There are two kinds of search and rescue dogs, according to Robert Calkins: wilderness dogs and rubble dogs.
But the Oso landslide of 2014 resulted in a tragic mashup of wilderness and rubble. “It was a bizarre combination where the wilderness had physically moved through structures,” Calkins said.
Forty-three people died in the disaster. Calkins spent time on the scene as a state police spokesman, then went back on his own time with his pet Golden Retriever, Ruger, a trained search and rescue dog, to look for victims in the debris field.
Ruger was used to the woods, Calkins said, and the first thing he did was look behind a bush. “No, that’s not what we’re doing today,” Calkins told Ruger.
“We never had to discuss it again,” Calkins remembered during a phone interview. “He figured out he had to walk on the rubble. He adapted so quickly. I was pleasantly surprised.”
Calkins is a former journalist and state police official who now works full time on books starring Sierra the Search Dog — his real dog of years ago. Calkins will visit Vintage Books in Vancouver at 2 p.m. today to read from his works about Sierra and talk about the world of search and rescue dogs.
Calkins prefers calling his books about Sierra a “spectrum,” not a series, because different volumes aim to hook readers of different ages. That’s the kind of business strategy a fledgling author needs, Calkins said, and it’s based on his own experience as a young reader and fan of the mystery-solving Mercer Boys, whose book series competed with the Hardy Boys.
Unhappily, Calkins outgrew the Mercer Boys. “I remember wishing they had done versions of those stories for older kids,” he said. “They would have had a reader for life” if the books had grown up alongside him.
Therefore, Calkins writes for every level. “Sierra Becomes a Search Dog” and the rhyming “Sierra the Search Dog Finds Fred” are both easy, slim picture books for preschoolers, with illustrations by Taillefer Long, an artist based in South Carolina. (But Long sure seems to grasp contemporary Portlandia; are we spoiling the ending of “Sierra the Search Dog Finds Fred” by revealing that the missing Fred, complete with long sideburns and peace pendant, is discovered dancing and prancing in a field among barefoot hippies and bearded metrosexuals?)
“Bryce Bumps his Head” is a chapter book for elementary readers. And “Digger: The Case of the Chimera Killer” is a complex adult whodunit that shows off the author’s experience not just with search and rescue dogs but also with law enforcement and small-town politics.
“It freshens my mind to keep changing gears,” he said.
Uncovering
Calkins grew up in Portland, attended Benson High School, studied radio and eventually became a civilian Portland police dispatcher. “I found I really enjoyed doing investigations and writing reports,” he said, so he turned to journalism and worked for radio stations in Portland and Seattle.
“I was frustrated that police didn’t know how to tell their story,” he said. “They have a great story to tell.” He went on to be the media spokesperson for SeaTac airport, and then for the Washington State Patrol.
“But all through that, starting in my early 20s, I always wanted to be involved in search and rescue,” he said. “I like community service, and I like solving mysteries and uncovering things.” Life was always too busy for that, he said, until he and his wife acquired a golden retriever “who turned out to have a knack for search and rescue,” he said. “It all came together, the time and my desire and our new dog.”
That was Sierra, who went on to work for five years with Calkins on everything from routine missing persons cases to homicide investigations.
Dog skills, people skills
Ruger, Calkins’ current pet and search dog, is totally accustomed to wilderness and the woods around their home in Kitsap County.
“You want your dogs so used to the woods that they’re attuned to the anomalies,” Calkins said. “You don’t want your dog chasing deer and sniffing coyote poop.”
Getting your search and rescue dog handler certification isn’t just a matter of skills and drills, he said — it’s also a matter of sensitivity and trust. “We have this idea that we’re the master, but you have to learn the let the dog be in charge,” he said.
Sensitivity is what Calkins’ multibook protagonist, Bryce Finn, seems to have in spades. He’s a great reader of people as well as canines, and that’s how, in “Digger,” the high schooler not only snags a new girlfriend but also charms the girlfriend’s mother, without even trying.
People skills as well as dog skills are important in search and rescue, Calkins said. “What I do is rewarding, but it’s always the result of a family going through a struggle. You can never forget about that.
“All of us who went to Oso had some emotional issues afterwards,” he said. “You couldn’t help it. It was heartwrenching.”
