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SAR dogs prepared to parade
Spotsylvania County woman organizes national search and rescue dog group that will march in presidential inaugural parade.
By EMILY BATTLE
Date published: 1/17/2005
Most of the people going to Thursday's presidential inauguration are worrying over last-minute details like hotel reservations and inaugural-ball tickets.
But Spotsylvania County resident Alice Stanley's main concern is making sure 33 German shepherds and their handlers are ready for a 42-minute march down Pennsylvania Avenue.
On a whim a couple of months ago, Stanley submitted an online application for the Virginia Search and Rescue Dog Association to march in the inaugural parade.
The group, which she and her husband founded more than 25 years ago, will march with dogs from its sister organizations around the country, all of which are part of the American Rescue Dog Association.
"I thought, 'Gee, wouldn't 30 or so German shepherds marching down Pennsylvania Avenue look cool?'" she said.
Stanley also thought it was time that the rescue dogs her group trains--some of which searched for victims at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks--got a little recognition.
Stanley wasn't sure her request would yield anything until one morning in December, when an inaugural organizer called to tell her she had about a month to get a group of search dogs and owners from around the United States and Canada ready for the parade.
Since then, Stanley has been busy coordinating the details with fellow search-dog trainers in Maryland, Illinois, Nova Scotia and other places.
They needed a banner with the group's name and logo, hard hats and jackets for the handlers, and orange rescue vests for the German shepherds.
The dogs and their owners will travel to Alexandria on Wednesday--search dogs have the privilege of riding with their owners on commercial airline flights--and they'll ride in chartered school buses to the parade's starting point in Washington.
"I can't wait to see the faces on people when they see a bunch of German shepherds hanging out the side of these school buses," Stanley said.
Although all of these dogs have been in parades at some point, Stanley worries a little that they've never marched in formation together before.
Still, she said, "The dogs worry me less than the humans. We are not a drill team. We're search people."
Stanley and her husband, Doug, have been training German shepherds since the 1970s to detect the airborne scent of humans.
Date published: 1/17/2005
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