Tag: Dogs

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Volunteering in a K9 Search and Rescue Unit

Article and photos by Kevin Machtelinckx

As the Pacific Northwest’s summer heats up and people begin their annual exodus outside, we’re bound to see stories of lost and missing hikers in the Gorge, around Mt. Hood, in the Jefferson Park Wilderness, and many others. Search and rescue volunteers are called upon regularly to provide the manpower for searches that often span hundreds of acres. Although many volunteers have important support roles to perform, K9 units are the ones scouring the forest floors for scents and clues leading to the missing persons.

On a sunny Sunday afternoon, I was lucky enough to sit in on a K9 training session put on by Mountain Wave Search and Rescue (SAR). Brian McLaughlin, Barbara Linder, and Terri Hines, all K9 handlers, gave me a behind-the-scenes look into what it takes to become a handler and participate in these missions as K9 SAR volunteers.

Kevin Machtelinckx (KM): What is your dog’s name, age, breed, and specialty?
Brian McLaughlin (BM): Schooch, 3 year-old Australian Shepherd, air scent.
Barbara Linder (BL): Opal, 3.5 year-old Labrador retriever, air scent.
Terri Hines (TH): Rook, 3 year-old Belgian Shepherd, human remains detection.
KM: What does your dog’s specialty mean?
BM: Scent is wafting off each of us all the time. When outside, that scent is carried by the breeze. So there is an ever-widening path of scent wafting downwind from everybody outside (generally called a scent cone). My job is to navigate the area I’m given to search in such a way that we’ll intersect the scent cone of anybody that might be out there. My dog’s job is to react to that scent cone in a trained chain of behavior that includes following the scent to the subject, returning to me, alerting me that he’s found a subject, then leading me back to the subject he’s found.
TH: A Human Remains Detection (HRD) dog is trained to do just that, find human remains in any phase of decomposition and alert the handler of its location. The dogs are trained to recognize the smell of human remains versus animal remains or any other distracting odor that may be a normal attraction to a dog. They are trained and able to detect human remains on land, underwater, or buried for concealment.

 KM: Walk me through what a dog and trainer have to go through to become certified.
BM: Air scent training begins with what we call a runaway. The first runaways are simply having a training partner wave the dog’s favorite toy in front of him, making a bunch of noise and generally acting a little crazy and animated, and then turn and run away 10-20 yards, turn back around, and call the dog. The dog runs to the subject and is grandly rewarded with praise and play and maybe a treat. Doing this a few times makes running to that subject the most fun and exciting game the dog could ever hope to play. Then when the dog reaches the subject, you start calling the dog back to you to get the reward and praise. Before long, the dog understands that this new variation of the game is great too. Then you ask the dog to alert you somehow (Schooch pulls a special tug-toy off my belt to indicate he found someone) to get the reward and praise. Soon, the dog learns that he needs to do the alert to get his reward. Finally, after alerting, the subject calls the dog back to him, the handler follows him, and it’s a grand party back at the subject. You do this over and over again, and the dog learns to do that sequence of trained responses when playing the runaway game. Then, the subject starts ducking behind a tree when he runs away, so he’s out of sight when the dog is released. As time progresses, the subject ducks further and further aside and hides further and deeper from the last point he was seen. Then the handler turns the dog away as the subject runs, so he can’t see where the subject went at all. I always mark the beginning of the game by putting the search harness on the dog so when it comes out, Schooch knows it’s play time. Soon, there doesn’t have to be a runaway at all – the game has progressed to where the harness goes on, and the dog is ready and anxious to start playing the search game. All the training culminates in a certification test which is a demonstration of your ability to navigate a 120-acre piece of wilderness as outlined on a map with your dog to find a hidden subject within four hours. Dog and handler will have demonstrated their ability to do that day or night, rain or shine, prior to the certification test being scheduled.

 KM: What kind of training do the handlers themselves have to have in order to go out on searches?
BM: In our group, handlers need to be OSSA Type II certified. That means they need to demonstrate the ability to build fire and shelter with what they carry, navigate unfamiliar wilderness areas with map/compass and/or with a GPS, basic first aid and CPR skills, understand the Incident Command System, basic radio communications, search types and methods. You need to carry gear and supplies to enable you to stay in the field for 24 hours with your K9 and potentially a subject. Our group trains anyone that is planning to be in the field on these skills. All K9 handlers are required to have this Type II certification to participate in a search with their dog.

