A child has gone missing, an elderly woman has wandered away from home, a skier has been caught in an avalanche, a child has been swept away in a flood, a troubled young man has taken his life in the wilderness.

These are some of the scenarios to which Great Basin K9 SAR has responded at the request of public safety agencies throughout the Intermountain West since our founding in 2009. Our volunteers and their K9 partners have traveled thousands of miles and spent countless hours searching in difficult terrain and all weather conditions both day and night. We have done all of this at no charge to any of the agencies or organizations we have supported and, with your help, we are committed to continue this policy into the future.

To understand Great Basin K9 one needs only to understand three things: our standards, our people, and our dogs.

OUR STANDARDs REFLECT OUR RESPONSIBILITY

We know when we respond for a search, we are undertaking a serious responsibility. As such, we train our K9 teams to requirements which meet accepted Search and Rescue K9 industry standards. We are proud members of Tri-State-K9, an association of search dog teams from across the Intermountain West which has established a rigorous set of standards which meet the specific needs of our vast wilderness and extreme mountainous search areas. Several of our members also test to additional reality based standards to include NASAR, UT POST, and/or other nationally recognized police K9 organization standards. The primary question each evaluator asks themselves when conducting a test is, “If my loved one was lost, would I want this team searching for them?”

Prior to attempting any certification, we have internal requirements for our handlers and dogs which require many hours of work over a year or more to get a team ready. Our dogs are assessed for obedience, agility, environmental stability, and sociability. Our handlers must show competence and understanding in land navigation, radio communications, wilderness survival, wilderness first aid (both human and K9), crime scene preservation, BBP, and ICS/NIMS disaster management at the local, state, and national level.

Our people are all volunteers—we have no paid staff

Selection of our Handlers is as critical to the search mission as the selection of our K9 partners. Through the years, our team members have been current, former, or retired military (veterans of three wars,) federal law enforcement, firefighters, ski patrollers, and avid and capable outdoors enthusiasts. We train together regularly to share our skills and experiences to help each team improve. Many of our teams also travel to training seminars where they can learn from experienced trainers and search experts.

Our dogs are our greatest asset

The key component of Great Basin K9 SAR is our dogs; they are the reason our organization exists. The capabilities they bring to a search and rescue mission are, as yet, unmatched by scientific methods or machines.

They work in both wilderness and urban environments. They can find people buried under six feet of snow. They can indicate on the surface of the water where a person has drowned. They can detect the faintest odor of human remains from hundreds of yards away to help bring the deceased home their families.

They are selected from working line Shepherds, Retrievers, and Hunting breeds. They are just like your dog at home, except... they are different. They have been specifically bred with the drive to hunt and search even when they are tired, sore, cold, and wet. They do the job to get their reward, which is usually a few minutes of play with their favorite toy.

No matter how good the trainer or handler, if the dog is not right for the job, it just won’t serve the mission. We are very fortunate to have a great bunch of dogs at Great Basin K9 SAR.