Forty-nine dogs from across country take part in training at Beach

VIRGINIA BEACH

Search and rescue dogs have this in common: A hopeless case of obsessive-compulsive disorder.

If you thought these dogs are about selflessness, about proving themselves man’s best friend on this highest-of-stakes playing field, you were wrong.

It’s all about the toy. The dogs are trained to believe the lost victims have a ball, that a game of fetch awaits them.

“These dogs don’t care about the victim,” said Jim Ingledue, a Beach firefighter who is overseeing a week of search dog training at the city’s Fire Training Center. “They want to play with that toy so badly, they will do anything to get to it.”

As he sits impatiently beside his handler, you needn’t wonder what’s going through the canine mind of Lt. Winters, a Belgian Malinois.

“He’s thinking, 'When am I going to go play? Does she have my ball in her pocket?’,” said handler Lori Tocke, a member of the Virginia Beach-based Urban Search and Rescue Task Force 2 team, one of 28 teams nationwide that operate under the umbrella of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Labradors, border collies, Malinois and German shepherds make for the best search and rescue dogs. Male or female, doesn’t really matter. What matters is the “prey drive” – the hunting dog’s obsession, transferred to a chew toy.

“When they’re in this atmosphere, they’re amped,” said David Hutcheson, a Beach fire battalion chief.

Tocke’s first search dog, Sprite, was distractible, had other interests in life. Sprite would lose focus in a search. She’s retired now.

“The things that make the best search dogs make them horrible pets,” said Tocke, who works handling horses and bird dogs at a farm outside Charlottesville.

Tocke keeps Lt. Winters in a crate at night, lest she wake to shredded shoes. He’ll

make toys of the darnedest things – remote controls, batteries.

Sixty people and 49 dogs came from all over the country for the dog training this week. It turns out Virginia Beach is renowned for something you won’t find in a tourism brochure: Its magnificent pile of rubble.

The concrete piles at the Fire Training Center, sprinkled with a few mangled cars and equipped with a three-story viewing platform and stadium lights, are “engineered” rubble. That is, there are plotted tunnels and nooks underneath.

Handlers guide the dogs through the rubble, making sure the scent is blowing toward the dog, searching for voids in which “victims” are hiding.

Being victim was Beach firefighter Ron McCuin’s job on Thursday. For five hours. He spent his day “buried” and reading “Strategy of Firefighting” through a thin crack of light. Other “victims” carry an iPod with them, and/or a blanket.

“I’d be lying if I said I didn’t close my eyes for a while,” said McCuin who, as a junior member of the Beach Fire Department, was drafted into the gig.

This isn’t “what if” training for an improbable event. The teams are deployed nationwide. The Beach-based team was in Oklahoma City. They were in Mississippi after Katrina. They were at the World Trade Center after Sept. 11.

“We’re all waiting for that one find,” Tocke said. “That would make it all worthwhile.”

The dogs, with their four-legged dexterity and keen senses, are key members. Even if their motivations are less than noble.

“For him,” Tocke said, gesturing to the panting Lt. Winters, “it’s a game.”

All about the toy.

John Warren, (757) 222-5114, john.warren@pilotonline.com