In May, Search Dog Network helped respond to the floods in Hays County. We responded with two human remains detection canine teams and several ground team members. There were numerous new lessons learned among all responders during this search, but two stand out that will improve how our team approaches working large scale floods.

The first was that a shoreline search can cover an enormous area of land because the waters continued to recede for weeks after such large scale flooding. What is shoreline today will not be part of the shoreline tomorrow, so an area may need to be continually re-searched at the waterline until the water fully recedes back to normal levels.

The second was that heavy equipment was used to efficiently shift large amounts of flood debris. Working safely around this equipment was an important part of the search. The use of spotters, proper procedures, and personal protective equipment was critical to a safe and effective operation.

In such a large search response, it was highly valuable to have an emergency veterinary team available to take care of the canines. During a natural disaster search like this, canines often returned from the field with minor scrapes from the difficult terrain and the need to be decontaminated with the emergency dog wash. It was also very important to pay attention to the dog’s heat tolerance, since not only can heat impact their ability to scent effectively, heat exhaustion is always a danger when working in Texas during this time of the year. To help offset risk, canine teams took breaks frequently and often worked smaller search segments.

Search Dog Network played a very small part in what was a tremendous effort in response to the Hays County flooding and we are grateful for all the logistics support provided to help our canine teams work with maximum effectiveness.