 KM: What would you say has been the most difficult part of training your dog?
BM: What slowed our training down most was my lack of experience in training this kind of thing! Learning how to keep track of where I was and making sure to navigate my dog into potential areas of scent while paying attention to the dog and seeing/understanding his behavior took time. You learn to understand what small, seemingly insignificant pauses, glances, and gestures mean. You learn to see when your dog is trying to work out what he’s smelling and what direction that faint scent is coming from, and he learns that you are encouraging him to do that. As for problems that he had – I guess I’d say that it would be related to chasing squirrels and such (he’s tangled with skunks too!). To deal with that, we would spend lazy afternoons on our back deck, sitting on the loveseat, just watching the world go by until… a squirrel would skitter by on top of the fence. Schooch would leap from the deck and go tearing after that squirrel. I would leap from the deck and go tearing after Schooch! I was very gruff with him —in his face, “NO … NO …,” in a low loud voice. The first time I did that, it kind of scared him, because I generally don’t talk to him like that. The second time (a day or two later), I did it the same way, but he didn’t seem scared—just put out. The third time a squirrel went by Schooch tensed and prepared to jump off the deck, but he paused and looked back at me. I gave him a gentle “no, no.” He turned back toward the squirrel, paused, and lay down. Since then, a gentle “no, no,” is generally enough to dissuade him from squirrels, other dogs, etc. He gets a good round of praise every time my “no, no” results in him standing down.

 KM: How often do you and your dog participate in training exercises?
BM: Our group holds training sessions six times a month. We generally make it to all of them. I also do obedience training more or less constantly—every interaction I have with my dog is within the bounds of my obedience expectations. I also take him places to stretch his experience and his trust in me. For instance, taking him on elevator rides, through a crowded MAX platform, through the hustle and bustle of the crowd waiting to get into the zoo on a Saturday morning, riding on a MAX train, etc. Training like that has resulted in a dog that, when he’s nervous/anxious, is right close at my side. That’s right where I want him if he’s a little fearful or nervous, and I praise him big time for that.
KM: In your opinion, what is the most dangerous aspect of search and rescue for you and your dog?
BL: I don’t like to search in urban areas due to the risk of getting hit by a car because Opal can range out of sight. I have to be careful with her in the Gorge as she could easily cliff out with her focus on searching and not paying attention to the terrain.

 KM: What has been your most memorable rescue, call out, or training event since you started doing search and rescue with K9’s?
BM: My best example was when we were assigned to go up a trail in the Columbia River Gorge and hook up with another trail to follow back along a creek to base. The “trail” turned out to be over rock and scree fields with pitches that required ropes to get through and sections so narrow that you could look down to your left and your right to see cliffs and/or very steep slopes where one wrong step would be very costly. When we were 6 hours in, we had a team member who was struggling a bit with the terrain. We hit snow and decided not to continue. You really need to know your abilities, and it’s always OK to say no. After getting home after that one, I looked up that trail and discovered it is listed as one of the most extreme trails in Oregon. If I’d known that in advance, I probably would have declined, but I’m pleased that the whole team made it back safely.

 KM: What is one thing that you think people don’t realize when they think of search and rescue dogs?
BL: You don’t “buy” a SAR dog … you are a team and you bond from day one. It would be very difficult for another handler to search with my dog as one of the important aspects on a search is the ability to “read your dog.” During a search, you watch closely for behavior changes and work off those behaviors.
TH: When people see the dogs working I don’t think they realize the amount of training that we put into the dogs to get them ready for deployment. It’s typically many days and hours per week and it’s ongoing until the dog retires. While it is a job for the dog, it’s also like a big game to them, even to go out and find human remains.

 KM: Any final thoughts on the bond you’ve developed and shared with your dog?
BM: It’s amazing. Working with your dog—and relying on him—on such a regular basis on a task that has you out in the woods in strange places with your dog off leash, looking for people, and seeing him perform his task in the dark, in the rain, and in the snow, simply because he wants to please you and play the game—it’s amazing. There’s a two-way trust that develops. He trusts that you won’t put him into a situation that will hurt him, and you trust him that he will do his job no matter what. It’s all done for the play time at the end—there’s reward in that for me too.
BL: Opal is a very high drive lab and while we have had challenges along the way due to that drive, it has only bonded us together as a team even more. I love her commitment to work and I’m proud of her abilities and trust her to do her job when needed.
TH: I adopted Rook when he was just under 2 years old so I didn’t get to bond with him as a puppy. He had already been in at least two other households so I really had no idea what kind of life he had prior to me bringing him home. I think training and learning this skill together allowed us to bond faster than if we were not involved in SAR. There’s a lot of trust that is required between a K9 and handler, and without that special bond that you form I don’t believe that you can be a successful team.

