Ontario Search and Recovery Canines

07/16/2024

Congratulations to Dr. Cindy Otto !! Well Done !!

Penn Vet Working Dog Center's very own Cindy Otto has won the 2024 Special Award from The Kennel Club

Dr. Otto, has been a faculty member at Penn Vet since 1991, received a trophy, and $10,000 for her groundbreaking work on the health and welfare of working dogs.

Inspired by her 9/11 deployment, she founded the Penn Vet Working Dog Center, supporting research, education, and training for detection dogs. Her work improves human and canine health through search and rescue, law enforcement, and medical detection.

Dr. Otto shared, “It is a true honor to receive this award. I am grateful to the ICHA, Vernon and Shirley Hill, and The Kennel Club Charitable Trust, but mostly to the amazing dogs and their human partners who have inspired and supported me.”

We are incredibly proud to have Dr. Otto on our team!

07/01/2024

Great article! Especially since it’s about my Florida training peeps!! Miss you guys 🐾

Across beliefs and backgrounds, many people share the desire to "become a tree" after death: to either have a tree planted over their grave, or to be buried under one. Whether it's the comforting notion of keeping our memory alive, giving ourselves to the life of another being, or offering a shady place where our people can come visit, it is a beautifully romantic aspiration.

While little scientific research has been done on the extent to which we can "become" a tree, we are excited to share one anecdote from a recent visitor that begs to support the theory.

A couple times per year, non-profit forensic K9 organizations will visit the cemetery for trials with their dogs (to test their sniffers). It's a rare and unique opportunity for them, and a valuable relationship for us as we learn more and more about the magic of Prairie Creek. After North Florida Search Team's recent visit (pictured here), one operator shared that their dog was hitting on the trees surrounding older burials, but not on the graves. This was during a very dry period when scent is less masked by moisture. It was a powerful and breathtaking moment for us all to pause and ponder the possibilities of the age-old question ... "where do we go?"

06/21/2024

Today is National Indigenous Peoples Day. It coincides with the summer solstice, which has cultural significance to many Indiginous Nations. We reflect on and recognize this time to welcome the change in seasons.

06/15/2024

Recently, OSARC’s Heritage & Clandestine HRD Teams were once again honoured to attend the Wauzhushk Onigum Nation in Kenora to assist with their ongoing Residential School Search protocols. K9 teams worked well in the challenging terrain and the team was grateful to be included in their closing ceremonies 🧡 🐾 🐦‍⬛

06/12/2024

Deb and Rinnie spent two and a half days at the West Chester Fire Department Training Center at a burn course hosted by @ Northern Tier K9 Search and Rescue. Thank you to Garrett Dyer, Sharon Ballweg, and Lisa Kakavas for all the patience and valuable instruction. Thank you to Samantha Sheaffer for being such a great host and West Chester Fire Department for the use of their training center. It was a great experience for Rinnie and Deb. Rinnie had no trouble finding burned remains and searched in the dark and dirty buildings like it was an everyday thing.

05/09/2024

Our team had the pleasure of visiting the natural burial site at Glenwood Cemetery in Picton, Ontario on Tuesday.
This beautiful woodland area provided an amazing opportunity for our canines to search natural burials ranging from a few days old to over 3 years old, buried about 4 feet deep.
We sincerely appreciate Casey and Sandy at Glenwood Cemetery for embracing our partnership as it provides opportunity to expose our dogs to authentic scenarios particularly related to historical search projects.

05/05/2024

Day 2 of LEADS, Learning Enrichment & Dog Training Seminar hosted by Elise & Nordik K9 in Barrie, Ontario! Cheryl, John & friends are networking & learning lots from various speakers.

04/30/2024

Debera and Rinnie spent 5 days at Mosquito Lake in Ohio with wonderful instructors Matthew Zarrella and James Rawley of American Patriot K9 Training LLC. There was classroom time, shoreline and open water problems with lots of variety and challenging weather. Rinnie and Deb both made some real progress over the course of 5 days and left inspired and tired. Rinnie only fell in once off the boat but took every opportunity to go for a dip on the shoreline problems. Many thanks to Becky Saltzmann, Mecca FD, Ohio Branch SAR, all of the great volunteers and organizations that made sure we were fed and looked after. It takes a lot to put on workshops and OSARC appreciates having the opportunity to attend and learn. We'll be back next year.

