ELLENSBURG — She sits poised and ready for action, her tail wagging fervently in the front seat. Pressing her nose against the fogging window, she waits for her cue. She wants to play — and bad. Only it’s not a game. To some humans, Bazuka’s skills could mean the difference between life and death.
The 6-year-old black Lab spends her days training to play a big game of “hide and seek,” as handler Kevin Huggett puts it. Bazuka is highly trained in the art of search and rescue — tracking, air scenting and avalanche. In the past, she has even been certified for cadaver retrieval.
According to Kittitas County sheriff’s Sgt. Fred Slyfield, Bazuka is the only search and rescue dog in the county.
“I’ve been around a lot of SAR dogs and Kevin’s dog is a dandy,” Slyfield said.
She spends her time at her Hyak home with Huggett and his other dog, 10-year-old Porter, who has retired from his rescuing days due to an injury.
Porter is “getting to be an old man like me, and we have a little girl to keep up with,” Huggett said.
Porter was also trained for avalanche rescues. Huggett began introducing him to search and rescue techniques in hopes of keeping his senses keen.
“Avalanche is only for a certain amount of time,” Huggett said. “We wanted to use him to do more things to keep him fresh. We moved into the search and rescue stuff and it just didn’t work out so well.”
Bazuka, though, was a different story. She began training at 10 weeks old. She’s come a long way during her training and was able to overcome her fears — including being lowered to a search site via helicopter.
During one of her earlier experiences in King County, Huggett said they got out fine, but then they weren’t able to get the emergency lead off, requiring them to be brought back into the copter.
“She went flat all the way to the floor,” Huggett said. But that was just cold feet.
Helicopter rides are no big deal. She enjoys them best with her head in Huggett’s lap. But to her, it’s all worth it.
Once she completes her mission, she gets a reward of her liking ranging from a game of fetch, tug-of-war or what every Lab loves — food.
“Labs are just a stomach with four legs,” Huggett said.
That four-legged stomach knows she gets a treat at the end of the job, which gives her motivation to complete it. Her nose, and determination to be rewarded, cuts search and rescue times back by hours.
Huggett said Bazuka has been able to find people buried up to 10 feet deep in snow.
He also said in some situations, when he and Bazuka arrive on scene, they can find their victim within a matter of hours.
“With a dog, it’s like 20 times faster than people,” Huggett said. “Two hours with a horse and search probes will take 20 minutes for a dog.”
One example happened this year when a 75-year-old woman suffering from Alzheimer’s had gone missing at Lost Lake.
“She was a good quarter-mile away from her car and her husband,” Huggett said. “She wasn’t by any trail at all.”
The searched wrapped up in two hours, and Bazuka was given her reward.
“To them, you keep it a game,” Huggett said. “You always finish on a positive note. No negatives here.”
To keep Bazuka sharp and focused, Huggett drills her with other dogs from counties across the state, including King County, Yakima County and Snohomish County. Huggett also trains other dogs to become avalanche certified with the Backcountry Avalanche Rescue K-9s, or BARK team.
The members of the team cover the Snoqualmie Pass, Stevens Pass and Crystal Mountain area.
Huggett said BARK will hold its annual fundraiser March 6 at Alpental, featuring a live band and silent auction.
“We turn around with the funds and put out an avalanche beacon training area across the way that people can go to on their own and use their transistors and figure out how to use them,” Huggett said. “We also put on basic avalanche awareness classes.”
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
