The Sound of Reunion
In 1992 I embarked on a volunteer journey that has now spanned over half my life. I've invested thousands of hours and countless miles in Search and Rescue. It is as much a part of my life as breathing. Until yesterday, I didn't realize how much I had come to expect death in this line of work. Which is funny, I guess, since I often work dogs that search only for dead people. Yesterday's search was for a live person. Without speaking it, I was anticipating that this missing person would be found dead. There were so many factors that would indicate that likely outcome. Elderly. Dense forest. Winter. A storm on its way. A night out lost despite the best efforts to make the find before that had to happen. As I told my dog to go find, I steeled myself for what I considered the inevitable. It had been the outcome so many times before in circumstances nearly identical to this. The dog I worked is trained to find missing people alive or deceased because we don'