Rocko and Chevy on the scent in Washington County
Celeste Van Kirk/Observer-Reporter
Amanda Stauffer, a deputy with the Greene County Sheriff’s Department, is shown with K-9 Dagen during a training session at the Greene County Fairgrounds on Thursday, February 14, 2019.
Celeste Van Kirk/Observer-Reporter
Amanda Stauffer, a deputy with the Greene County Sheriff’s Department, handles K-9 Dagen, who is trained in apprehension and narcotics. Dagen is on the scent of a person during a training session recently at Greene County Fairgrounds.
Celeste Van Kirk/Observer-Reporter
Amanda Stauffer, a deputy with the Greene County Sheriff’s Department, gives K-9 Dagen the scent of the person they are tracking during a training session at the Greene County Fairgrounds on Thursday, February 14, 2019.
Celeste Van Kirk/Observer-Reporter
Bob Dalesio, with Lone Pine VFW, handles his dog, Chevy Lu, as she tracks the scent of a person during a training session recently at Greene County Fairgrounds.
Celeste Van Kirk/Observer-Reporter
Bob Dalesio, with Lone Pine VFW, handles his dog, Chevy Lu, as she tracks the scent of Lauren Stauffer, right, standing at the end of a tunnel recently during a training session at Greene County Fairgrounds.
Celeste Van Kirk/Observer-Reporter
K9 Rocko and handler Dan Halliday, both of Lone Pine VFD Station 50, are shown during a training session recently at Greene County Fairgrounds.
Rocko and Chevy Lu, members of the Lone Pine Fire Department, are like most firefighters-they love to goof around with each other, they love treats and they require frequent baths. But when that call comes in, they’re all professional, knowing they have the most important job – saving lives.
Rocko, a German shepherd, and Chevy, a bloodhound, are the only two certified tracking dogs in Washington County. They find people who go missing.
“We usually get one call a year, for either a lost or hurt hunter in the woods or someone who went out for a walk maybe and it’s getting dark and they’re not back yet,” said Dan Halliday, Rocko’s handler.
Halliday has been a firefighter with Lone Pine for going on 10 years. He said the department has dealt with multiple rollover crashes that, when they arrived on scene, no one was around. They would have to search the area to look for a driver or potential victims.
“As a volunteer fire department, sometimes we may only have three or four responders and it’s hard to effectively search a large area,” Halliday said. “A well-trained search and rescue K9 can cover the ground of 20 to 30 first responders and give us the direction of travel the possible injured person is heading.”
He said he started looking into the possibility of getting a tracking dog about six years ago. He purchased Rocko from a breeder in Florida in 2013, and at 3 months old, Rocko started his training. In 2017, Rocko was certified as a tracking dog by the American Mantrailing Police Working Dog Association in Indiana.
The fire department welcomed him in as an official member who’s on their insurance.
“Everybody was super supportive of it,” he said. “And since I funded him myself, it was no cost to the department.”
Halliday explained that tracking dogs are trained differently than other types of search and rescue dogs or police dogs. Area search dogs typically use air scents and search off-lead, where tracking dogs are typically on a 30-foot leash. Tracking dogs are also given a scent article, then “cast out” on the leash and are given a search command.
When they find a track of that scent, “the ears go up and the tail goes up – that’s the indication,” Halliday said. When they complete their task or find the person, they get a treat.
“It’s all a game to them,” Halliday said. “So no matter the stress level you encounter, you have to make it rewarding for them.”
He said that though police dogs have been used in some cases to find missing people, because there are aggressive aspects to their training such as apprehension, sometimes it’s better to have a tracking dog in cases with missing children or elderly people.
“Rocko’s very gentle with people,” he said. “Search and rescue dogs are very friendly because they’re used to all types of people. They have to be heavily socialized with all types of people and animals so that nothing can surprise him.”
In July of last year, an elderly Amwell Township man with dementia went missing. Rocko responded to the call. Halliday had just injured his rotator cuff, so they did the search with Rocko off-lead.
“I gave him a scent article,” Halliday said. “He did a lap around the yard and took off running into the woods.”
It had been about an hour since the man went missing on a 95-degree day. But Rocko found him in about 30 seconds, Halliday said, in a place no one would have guessed would be physically possible for the man to be. The firefighters followed Rocko up a steep incline and into woods about 25 feet behind the man’s residence.
“You wouldn’t have been able to see this guy unless you were really up in there,” Halliday said. “He was in a bathrobe with no shoes on, soaked in sweat and stuck in a briar bush on his knees. We got him home.”
Chevy Lu, who will be 2 years old this summer, and her handler, Bob Dalesio, recently joined the Lone Pine Fire Department, though they live in Avella and Dalesio is not a firefighter. Dalesio said that since Rocko and Chevy train together, he wanted them to be in the same department, especially since he knew the department was welcoming to dogs.
“This way we can have the county pretty much covered,” he said.
Halliday also said that having a dog at either end of the county will cut down on time when responding to a missing person call, which becomes critical when dealing with inclement weather conditions or if the victim has serious health conditions.
“The faster we can get a search and rescue K-9 on scene and get to work, the better chance we will have a positive outcome,” he said.
Dalesio said his first tracking bloodhound was Lucy, who had trained with Rocko when they were both puppies.
“My wife wanted a bloodhound,” he said. “She liked them because of their ears. I said, well, if we have one, I’m going to find out what we can do with them.”
He found a local trainer to train Lucy as a tracking dog, but due to leg problems and health conditions, Lucy died at 4 years old. When Dalesio started over with Chevy Lu, he was able to train her himself.
“She’s a natural at it,” he said. “Once you get her tracking, she doesn’t want to quit. She has that drive for it.”
Dalesio said bloodhounds have significantly stronger noses than other breeds, which is why they’re often used for tracking.
“You can train any dog to track, but it’s whoever has the better nose,” he said.
Since Chevy is still so young, they haven’t had any major calls where she’s found anyone, but Dalesio said she’ll be ready if that call comes.
“Hopefully, we never get called to do it, but when we do, we’ll be ready for it,” he said. “You train for the time that you got to go.”
Along with their service to the county, Rocko and Chevy have provided other types of benefits to the fire department, like participating at fire-prevention events for children. They also make the best companions.
“If we have one of those bad call nights, or a fatal or something, having Rocko around is a huge stress reliever,” Halliday said. “Dogs are naturally therapeutic, they always want to help out. Rocko’s very special when it comes to reading people. He always seems to know when I’m not feeling my best.”
Dalesio said he has two other house dogs, a lab mix and a toy fox terrier, but the “connection” between him and Chevy is different.
“I don’t know what words describe it,” he said. “Of course we’re a team, but the bond between us is different than the other two dogs.”
Halliday also described his relationship with Rocko as a type of partnership.
“Rocko feeds off my emotions and he completely trusts me as I trust him,” he said. “That’s the best thing a K-9 team can have is love and trust to complete any task together.”
They’ll be celebrating Rocko’s 6th birthday on Monday.
“He’ll get presents and puppy cakes, and his favorite is doggie ice cream,” Halliday said. “He loves the squeaky toys, and Frisbees – anything nice and loud.”