However, his intensive rescue training eventually calmed him down. Puzzle’s breed, she notes, is notorious among dog-rescue circles for their “drive, stability, commitment to working with a human, congeniality, and nose.” As Puzzle matured, he began interacting well with the author’s own assortment of pets, but proved somewhat of a challenge at home. Soon after her qualification, Charleson accompanied her dog-in-training Puzzle, a bouncy Golden Retriever puppy, on an airline flight, much to the delight of passengers and crew alike. The author’s years of experience with the unit soon qualified her to “train and run beside a search dog.” She details her history as a flight instructor introduced to the rescue profession by circumstance and the bittersweet dissolution of her marriage. In the opening chapters, the author, who had been training for three consecutive years with a local search-and-rescue (SAR) team, trails alongside rescue dogs and their able handlers in cases like the desperate search for a missing child or rummaging through the debris from the disintegrated space shuttle Columbia. In the most heartwarming of many such chapters, the author tells how actress Tricia Helfer, who played Charleson in a pilot for a TV series based on Scent of the Missing, helped her save a dog with ears like a rabbit that was one day away from euthanasia.The unique dynamic between man and “man’s best friend” is passionately explored by a search-and-rescue dog handler.ĭallas-area Rescue K9 Unit volunteer Charleson shares memories, information and anecdotes, each one representative of a stage in the progression of her police work. She is a skillful, soulful writer whose background in broadcast and teaching shows. What happened to that dog, pictured on the cover, is an ongoing love story.Ī Baylor alumna who did graduate work at North Texas State (now University of North Texas), Charleson is professor of communication studies at Collin College in Plano. She named him Jake Piper for his ears that looked like the gull-winged version of the plane, drove him to the vet and awaited word. Of course, she took the trembling bundle of bones. Her own challenge began when a neighbor handed her an abandoned pit bull terrier puppy, near death from hunger and hemorrhagic gastroenteritis. Selecting, evaluating and training such canine allies isn't easy.
But while Charleson cites amazing cases of what gifted psychiatric service dogs can do, she points out that not every Canis familiaris can make the cut.
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