able to focus on a task and not be easily distracted. A strong stamina is also important, since some searches can last hours and even days.

When a new dog joins the team, the owner decides if he or she wants to train the dog to be a live search dog or a cadaver dog. While the skills needed for each task are similar, the training required is certainly different. Live search dogs are broken into two categories, area search dogs and trailing/tracking dogs. Trailing dogs are taught to follow the trail the lost person created from start to finish, following the scent particles they leave behind. Most of the time they are given an item belonging to the lost person to smell, then sent on their way to follow the trail the subject took. The ability to find where a subject went can give the searchers a big clue as to where the subject is heading.

Live area search dogs are trained to find the person as quickly as possible, regardless of the path they took. The process is similar, in that the dog searches for the scent of that person in a given area. When the dog finds the subject, it returns and alerts the handler that it found someone and leads him or her to the person it has found. It’s an amazing process to watch.

While it’s no fun to think about, cadaver dogs play a valuable role as well. These dogs are trained to recognize the smell of human remains, and to indicate when they find it. They must be trained to identify that smell over any others, and not get distracted by any animal remains or other enticing smells they may find during their search. On a recent operational test, the area was littered with deer scent and blueberry muffins to see if the dog would be distracted or continue with his task. He passed.

These dogs are pets too, just pets with really great jobs. When they are retired from searching, they remain in the homes of their dedicated families.

The Searches

Searches take all shapes and sizes, but usually begin with a law enforcement agency calling for help. Once on site, ATSAR determines the needs, gathers information, plans the search sectors by priority, and assigns teams to cover these sectors. They move as quickly as possible through these steps so they can move into the assigned areas and begin the search as quickly as possible. They also coordinate communications with law enforcement, keeping them informed on their progress while planning the next moves for the search effort to follow.

ATSAR has been a part of some high profile searches, including ones for UGA professor, George Zinkhan, in May 2009, Meredith Emerson in 2008, and most recently one of the Georgia flood victims. While these searches bring attention to the team, they bring the same level of professionalism and dedication to find any missing person. Oftentimes, they are called to find missing Alzheimer’s patients, or children who have roamed off from their homes, searches that are just as important as the ones that make it to CNN. “A successful search, especially one that impacts our community as much as the Zinkhan case did, help justify all the time, energy and cost involved in keeping our skill levels as high as we do. While this case was a tragedy, we were able to help bring closure to the community and families affected by this case,” said Paula Chambers, President of ATSAR.

The Support

ATSAR works with and supports other organizations as well. They have a fantastic relationship with the Georgia Alzheimer’s Association and have been proud to participate in the Memory Walk since 2005. They also participate in the Right to Hike Benefit Walk and the Diabetes Association fundraiser. Additionally, they sponsor an AKC Responsible Dog Ownership Day along with the Cumberland Animal Clinic, and help train children on how to avoid getting lost, and what to do if they are, through the Hug-A-Tree program (see sidebar).

Because ATSAR is a volunteer team, they are always looking for support to continue their efforts. In addition to financial donations, they need other equipment, such as amateur and land mobile radio equipment, GPS units, laptop computers, dog crates, and EZ-Up Canopies. If you are interested in learning more, visit their Website at www.atsar.org.

Published in Summer 2010 Issue