Before turning her hand to writing crime fiction, Lisa Regan worked as a paralegal, martial arts instructor, certified nursing assistant, and bookstore manager. But she'd been writing novels since she was 11 years old when one of her parents brought home an old-fashioned typewriter. That love of writing morphed into her successful series, first with Claire Fletcher and Detective Connor Parks, and later with Detective Josie Quinn, all of which has led her to become a USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestselling author.
In Vanishing Girls, which has just been released in paperback by Grand Central Publishing, Isabelle Coleman, a blonde, beautiful young girl goes missing, and everyone from the small town of Denton joins the search. They can find no trace of the town's darling, but Detective Josie Quinn finds another girl they didn't even know was missing. Mute and unresponsive, it's clear this mysterious girl has been damaged beyond repair. All Josie can get from her is the name of a third girl and a flash of a neon tongue piercing that matches Isabelle's.
The race is on to find Isabelle alive, and Josie fears there may be other girls in terrible danger. When the trail leads her to a cold case labelled a hoax by authorities, Josie begins to wonder is there anyone left she can trust? Someone in this close-knit town is committing unspeakable crimes. Can Josie catch the killer before another victim loses their life?
Lisa Regan stops by In Reference to Murder today to talk about "going undercover" — with dogs — to write and research the Josie Quinn series.
Shadowing Search and Rescue Dogs
Many of my books feature missing persons. In book 6 of my Detective Josie Quinn series, Her Silent Cry, a little girl goes missing from a park and in book 7, Cold Heart Creek, a camper goes missing in the woods. I knew that oftentimes; law enforcement can avail themselves of search and rescue dogs to aid in the rescue or recovery of missing persons. However, I didn’t know much at all about search and rescue dogs. I read many things online but still didn’t feel as though I had enough of a grasp on the subject to write about it in an authentic way. I started searching for organizations in my area, hoping that someone from one of them would be willing to answer my questions. I came across the website for Search and Rescue Dogs of Pennsylvania (sardogs.org) and sent them an email. In less than a day, I had an offer from Vicki Wooters to come and watch her and her husband, Chuck Wooters train their dogs.
I was thrilled and nervous. I brought my twelve-year-old daughter with me and we shadowed Vicki, Chuck, their intern, and their wonderful dogs for a few hours. The training that day took place on a large private property with lots of wooded areas and an obstacle course. Both Chuck and Vicki were wonderful, immediately giving us a detailed run-down of how searches are conducted and how the dogs carry out their work.
Quake searches the Obstacle Course looking for remains
We took an initial walk around the property with Chuck, Vicki, and their intern. The dogs stayed in their cages in the backs of Chuck’s and Vicki’s vehicles. Large, thick, silver tarps had been thrown over the vehicles. Vicki told me those were Aluminet tarps and they helped keep the inside of the vehicles cool during the summer. It was a very hot day, but peeking inside the backs of the trucks, the German Shepherds appeared perfectly comfortable. Chuck had human remains with him in a black box, which he went off to hide while the rest of us continued to explore. We found an area at the bottom of a very steep ravine where Vicki ordered her intern to stay. She explained that she would have her dog, Rini, do a “live find” using their intern.
We left the intern in the ravine and took the long walk back to the vehicles. Vicki got Rini out of the back of her vehicle. Rini is a beautiful, two-year-old red sable German Shepherd. At Vicki’s command, Rini immediately laid down in the grass to wait for further instruction. However, she was clearly anxious to get to work, as evidenced by her grousing. I had always thought that dogs needed a personal item, like an item of clothing the person had been wearing, to search and find that person. This is not true. Vicki said that Rini could scent a person from a door handle. Indeed, she was right. Vicki kept her on a long lead, guided her to the intern’s car, and let her sniff the door handle all while Vicki issued words of encouragement. Once Vicki put Rini’s harness on, Rini was ready to go. Vicki explained that the harness was Rini’s indicator that it was time to work. Rini took off immediately in the direction where we’d left the intern.
What was most fascinating to me was the laser focus with which Rini carried out her duties. Vicki explained that once she was “in-scent”, meaning she had picked up the person’s scent and was following it, she wouldn’t be distracted by anything. Watching Rini follow the intern’s scent with such concentration, I realized that you could probably dangle a juicy steak right in front of her face, and she’d bypass it without even a glance. Vicki was right. Once she was in-scent, there was no distracting her and no stopping her.
As Rini worked, Vicki gave us a crash course on search and rescue dogs. For example, there are different kinds of search dogs: cadaver dogs, water recovery dogs, trailing dogs and air scent dogs. Each dog has its own specialty. They can be dual-trained. However, not all search and rescue dogs are certified by national organizations which set standards for the training of search and rescue dogs such as the International Police Work Dog Association, North American Police Work Dog Association, International Rescue Dog Organization, and the United States Police Canine Association. If you ever need to hire a rescue dog, you should make sure they have certifications.
Vicki also showed us her “puff bottle” which was a small bottle of baby powder which she used to test which direction the wind traveled so she could guide Rini if necessary. Vicki also explained that people walk around with an invisible scent cloud around them, shedding their scent as they went. She told me to imagine Pig Pen from Charlie Brown. In the cartoon, he walks around in a cloud of dirt. A person’s scent, though invisible, is like this. We can’t see it or smell it but the dogs can hone in on a person’s unique scent immediately.
Also, search and rescue dogs have both active and passive indicators. This means when they find what they’re looking for, they’ll perform some action to indicate to their handler that they’ve achieved their mission. Rini had an active indicator, which was a bark. She found the intern within minutes and barked until we caught up with her. She was rewarded by getting to play with her pull toy.
Rini finds the intern, gives a bark for an active indicator
A passive indicator is when a dog sits or lays down upon finding their target. We got to witness this when we shadowed Chuck and his dog, Quake, an eight-year-old sable German Shepherd whose specialty is human remains detection. Chuck had hidden some human remains in the obstacle course. As soon as Chuck approached the back of the truck where Quake and one of his canine colleagues were crated, Quake got very excited, barking, and eager to go to work. Quake was every bit as well behaved, laser focused and enthusiastic about working as Rini. When Chuck put on a black vest over his white polo shirt, Quake knew it was time to work. “He’s always ready to work,” Chuck told me. Chuck put Quake on a lead until we got into the obstacle course. Once inside the area, he let Quake loose and we watched him lope gracefully through the area, searching for his quarry. After only a few minutes, Quake laid down beside one of the obstacles. This was called his “down”, meaning the passive indicator he gave when he found human remains.
Quake using his "down" indicator to show he's found the remains
Watching expert handlers, Vicki and Chuck Wooters train with their dogs was one of the most fun and fascinating experiences I’ve ever had. I am truly in awe of them. If I ever get lost or abducted, I’d really like the Wooters and their dogs on the case! I hope that one day I’ll be able to shadow them again during training. Before we left, I had one last question, which was: “Where does one get human remains for training purposes?”
Vicki answered, “Bone room dot com.”
Yes, it’s a real thing.
If you want to learn more about Search and Rescue Dogs of Pennsylvania, please visit their website: http://www.sardogs.org/home-.html
Also, SARDOGS is a non-profit organization and they offer their services completely free of charge. They rely on donations in order to continue to provide their invaluable services.
You can find out more about Lisa Regan and her books via her website and also follow her on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Goodreads. Vanishing Girls and the other books in the Josie Quinn series are available via Grand Central and all major booksellers.
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