Deb Malewski
Contributing Writer

(Deb Malewski/TCJ – Handlers [from left] Rayanne Chamberlain, Angie Kremer and Cris Bean trained their search and rescue dogs at the Eaton County Courthouse recently at Courthouse Square.)

The old Eaton County Courthouse in Charlotte has seen judges, lawyers, prisoners, politicians, and other visitors over the years. Recently, it welcomed four canine visitors who arrived with an entirely different purpose: learning how to find people, alive or dead.

For humans, the courthouse is a collection of rooms, hallways, stairs, artifacts, and wooden floors. For these dogs, it’s an entirely different world, filled with scents we can’t begin to detect.

Where we might see an empty room, a dog can detect a complex collection of odors left behind by the people, animals, and objects that have been there.

Pravda (Yellow Lab), Venture (Doberman), Journey (Doberman), and Walker (Doberman) trained in the building with handlers Cris Bean, Angie Kremer, and Rayanne Chamberlain of MiSARK9, a search-and-rescue group.

Pravda, Venture, and Walker are certified in locating human remains with the International Police Working Dog Association (IPWDA ) for Water, Land, Cadaver, and Crime Scenes. Journey is a live find search dog and is certified with IPWDA for Wilderness Search. Venture (Human Remains Disaster) and Journey (Live Find) are also FEMA-certified. Walker (Human Remains Disaster) has passed his Foundation Skills assessment (FSA) towards his State Urban Search and Rescue (SUSAR) Certification.

They train every Wednesday, both indoors and out, to give the dogs as diverse an experience as possible. The group has trained together for a year and a half. The trainers have decades of experience behind them in this kind of work. They are also trained in first aid, CPR, navigation with a compass, and survival skills.

Although the handlers, who are from Eaton Rapids and Potterville, volunteer their time, their work is anything but casual. Both dogs and handlers must complete specialized training and certification, and searches are conducted in cooperation with law enforcement.

“It’s more than just a hobby,” Chamberlain said, and it often must be arranged around their employment and families.

They purchase their own specially bred dogs, which can range in price from $ 3,000 to $4,000 or more, along with all the equipment needed for training and searches. Any travel they make is at their own expense. They often purchase GPS collars for their dogs to map where they have searched to be able to share with law enforcement.

The team averages 12 to 20 search and rescue cases each year.

“We never self-deploy,” Bean said. “We work with law enforcement in a highly professional way and offer our services to them, not directly to families.” They keep their work fairly quiet while it takes place, out of respect for the family.

They also assist with long-unsolved cold cases. Those cases are best pursued in the spring, Bean said, when vegetation is low and the ground is heating up, which can bring scents up from the earth.

The dogs train using real human remains as scent sources. An artificial product is available for training, but the handlers believe dogs should be exposed to the real thing. They have used pulled teeth donated by dentists and an amputated foot donated by a person who had undergone an amputation as reference scents.

People can also donate their remains for use in forensic research and human-remains detection dog training. The handlers emphasize that all human remains used in their training are treated with respect.

The dogs are working personnel with lots of energy and demands. “They want to do everything,” Kremer said.

Most dogs start when they are under 2 years old. Food and toys are used as positive reinforcement during training, and they only get that reinforcement as a reward. They aren’t trained to locate a specific individual from that person’s clothing or another personal item but are seeking any of the 400 decomposition smells that could be present.

“For our dogs, finding whatever they are looking for is the game,” Kremer said. While it looks like a game to the dogs, it is anything but a game to the handlers.

For information, or to suggest a new training location, contact Cris Bean at atouchofeden1@gmail.com.