Two kids are lost in a terrifying forest. Can a golden retriever find them before it’s too late?
Learning Objective: to read an article and watch a video about search-and-rescue dogs and to draw key details from both to respond to a prompt
It’s the stuff of nightmares—getting hopelessly lost in the woods on a dark and rainy night. For Sammie Wartchow and Ali Ferry, that nightmare was about to become real.
It’s the stuff of nightmares—getting hopelessly lost in the woods on a dark and rainy night. For Sammie Wartchow and Ali Ferry, that nightmare was about to become real.
Courtesy of Joanne Varley
Maddee
It was 3 p.m. on a sunny Saturday in Issaquah, Washington, a small city surrounded by forests of towering trees. Ali, 10, and her mom had just picked up Sammie, also 10, for a sleepover. Now Ali thought it would be fun to show Sammie a stream she had discovered earlier that day not far from her house.
The stream was just a short walk from the road, at the head of a trail leading into a vast forest. Like most kids in Issaquah, both girls had grown up exploring the woods, so Ali’s mother didn’t think twice about letting them go on a mini adventure by themselves. She dropped them off and said she’d come back to pick them up in 30 minutes.
But when Mrs. Ferry returned, the girls were nowhere to be found.
She waited a few minutes and then started walking down the trail, calling their names.
“Ali! Sammie!”
The swiftly darkening woods swallowed her words.
Her panic rising, Mrs. Ferry shouted again and again. Minutes ticked by. The sun was setting, and rain was starting to fall.
The girls had vanished.
Mrs. Ferry quickly got in touch with her husband and Sammie’s parents. They called 911, trying not to think about the bears and cougars that prowled the woods, or even more terrifying possibilities.
“Everything was running through my head, and nothing was positive,” says Sammie’s mother, Vicky.
Within hours, nearly 100 police officers and volunteers were combing the rain-soaked forest. Flashlights punctuated the darkness like giant fireflies. The blades of a helicopter thwacked the air overhead. Walkie-talkies crackled.
The most expert searcher in the woods that night, however, did not have a flashlight or a helicopter or a walkie-talkie. All she had was her nose.
That searcher was a 3-year-old golden retriever named Maddee. She had been trained as a search-and-rescue (SAR) dog—the kind that gets called when a person is lost or trapped and must be found quickly. SAR dogs are deployed in the wilderness as well as in disaster areas such as buildings crumbled by earthquakes or mudslides, neighborhoods flattened by tornadoes or hurricanes, and mountainsides crushed by avalanches. One SAR dog can be more effective than 20 human searchers.
But could Maddee find Sammie and Ali?
It was 3 p.m. on a Saturday in Issaquah, Washington, a small city surrounded by forests. Ali was 10. She and her mom had just picked up Sammie, also 10, for a sleepover. Now Ali wanted to show Sammie a stream she had found earlier that day not far from her house.
The stream was just a short walk from the road, at the head of a trail leading into a forest. Both girls had grown up exploring the woods. Ali’s mom felt OK letting them walk there by themselves. She dropped them off and said she’d come back to pick them up in 30 minutes.
But when Mrs. Ferry returned, she didn't see the girls.
She waited a few minutes. Then she started walking down the trail, calling their names.
“Ali! Sammie!”
The woods swallowed her words.
Mrs. Ferry shouted again and again. Minutes ticked by. The sun was setting, and rain was starting to fall.
The girls had vanished.
Mrs. Ferry got in touch with her husband and Sammie’s parents. They called 911, trying not to think about the bears and cougars in the woods, or even scarier possibilities.
“Everything was running through my head, and nothing was positive,” says Sammie’s mom, Vicky.
Within hours, nearly 100 police officers and volunteers were combing the forest. Flashlights punctuated the darkness like giant fireflies. The blades of a helicopter thwacked the air overhead. Walkie-talkies crackled.
The most expert searcher in the woods that night, however, did not have a flashlight or a helicopter or a walkie-talkie. All she had was her nose.
That searcher was a 3-year-old golden retriever named Maddee. She had been trained as a search-and-rescue (SAR) dog. These dogs are called when a person is lost or trapped and must be found quickly. SAR dogs are deployed in the wilderness as well as in disaster areas such as buildings crumbled by earthquakes or mudslides, neighborhoods flattened by tornadoes or hurricanes, and mountainsides crushed by avalanches. One SAR dog can be more effective than 20 human searchers.
But could Maddee find Sammie and Ali?
Courtesy of Q13 FOX News, Seattle
Maddee and her trainer, Joanne Varney
Extraordinary Powers
Extraordinary Powers
What make dogs such effective searchers is their extraordinary noses. A dog’s sense of smell can be up to 100,000 times more acute than a human’s.
“A dog’s nose, unlike ours, doesn’t just pick up the strongest scent in a room or a yard,” writes Nancy Castaldo in her book Sniffer Dogs. “Dogs smell every scent.”
