Training dogs to find the lost and avoid the dangerous
Volunteer group teaches dogs to recognize and avoid rattlesnakes.
In Los Alamos and throughout northern New Mexico, search and rescue isn’t theoretical. It’s late-night callouts, rugged, harsh terrain, and the uneasy reality that sometimes people don’t come home on time.
For forty years, the Mountain Canine Corps has been part of that response. The all-volunteer team, which consists of twenty people and sixteen dogs — eight of which are currently mission-ready — train year-round to locate missing hikers, lost hunters, older folks with dementia, and others who vanish into our region’s vast landscape. Their work stretches beyond Los Alamos and Bandelier, often at the request of state police. And while their mission hasn’t changed much in four decades, almost everything else has.
Training and technology
The Search and Rescue canine disciplines remain the same: live find, human remains detection, tracking and trailing, and avalanche. “However, the proportions of the canine disciplines trained and training techniques have changed substantially,” Alan Eschenbacher, president of the Mountain Canine Corps said. “Forty years ago, many dogs were trained as tracking and trailing dogs. Now, most of our dogs are trained as live find and/or [human remains detection].”
Technology has also reshaped the job. “The volume of searches has gone drastically down in the wilderness because people have their cellphones,” said Lette Birn, one of the Mountain Canine Corps founders. “They know where they are … we don’t have to look for them, we just have to go out and pick them up.”
At the same time, training has become more rigorous and data-driven, with teams increasingly relying on mapping tools and behavioral analysis to refine how canine units operate in the field. Each search is treated as a data set rather than just a field exercise. “We make note of where the dogs have shown interest or a change of behavior,” Birn said. “Those points are logged and layered across an entire search. Handlers then can review the combined data and factor in terrain and wind patterns to identify likely locations of a missing person. In some cases, that post-search analysis has directly led teams back out to make successful finds, turning instinct-driven work into something much closer to a science.”
The reality of a callout
Search missions in New Mexico are initiated through the state police. Alerts can come at any time with teams expected to move quickly. For extended searches, they may get the call in the evening for a dawn start the next day.
The number of missions that the team responds to is highly variable — ranging from several in one month to just a few per year in a given region. They respond to incidents across Northern New Mexico and will sometimes assist adjacent states for larger missions like flash floods or wildfires.
Cases vary widely, but there are patterns. Around Los Alamos, they often involve hikers who didn’t return when they were expected to, foragers who got lost, or people with dementia who wandered away. “We see many cases of people with dementia who become disoriented. Often these people have been physically active their whole life but have lost some cognitive abilities that cause them to get lost. Often their families are unaware of just how significant they are impaired,” Eschenbacher said. He recommends learning the signs and understanding how to prevent something dangerous from happening to the family member. “Technology such as GPS trackers can alleviate these situations if families recognize the hazard in time.”
The fundraiser that saves lives
Keeping an all-volunteer team like this operational isn’t cheap. Equipment, training, travel — it all adds up. And Mountain Canine Corps funds much of it in a way that is both practical and a little unexpected: rattlesnake avoidance clinics.
The clinics are led by Terry Chandler and his wife Janet, professional trainers who teach dogs to recognize and avoid rattlesnakes using sight, sound, and scent. Chandler developed the method decades ago after watching working dogs in the Southwest get bitten — sometimes fatally, sometimes with career-ending injuries.
“We decided we needed to develop a method for training dogs to avoid them,” Chandler said. The approach is the result of decades of trial, error, and refinement. “We finally determined we’ve got to use live rattlesnakes … out here in the open like the dog would encounter them,” he said. After early attempts with non-venomous, dead, or caged snakes all failed to produce real-world results, the snakes used in clinics are rendered harmless —defanged and milked of venom the night prior to the clinic — and handled with care before being returned to the wild after the season.
His method is deliberately immersive. “We bring the dog downwind of the snake because we want the dog to see it, hear it, smell it, and ideally feel it,” he said. The training is simple in concept. Dogs encounter the snake naturally— downwind, out in the open — and receive a brief, controlled stimulation from an e-collar at the moment of interest or contact. The result is a lasting association: snakes equal discomfort. Avoid accordingly.
“It’s not a super high level, but it’s enough for the dog to feel uncomfortable and know that snake isn’t something I want to mess with,” Chandler said. He also noted that the e-collar correction is adjusted for breed, age and any medical issues the dog may have.
“It’s saved a lot of people and pets’ lives over the years,” Chandler said. The clinics draw large crowds now — often around 100 dogs per session, but sometimes far more. The clinics operate across New Mexico, Colorado, Texas, and Arizona. In many cases, they sell out, but the proceeds directly support the search-and-rescue work happening in the background.
Clinic coordinator Tom Mauter, now in his thirteenth year as the clinic coordinator, got involved after two rattlesnakes showed up in his own backyard — close enough that his wife walked past them without realizing. For him, the clinic’s value is simple: it gives dogs, and their owners, a fighting chance. “The dog will sense the rattlesnake before the human,” Mauter said. “You can’t avoid them if you don’t know they’re there … It’s more than just a clinic once a year. It’s everyday obedience training and precaution.”
How to help
Mountain Canine Corps is always looking for more people. Beyond handlers willing to train dogs, there’s a team of support members that are critical to the team. They help with communications, navigation, and overall mission safety, since each team requires at least two people in the field. They also need volunteers to literally hide in the woods during practice so the dogs have someone to find in a real-world simulation of a callout.
As a local nonprofit, donations go a long way to sustain the operations of this all-volunteer team and their hardworking dogs. Community awareness of the services this group provides is vital to help them continue the important work they do.
Four decades in, the formula hasn’t changed much. People still get lost, dogs still find them. But along the way, the team has built something durable: a network of trained volunteers, a steady pipeline of working dogs, and a fundraiser that doubles as a public safety service.
As long as people enjoy New Mexico’s rugged landscape, there will always be a need to find those who get lost or injured. “Technology has improved the outcomes for many unfortunate people,” Eschenbacher said, “but there will always be a need to find those who are unable to communicate with those who can help.” In those cases, search and rescue dogs remain a critical resource, with their “amazing sense of smell and ability to work with humans” helping locate people when everything else falls short.