04/29/2024

Members of our team joined Niagara Frontier Search and Rescue for a weekend of learning in the beautiful Allegany State Park. Big thanks Lisa Kakavas and Sharon Ballweg in providing supportive instruction through various scenarios, accommodating all of our dog and handler team’s needs. We enjoyed great food, a cookout and bonfire complete with guitars & songs. Kathy, Marlene, Jules, Tammy and Jerry were amazing hosts! Thank you for a great weekend!

04/16/2024

Thank you to Primrose Park Campground near Shelburne for allowing members of our team to train yesterday. Debera & Cheryl had a productive day working multiple scenarios to challenge Rinnie & Fuze. It’s thanks to folks like Rose & Wil who own the park that we can work our dogs in a variety of environments. If you have buildings and/or property that could work for us, please connect!

04/10/2024

Members of our team had an amazing experience at Muscatatuck Urban Training Centre in Indiana last weekend, hosted by Debbie Triplett at Canine Connections LLC and her band of wonderful volunteers. With dozens of handlers & dogs attending, we were split into 6 groups; Sherri & John were Leads for one group and Debbie & Cheryl were participants in another. Scenarios included searches in train and plane wrecks, a flooded village, rope work, multiple buildings (prison, hospital, compounds & residential), caves and rubble piles. Wow! We all learned a lot, reunited with old friends and made new ones ☺️. This training broadens our teams knowledge, builds confidence and is a great networking opportunity to connect with other teams and handlers. Our dogs did amazing, we are pooped out and proud!

04/08/2024

We are so proud to be associated with this organization!

Natural burial grounds can play an important role in the training of search and recovery dogs. In Ontario, OSARC (Ontario Search and Recovery Canines) supports agencies and families in the recovery of missing persons, in both urban and wilderness, natural and man-made disasters. Natural burial grounds offer an ideal training opportunity for human remains detection canines, as there are no markers and bodies are not embalmed. The dogs aren’t invasive and they don’t disturb the earth or surroundings, they simply “alert” to the odour of human remains.

In the US this is getting a positive response. At one expansive conservation burial ground, the trainers and their dogs arrived on a day which happened to have lots of visitors. People were curious about the dogs and their trainers, but when they learned what the dogs were up to they were pleased “their” cemetery was pitching in. 🦮

Would you like to see natural burial grounds in your community supporting this initiative? 🐾

Search and Recovery Canines

01/22/2024

OSARC members Debera Salo & Cheryl Woods attended a Canine Trauma & Emergency course today, hosted by Elise at Nordik K9. This course provided information & training to ensure we are capable of supporting our canines in emergency situations. Topics included stages of care, bleeds, burns, hyperthermia, hypothermia, poisoning, choking, drowning, bloat, eye injuries & what items should be in our canine first aid kits. We were able to test our skills in various scenarios. ⛑️ It was a great day!

01/16/2024

Back to Florida after spending 4 days in North Carolina on a mock search with Drones, Foot searchers, Mountain Bike Searchers and K9’s. First what a fantastic location, especially for Horsey people!! The group had a father and son volunteer to be lost for 48 hours, giving all disciplines the opportunity to find them. For K9’s we had, Trailing, Tracking, Area Search and of course my passion, human remains. We had the amazing opportunity to imprint our dogs on 3 day old source!!! Worth the drive just for that !! We were assigned our areas in rugged bush/terrain, had our GPS collars, CalTopo mapping on our phones and sent out to see what we could find. Thanks to our great volunteer flankers who kept us within our area as other dogs were working beside us in theirs. Special thanks to Dr. Lisa Briggs and Edwin for once again supplying great real life training scenarios, advice, and encouragement. Thank you to all the teams involved for your time and especially to the HRD Host Team SCSAR. Saturday eve was a presentation on “Dementia” after the excellent catered meal. Well, I would never have thought I would be sitting on the edge of my seat to hear/watch one of the best presenters ever!! And on Dementia!! I highly recommend anyone dealing with a loved one with Dementia to look up this site www.TeepaSnow.com Definitely be back next year !!

11/12/2023

Apparently it's not a search with a lab if they don't smell like a swamp for the drive home.

