Barking up the right tree: Fredericktown’s search-and-rescue German Shepherds

FREDERICKTOWN — They say even blind squirrels eventually find nuts, but on the polar opposite side of that spectrum, Taylor Carpenter’s search-and-rescue (SAR) German Shepherds find closure.

The Fredericktown-based SAR Sheps is a team of three K9s, Niko, Esmae and Chaos, that has carried out numerous SAR missions across Ohio and as far as North Carolina.

Carpenter, who was a Knox County 911 dispatcher for four years, said she always loved true crime and grew up with German Shepherds — making her nonprofit a perfect combination.

While Carpenter herself has 20 different SAR-related certifications, Niko and Esmae are International Police Work Dog Association (IPWDA) cadaver-certified and Chaos is IPWDA wilderness area-certified.

In a nutshell, two dogs have the ability to search for deceased people and the third can find people who are still alive.

The amazing part about Carpenter and her pack’s story? She rescued all three dogs locally.

Meet each K9

Niko:

• Nine years old.
• The first German Shepherd Carpenter rescued. Rescued from Morrow County Dog Shelter.
• IPWDA cadaver-certified.

“[Niko] was left tied up outside with no toys or anything by his previous owner when he was two years old,” Carpenter said. “His only toy was his tail.”

Carpenter said a local vet described Niko’s tail chasing habit almost like a tick. The tick was so bad that Niko had gnawed severely on his tail, resulting in a months-long healing process.

“Then, I noticed he was always sniffing around, like he wanted to be doing something 24/7,” Carpenter said.

“So, I got Niko evaluated when he was four years old at that point and the [cadaver scent] piqued his interest. After that, we just kept with it and he got certified maybe a year later.”

Esmae:

• Four or five years old.
• Rescued outside of Fredericktown as a stray.
• IPWDA cadaver-certified.

“My husband and I actually spent six weeks outside of Fredericktown about two years ago in the middle of winter, trying to catch her,” Carpenter said.

Esmae’s previous owner dumped her and she and was running wild around Ohio 95. While in the wild, Carpenter left food and water for the dog simply trying to build trust.

“As soon as we were able to touch her, it was a night-and-day difference. You would have no idea she was so scared and running away from us,” the dogs’ handler said.

Esmae finished her cadaver certification training this past November.

Chaos:

• Two years old.
• The newest dog in the pack. Rescued from Ashland County Dog Shelter.
• IPWDA wilderness area-certified.

Carpenter said Chaos was just “wandering around” before she added him to her pack and that she doesn’t know a lot about his life before SAR.

“We got him this past spring and my plan was to do something different with him. He’s my life find dog,” Carpenter said.

The handler said Chaos is probably her smartest dog, adding that his training only took seven or eight months which he completed this past November.

Chaos is trained to find people who are still alive in dire situations, while the other two dogs mainly search for human remains.

Training the dogs

Interestingly, Carpenter said she trained all three of her dogs at home and said she didn’t really have to do much — “they knew what they were supposed to do.”

After she exposed Niko and Esmae to the cadaver scent and they didn’t turn their noses at it, Carpenter said she took baby steps with the dogs.

“You take away the search of the game and just keep getting them acclimated to the smell,” Carpenter said. “Once they’re fully comfortable with it you start placing it in different little areas.”

From there Carpenter then teaches the dog how to show the proper visual indication once they find the cadaver scent.

“For my cadaver dogs, they both sit. Whether it’s a berry problem or something is in the water, they can detect cadaver,” Carpenter said.

“It’s [cadaver] all the same general smell to them; so, it doesn’t matter what hard piece it is, it’s all the same to them. It’s all human specific as well, not animal or anything else, strictly human decomp.”

Search and rescue missions

While Carpenter said she wasn’t sure exactly how many missions she had been on with her dogs, she did say its not about the number, either.

“It’s not about the number of recoveries made. Overall, it’s just about how many people you’ve helped,” Carpenter said.

“Even if you don’t find anything, you can say ‘OK, we combed over that area pretty good; the probability of anything or anyone being there is low.'”

About a week ago, Carpenter took Niko on a four-day SAR mission in Illinois. Additionally, Carpenter lent her services, not her dogs, during the Trenton Rollins search in Delaware, Ohio.

“I myself did a lot of the investigation work and led law enforcements and dive teams to the correct area where they made the recovery just before Christmas. It was pretty surreal,” Carpenter said.

The business side of things

While she certainly wishes, Carpenter doesn’t conduct SAR missions with her dogs full-time.

With all of what the dog handler does being volunteer work and the SAR Sheps being a nonprofit, Carpenter works as an intake for CVS pharmacies on week days and does missions on weekends.

“If I could, I would do this full-time, 1,000%, but I don’t charge anything to assist these families,” Carpenter said. “We run solely off of public donation or out of our own pocket.”

In terms of how Carpenter lines up her missions, its actually a pretty simple process, but she did note that not enough people know about it.

“If I see somebody on social media pleading for help, the person does have to be reported as missing through law enforcement,” Carpenter said.

“Then, I ask for law enforcement’s blessing and permission to assist them on the case. But, we don’t necessarily have to receive that call directly from law enforcement to go out and look for the person.”

Carpenter added that the last two cases she helped out on — she reached out to the family first.

“The families are more than appreciative of just that willingness to come help them,” Carpenter said.

“They just want to bring their loved one home. For me, that’s the ultimate goal.”