posted Thursday October 15, 2005

    What do a candy bar, a garbage bag and a whistle all have in common?

    They could save your life if you're ever lost in the woods.

    That was the message volunteers from Flathead County and North Valley Search and Rescue gave to students at Deer Park Elementary Monday morning.

    "Has anybody in this room ever gotten lost?" volunteer Kim Gilmore asked students.

    Half a dozen hands went up.

    "I've done it and it's scary," she said. "The most important thing if your lost is to make a nest and stay in one place. If you stay in one place you make our job easier. That's probably the most important thing."

    Gilmore along with Wendy Stefaniak spoke to fifth- and sixth-graders about what to take with them in the woods and how to survive if they do get lost.

    Gilmore told students they should carry a fanny pack with a whistle to call for help, a garbage bag that can be used to stay warm and dry, a brightly colored bandana to alert searchers to your location, a water bottle and food, a flashlight, a cyalume light stick, bug repellent and sun screen and Band-Aids.

    "It's a good idea for anyone who goes out in the woods for any length of time," she said.

    Stefaniak and Gilmore also brought their search dogs, Breeze and Brenner, with them to show students what it's like to have a dog searching for them.

    "In Montana we're out in the woods a lot," Gilmore told students. "It's really easy to get panicked and turned around; this is so you can see what it's like to have the dogs looking for people."

    Stefaniak and Gilmore are part of a group of about five handlers who use their dogs to help with searcher for the Flathead and North Valley Rescue groups.

    Students gathered in a field outside the school to watch the dogs search for "lost" students.

    Both dogs barked with anticipation to begin the search.

    Gilmore held back Brenner, her 3-year-old Belgian Shepherd, while she instructed two students to take his Frisbee and hide.

    Toys are used during the training to reward the dogs after they've found someone.

    Another student helped Gilmore hold back Brenner.

    When everyone was in place, Gilmore let go.

    The dog was off at full speed across a field.

    He rushed ahead of Gilmore making a circle and then coming back to her as she made her way across the field behind him.

    Finally, success.

    He found them hiding in a large tire.

    The students stayed put waiting for Gilmore to arrive.

    Exactly what, Gilmore explained, should be done if they really are lost.

    "First and foremost, the thing you want to remember is to stay in one spot," she said. "You shouldn't get up and try to follow the dog, just know that we're out there looking for you."

    Gilmore said that dogs in the Flathead and North Valley Search and Rescue are trained to go back to their handler when they find someone.

    "If you move they have to come back and find you again," she told the students.

    Something that can be taxing on the dogs, she noted, because they can run up to 10 miles in an hour during a search looking for someone.

    But the dogs see searching not as work, but as play.

    "They've trained like it's hide and seek. We use their favorite toy in the world. They work really hard and they get to play." she said.

    The play, however, is something the dogs have spent 18 months training to do.

    Gilmore, whose been with Search and Rescue for 20 years, has also taken training classes to handle search dogs.

    Members of the search and rescue groups have been visiting schools in the valley educating students for the past two years.

    They also give versions of the program through the Powder Hounds and Doggy Detectives programs.

    It's something that Gilmore said has proven to be beneficial.

    "We had a little girl from Washington, D.C., come to the Doggy Detectives then she came back a year later and she knew the program verbatim," she said.