Castaldo compares a dog’s sense of smell to a human’s sense of hearing. For example, when you walk into school, you might hear dozens of different sounds—doors slamming, footsteps echoing, your best friend shouting your name, chairs scraping across floors, laptops humming, your teacher saying, “Quiet, please.” But you would likely notice only the strongest scent, like the aroma of French toast sticks wafting from the cafeteria. A dog walking into school with you would smell dozens and dozens of scents.
Most amazingly, the dog would detect the smell of each individual student and teacher. That’s because even when we’ve just scrubbed ourselves clean in the shower, we each emit a unique scent that a dog’s supersensitive nose can recognize. This scent comes from microscopic bits of dried skin called rafts. We can’t see or smell them, but we shed millions of these rafts every day. They scatter all around us when we take a step, cling to our dirty clothes when we toss them in the hamper, and even drift in the water around us when we swim. It’s these rafts that create a scent trail a dog can follow.
Before Maddee began searching the woods that night, her trainer, Joanne Varney, brought her to Ali’s house. The family gave Varney one of Ali’s shirts and a blanket that Sammie had packed for the sleepover. Maddee took a good whiff of both items so she would know what scents to search for.
Just as you can look at a picture of hundreds of people and pick out the face of one friend, Maddee would be able to sift through the thousands of smells in the forest and pinpoint the scents of Ali and Sammie.
What make dogs such effective searchers? Their amazing noses. A dog’s sense of smell can be up to 100,000 times more acute than a human’s.
“A dog’s nose, unlike ours, doesn’t just pick up the strongest scent in a room or a yard,” writes Nancy Castaldo in her book Sniffer Dogs. “Dogs smell every scent.”
Castaldo compares a dog’s sense of smell to a human’s sense of hearing. For example, when you walk into school, you might hear many different sounds—doors slamming, footsteps echoing, your best friend shouting your name, chairs scraping across floors, laptops humming, your teacher saying, “Quiet, please.” But you would likely notice only the strongest scent, like the aroma of French toast sticks coming from the cafeteria. A dog walking into school with you would smell dozens of scents.
Most amazing, the dog would detect the smell of each individual person. Even right after taking a shower, we each emit a unique scent that a dog’s sensitive nose can recognize. This scent comes from microscopic bits of dried skin called rafts. We can’t see or smell them, but we shed millions of these rafts every day. They scatter around us when we take a step. They cling to our dirty clothes when we toss them in the hamper. They drift in the water around us when we swim. These rafts create a scent trail that a dog can follow.
Before Maddee began searching the woods that night, her trainer, Joanne Varney, brought her to Ali’s house. The family gave Varney one of Ali’s shirts and a blanket that Sammie had packed for the sleepover. Maddee sniffed both items so she would know what scents to search for.
Just as you can look at a picture of hundreds of people and pick out the face of one friend, Maddee would be able to sift through the thousands of smells in the forest and pinpoint the scents of Ali and Sammie.
Passing the Test
All dogs have an extraordinary sense of smell, but not every dog can become a successful SAR canine. Trainers look for dogs that are smart, bold, and extremely energetic. Many are found in animal shelters. Very often, a dog whose bouncing-off-the-walls personality overwhelmed its original owners can become a superstar SAR dog.
The key is training.
Training a search dog revolves around the dog’s innate desires to play and to be rewarded. Search dogs are taught to follow a particular scent and to signal to their human partners when they find it, such as by sitting or barking. When they succeed, they are rewarded, just as pets might be rewarded for following a command to sit or fetch.
But the process is time-consuming; it takes about 600 hours to train a SAR dog. Varney began training Maddee when she was a puppy, starting with simple obedience commands and working up to more complicated tasks. At 18 months, Maddee was ready to go on missions.
SAR dogs are a small and elite group in the U.S., and the best of them can work under extraordinarily difficult conditions. They can climb ladders, scale towers of rubble, and dig through piles of snow. Some can even search in water.
In the past decade, American SAR dogs have saved countless lives. In 2010, following a devastating earthquake in Haiti, SAR dogs found people caught in the rubble, including a 3-year-old girl who had been trapped for five days. After Hurricane Sandy hit the East Coast in 2012, SAR dogs helped find many elderly people who were trapped inside their homes without water or electricity. And in 2017, teams of SAR dogs were sent to Puerto Rico to help locate survivors after Hurricane Maria left much of the island in ruins.
All dogs have a powerful sense of smell, but not every dog can be a successful SAR canine. Trainers look for dogs that are smart, bold, and energetic. Many are found in animal shelters. Often, a dog that had too much energy for its original owners can become a great SAR dog.
The key is training.
Training a search dog revolves around the dog’s innate desires to play and to be rewarded. Search dogs are taught to follow a particular scent and to signal to their human partners when they find it, such as by sitting or barking. When they succeed, they are rewarded.
It takes about 600 hours to train a SAR dog. Varney began training Maddee when she was a puppy, starting with simple obedience commands and working up to more complicated tasks. At 18 months, Maddee was ready to go on missions.
SAR dogs are a small and elite group in the U.S. The best of them can work under very difficult conditions. They can climb ladders, scale towers of rubble, and dig through piles of snow. Some can even search in water.
