Rescue K-9, volunteer a crowd-pleaser

Gov. Tim Kaine may have pulled the applause at Friday’s Interactive Safety and Preparedness Fair, but Duke got more pats on the head.

A 7-year-old German Shepherd, Duke works with his owner and trainer John Suitt to find missing persons. Suitt, a volunteer with K-9 Alert Search and Rescue Dogs, Inc., was there to answer questions about how search and rescue dogs aid police and state agencies with investigations.

Amanda Frey, a senior biology student, was among the students who stopped to pet Duke and ask Suitt questions.

“I was just walking through the Commons and saw it,” she said of the fair. She came over because she works in a veterinary clinic, and said another search and rescue dog comes into the clinic.

The dog-trainer teams are on call 24/7 to help police and state agencies. After over two years of training, Suitt and Duke have searched for missing children, lost people and victims of crime.

“We’ve done a lot,” he said. “Duke has been operational now for almost four years. We’ve gone on about 180 to 200 searches. In his career he’s actually saved two people’s lives.”

Duke is also trained to find the deceased. Suitt said trained dogs can even locate drowning victims because submerged bodies emit gases carrying skin cells they can smell.

Suitt said they helped the state Attorney General’s office with the Taylor Behl investigation. They also worked in the hard-hit Ninth Ward of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.

Suitt was a volunteer firefighter, but got out of it when his son was born, telling his wife he’d return when his son grew up. That didn’t happen, he explained.

“I went to the doctor and the doctor said, ‘no, you can’t do that anymore’ because I have a spot on my lung. So he said, ‘find something outdoorsy to do.’ ”

He got in contact with K-9 Alert and began training Duke.

Suitt said he and his fellow volunteers avoid the limelight. Much of their work is done early in the morning after other options are exhausted.

“The general Joe Blow public never knows what we do – and that’s okay,” he said. “The search and rescue community is not out to make a name for ourselves, we’re here to provide a service to the community.”