Dogs help in search for body

SPALDING, Idaho – A team of traveling cadaver dogs has been enlisted to help locate the body of a north-central Idaho fisherman missing since May 16 and presumed drowned.

Gary L. Thompson, 66, is believed by authorities to have fallen into the Clearwater River while trying to lift his boat’s anchor. Thompson’s boat was found anchored adjacent to U.S. Highway 12, just north of the Nez Perce National Historical Park at Spalding, a historic Presbyterian missionary town dating to 1836.

Kris Brock, one of the handlers for the nonprofit High Country Search Dogs team from Avon, Mont., said the nine dogs brought to help are an important tool in bringing closure to loved ones desperate to learn the fate of the disappeared. Brock said the drive of the dog, and not its breed, is the real motivating factor that sends the animals searching.

“They do it for the reward of finding the person at the end,” she told the Lewiston Tribune, adding the dogs will get a treat when they find what they’re looking for.

At least one of the dogs did latch onto an area of interest in the river, said Nez Perce County Sheriff’s Sgt. Bill Madison, prompting searchers to send the dogs back for another pass.

Still, divers who entered the water later in the day didn’t find anything; Madison said they would focus on that area again, as well as the upstream shoreline, as the search continues.

High Country Search Dogs has a 24-hour emergency number so volunteers on the team can be dispatched quickly should someone be lost. Teams affiliated with the group hail from Idaho, Montana, Utah and Wyoming. Dogs start training as early as eight weeks and it takes hours and hours of work before they can be certified.

“It takes about a year of some pretty intense training,” said Joe Manley, a deputy with the Fremont County Sheriff’s Office in eastern Idaho who brought his bloodhound along for the search.

The dogs include a variety of breeds, including German shepherds.

Not all searches are for bodies; for instance, dogs from High Country in 2005 successfully located a 75-year-old truck driver who had gotten lost on a drive between Arizona and Washington state and wandered away from his vehicle.

Often, however, the outcome of their work results in the confirmation of bad news.

For instance, the dogs on the hunt for Thompson’s scent may move up the Snake River to aid in the search for a missing swimmer at Lower Granite Dam in Washington state. Jordan Bloom, 23, is believed to have drowned there Monday afternoon, according to the Garfield County Sheriff’s Office.