Woman-and-Dog Rescue Team Stands Ready in Event of Disaster

The tragic earthquake in Mexico brought public attention to “air scenting” dogs, specially trained canines that locate people buried under rubble or lost in a forest.

In Orange County, Patricia Robinson, 60, of Santa Ana and Pepper, her white 3-year-old German shepherd, form the only California Rescue Dog Assn. mission rescue team. There are 90 teams throughout California, but only 30 are certified.

“I’m waiting for certification,” said Robinson, who has been developing Pepper as a disaster dog for more than a year with such exercises as simulated search and rescue maneuvers in isolated forest areas, agility training and command response. “In Mexico,” she said, “the dogs were walking easily on moving rubble due to their agility training, which teaches them not to panic when the earth trembles.” Dogs from the United States, France, Germany and Switzerland were used to locate earthquake victims.

Unlike dogs trained to pick up the scent of a specific person, Pepper and other dogs are trained to locate the scent of anyone, such as lost hikers or plane crash victims. Robinson added that the dogs, in a new training method, are taught to locate victims drowning in lakes. “The smell from someone who drowns comes out of the water and the dogs can pick it up,” she said. “That’s really a marvelous talent for a dog.”

Veterinarian Jan Brenner, a spokesperson for the Santa Cruz County-based association, said disaster dogs are fairly new to the United States, “but we’ve already had lots of successes with the dogs in wilderness searches and earth slides.”

Robinson, a Red Cross disaster volunteer who has also been active in Civil Air Patrol rescue operations, turned to rescue dogs after witnessing a hunt-and-locate demonstration using the specially trained canines.

The possibility of being called to help in a rescue attempt would be Robinson’s reward for the almost daily training and about $3,000 out-of-pocket money she spends yearly on the program. But for Pepper, “the only thing she wants is praise,” she said. “I do that by throwing a stick and having a tug of war with her. That’s her greatest reward.”