11/08/2023

The team members of OSARC are humbled and honoured to have been a part of the Wauzhushk Onigum Nation, Kaatagoging Survivors Initiative Project in Kenora Ontario. Working with ISN Maskwa, SAR-1, Narratives and the Survivors was an honour. As a team that specializes in Cold Case, Historical and Forensic work, this opportunity was life changing for us all. We were educated on and respectful of the community traditions including smudging, to***co offerings and cedar in our boots. This experience has made a lasting impression on our team, and we wish the community all the best as they move through this project.

Cheryl Woods
Debera Salo
Heather Parsons
Sherri Hall
Suzy BOlsen
John William Grima

You can read more about the team and our searches are cadaverdogs.ca.

Link to full report
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1I1OUoFlzp-K1_ZGN3vfDI4Ygu_Zaupgi/view?usp=drive_link

10/30/2023

K9 Rinnie & K9 Talon enjoyed 4 days of advanced Burials which included early 1800 cemeteries as well as several Native American burial sites. Organized by QUE Centre for Missing Persons, we thank you for such a well run event. Our instructors were extremely knowledgeable and experienced in Historical K9 work.

09/24/2023

Debi and Rinnie spent the day with Niagara Frontier Search and Rescue doing some water training. Great day, awesome spot, and good company.

09/23/2023

Girl power! Another great day of training for K9 Rinnie & Deb and K9 Serrano & Cheryl. Both dogs and handlers had a productive day working a few different scenarios.

09/21/2023

Super training day for human remains detection for some of the OSARC team yesterday. This incredible property had so much to offer for search scenarios in vehicles, tree lines, buildings, manure piles and many distractions including goats, cats & chickens. Never ceases to amaze us how the dogs problem solve with each search! In addition, we worked historical human remains a very old cemetery with graves dated 1861-1943. It was a productive day with all dogs doing really well!

09/18/2023

Debera and Rinnie passed their IPWDA land and crime scene certification. Thank you to and for all of their knowledge and instruction. It was a long 6 days with amazing opportunities to work and search at so many different areas. Thanks to Mark Chapman for hosting and all of the fellow students for the laughs and encouragement. Seminars can be very humbling but it's worth all the hard work and ups and downs.

09/13/2023

Debera and Rinnie are having fun and learning a lot crime scene class in Walbridge Ohio. So much packed into 3 days so far and there are 3 more to go. Cemetery tomorrow and fire scene and of course more vehicles.

07/18/2023

A man previously convicted of human trafficking of children is living at a centre offering services for children with autism, police say, prompting a community safety advisory.

07/18/2023

We had a great training opportunity on the weekend! Awesome searches and tracks!! Great to train with likeminded women!!

07/13/2023

New recruit Murdie had a great practice today!

07/11/2023

Rinnie is an amazing dog! She just recently was certified for water recovery through the International Police Work Dog Association.

Sometimes when we watch her work, we still see a glimpse of the adorable puppy with so much potential ❤🐾.

07/04/2023

When Talon is out working, you see the determined, focused, hard-worker that he is.

When we look at him, we still see the adorable fuzzy pup with so much potential💚.

10/26/2020

Interesting article from one of our mentors .....

UExpress.com is home to the best syndicated columnists for advice, opinion and commentary - including Focus on the Family, Ann Coulter, Dear Abby and News of the Weird.

09/07/2020

https://www.heraldtribune.com/story/news/education/2020/09/06/university-of-south-florida-body-farm-lets-cadavers-teach-students/5706978002/

When launched in 2017, USF’s open-air laboratory became the seventh and newest body farm in the United States, all operated by universities

08/12/2020

OSARC is seeking resume's for the addition of 2 new K9/Handlers to join our team. Dogs must be appropriate candidates and able to pass the CKC's CGN program. Dogs must be physically fit and built for the job. Handlers need to have availability to go on searches and be reasonably fit as well. There will be some traveling and we are not always reimbursed for our expenses. We do work as volunteers so you need to be financially stable. There will be a yearly payment required of $350.00 for your portion of the teams insurance costs. Several online courses are required and certification early next summer is the goal. Teams train 2 x week and members must attend a minimum of 6 per month. Each team hosts training on a rotation basis. Teams will also get to learn a new forensic search style. We will be working cold cases with police permission for several agencies including missing indigenous women and children. If you feel this is of interest and it is your time in life to become an unpaid professional and give back to the community, please forward your resume/questions to [email protected] Attention: Sherri Hall Team Leader