Search dogs get helicopter training

Rocket, the Windsor Fire Department’s urban search-and-rescue dog, took a helicopter ride Wednesday, strapped in a harness at the end of a 150-foot line and hoisted into the air.

It was training day at the Charles M. Schulz-Sonoma County Airport for Rocket and three other specialty dogs. Wednesday’s objective was to begin getting them used to helicopter noise, flying and then having to go right into search mode.

With ongoing news this week out of Nepal regarding thousands dead from last week’s massive earthquake and many buried in rubble from falling homes and buildings, Wednesday’s training took on a timely element, Windsor fire engineer Mike Stornetta said.

“That’s what we’re training for. Every week we’re training for that kind of an incident,” said Stornetta who handles Rocket, Sonoma County’s only urban search-and-rescue dog. “We don’t want them to think twice about the helicopter ride. We want to make sure that if we’re sent to Nepal or somewhere in this country we’re ready to go.”

It was a big event for the four dogs - Rocket, a Belgian Malinois-border collie, and Labs Clancy, Phelony and Tater.

“It was the first time for these dogs to be around a helicopter, in a helicopter and on a long line,” said Cyndi Foreman, fire prevention officer for Central Fire Authority, the administration agency for Windsor firefighters. The dogs, from Windsor, Marin County, Oakland and Hollister, are part of a group of eight canines in an Oakland-based team trained to find survivors trapped in natural or man-made disasters, such as a collapsed building.

Key to Wednesday’s training was the Sonoma County sheriff’s helicopter, whose pilot Paul Bradley offers a unique skill involving the ability to carry people on the long line - a technique that makes the helicopter a common responder for rescues and searches.

Wednesday’s helicopter training, which lasted just minutes for each dog, included a dog, its human partner and a helicopter paramedic taking a turn being strapped in together at the end of the line, picked up, flown a short distance and set down. The dogs then were tasked with finding a person hiding in a barrel set up amidst parked cars.

The search was secondary to the helicopter experience and wasn’t meant to be difficult. The person in the barrel let the dogs know they were happy to be found and gave each one a toy.

“The helicopter thing was really scary for them,” the firefighter said. “We wanted it to end on a happy note and have an easy find.”

Rocket and Stornetta are the only certified urban search-dog team between northern Marin County up to the state of Washington. In February they passed state and federal testing that means they now can respond to any incident throughout the country, Stornetta said.

You can reach Staff Writer Randi Rossmann at 521-5412 or randi.rossmann@pressdemocrat.com.? or Twitter@rossmannreport.