In the past 10 years, American SAR dogs have saved countless lives. In 2010, after an earthquake in Haiti, SAR dogs found people caught in the rubble, including a 3-year-old girl who had been trapped for five days. After Hurricane Sandy hit the East Coast in 2012, SAR dogs helped find elderly people who were trapped inside their homes without water or electricity. In 2017, SAR dogs were sent to Puerto Rico to help locate survivors after Hurricane Maria left much of the island in ruins.
Matt Slaby/LUCEO
Sammie (left) and Ali, at age 15, in the woods where they got lost
Nose to the Ground
When Maddee arrived to help search for Ali and Sammie, the girls had been missing for five hours. Frantic volunteers were shouting. The helicopter overhead made it almost impossible to hear. People were slipping and falling along the muddy trails.
But Maddee was unfazed. Right away, Varney says, she was ready to run.
Off Maddee went, nose to the ground, zigzagging through the mud, trying to pick up the correct scents. She ran up and down hills, jumped over roots, and crossed two streams. Varney’s husband was there too, and at first they tried to keep Maddee on her leash.
“But finally, I let her go free on the trail,” says Varney.
Two hours into their search, Maddee and the Varneys were heading up a hill when suddenly, “Maddee wanted to leave the trail and head downhill,” says Varney.
The brush was very thick, and the only light Varney had was from the headlamps she and her husband wore.
But she had a feeling that they were close.
“Ali! Sammie!” Varney called.
At first it was hard to hear.
Then two voices rose out of the darkness.
“Over here! Over here!”
A few minutes later came Maddee’s barks.
She had found them.
The girls were huddled together—cold, wet, and frightened, but unhurt.
It turned out that Sammie and Ali had lost the trail and become disoriented, walking in circles until they stopped and hunkered down under some trees. At one point, they felt certain a large animal was nearby. “There was something out there looking at us,” Sammie remembers.
As the hours crept by, all the girls could do was hope someone would find them. Little did they imagine that the someone would be a golden retriever.
An hour after Maddee found them, the girls were reunited with their overjoyed families. “When I saw my mom,” says Sammie, “I just burst out crying.” The girls were grateful to everyone who had searched for them and eager to put the nightmare behind them.
As for Maddee?
She was soon snug in her bed, awaiting her next mission.
When Maddee arrived to help search for Ali and Sammie, the girls had been missing for five hours. Volunteers were shouting. The helicopter was loud. People were slipping and falling on the muddy trails.
But Maddee was unfazed. She was ready to run.
Off Maddee went, nose to the ground, trying to pick up the correct scents. She ran up and down hills, jumped over roots, and crossed two streams. Varney’s husband was there too. At first they tried to keep Maddee on her leash. “But finally, I let her go free on the trail,” says Varney.
Two hours into their search, Maddee and the Varneys were heading up a hill. Suddenly, Maddee wanted to leave the trail and head downhill.
The brush was very thick. The only light Varney had was from the headlamps she and her husband wore.
But she had a feeling that they were close.
“Ali! Sammie!” Varney called.
At first it was hard to hear.
Then two voices rose out of the darkness.
“Over here! Over here!”
A few minutes later came Maddee’s barks.
She had found them.
The girls were cold, wet, and scared, but unhurt.
Sammie and Ali had lost the trail and become disoriented. They had walked in circles, and then stopped to rest under some trees. At one point, they felt sure a large animal was nearby. “There was something out there looking at us,” Sammie remembers.
Hours went by. All the girls could do was hope someone would find them. Little did they imagine that the someone would be a golden retriever.
An hour after Maddee found them, the girls were back with their families. “When I saw my mom,” says Sammie, “I just burst out crying.” The girls were grateful to everyone who had searched for them and eager to put the nightmare behind them.
As for Maddee?
She was soon snug in her bed, awaiting her next mission.
This article was originally published in the September 2020 issue.
This article was originally published in the September 2020 issue.
Essential questions: What is the relationship between humans and dogs? How do authors create suspense? How can using multiple sources enhance your understanding of a topic?
1. PREPARING TO READ (10 minutes)
Do-Now: Solve a riddle. (5 minutes)
Preview vocabulary. (5 minutes)
Share Vocabulary: Words and Definitions (available in your Resources tab) and review the words as a class. (Optionally, have students complete the practice activity for homework.) Highlighted words: acute, deployed, disoriented, elite, emit, innate, unfazed
Do-Now: Solve a riddle. (5 minutes)
Preview vocabulary. (5 minutes)
Share Vocabulary: Words and Definitions (available in your Resources tab) and review the words as a class. (Optionally, have students complete the practice activity for homework.) Highlighted words: acute, deployed, disoriented, elite, emit, innate, unfazed
2. READING AND DISCUSSING (45 MINUTES)
Close-Reading Questions
Critical-Thinking Question (5 minutes)
Close-Reading Questions
Critical-Thinking Question (5 minutes)
3. SKILL BUILDING AND WRITING (20 MINUTES)