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A Climber Gone to the Dogs

Ranger post rescue prior to being portaged
back to the trailhead.

by Bruce Wyse

I had been a volunteer dog walker at the Oregon Humane Society (OHS) for a couple of years while at the same time working my way up a few peaks with my fellow Mazamas. One day, I was chatting with one of the other dog walkers, describing the training I was going through in Intermediate Climbing School (ICS). She mentioned that it sounded a bit like what the OHS Technical Animal Rescue team (known as OHSTAR) does and encouraged me to check them out. Intrigued, I applied for a spot on the team and started to attend their training and got a look at their “3:1 mechanical advantage rescue haul system”. The hardware is different: bigger, heavier, and a bit more complex, but it still seemed like a fancy name for a crevasse rescue “Z-system” to me. I guess mountaineers are just in the habit of shortening everything, including the names of things, if they think it will lighten the load in their pack.

During their once-a-month trainings I melded with the team and “learned the ropes” (pun intended). OHSTAR uses rescue procedures similar to many SAR groups (the group’s technical advisor is a long time PMR member). The basic skills overlap a bit with some of the mountaineering techniques learned in the Mazamas: knot work, wrap three pull two, being mindful of your angles, don’t step on the rope, etc. Added to these familiar items is more complex gear and procedures such as mirrored rope systems, mechanical ascenders and friction devices. There is a lot of cool gear that would make a gear head’s eyes light up (at least until they realize that they would have to divvy up an extra 50 pounds of group gear amongst a climb team). Since dogs are not people (despite what many of their owners believe) there are also extra skills involved with animal rescue, such as animal harnessing, that go beyond the

A dark and stormy night: rescuer (center in white helmet) 
makes final preparations before lowering down to Eagle Creek.

standard SAR bag of tricks—most important is to know animal behavior. How do you convince an animal that the strange big headed person with the glowing eye (a helmeted rescuer with a head lamp), who dropped from the sky (was lowered down a cliff), and is carrying numerous odd rattling objects (is decked out with gear) is a friend and came to help? (The secret is to be patient, carry treats, and a muzzle).

Once on the team I started to assist on a few rescues: scouting locations, schlepping gear, setting up, and hauling rope and a couple of times I got the nod to be the rescuer (i.e. the guy on the pointy end of the rope). We’ve done rescues both in the backcountry and within the Portland metro area. I’ve done technical roped ascents into trees to rescue distressed cats, helped capture injured geese for treatment at the Audubon society, and have done joint human/animal rescues with PMR and PNWSAR. There have been many memorable moments but a couple rescues stand out in particular.

Sandy’s Christmas Miracle

A Christmas miracle: Sandy is retrieved from Eagle Creek. 

It was a dark and stormy night (literally). It was also Christmas. While most of us were feasting and celebrating with family and friends, a merry gentleman, while hiking along the Eagle Creek trail in the Columbia River Gorge, lost control of his dog Sandy. The yellow lab plunged 150 feet down the cliff and was perched precariously on a ledge above the creek. The call went out and eight team members were able to respond on this holiday evening. Night had fallen, along with plenty of drizzly Oregon rain, by the time the team assembled, divvyed up the gear, and moved up to the rescue site.

Coincidentally the dog had fallen only about 50 yards from a point where we did another rescue just a month earlier. That other site, at a bend in the trail with convenient stout trees for anchors and a good work space to set up the haul system, was a decent place to operate. This one, with a cliff down one side, a steep slope up the other, and a narrow trail in the middle… not so much. The team tossed around some ideas and eventually came up with a feasible plan based on some anchors I’d once helped build while assisting a BCEP class at Horsethief Butte. A teammate and I went back down the trail where the slope was a bit less steep and scrambled up above our rescue site. While trying not to knock loose rocks (or ourselves) down upon our teammates below, we rigged up an anchor with one of our ropes to a couple of fir trees. After rappelling down the rope back to the trail we made anchor points for the haul systems and were then able to lower J.T., the rescuer, who was then able to harness and secure the dog. That was the easy part (relatively speaking). We had a very narrow working space for our mechanical advantage setup (the “Z”) and it was a short hand over hand pull, pull, “reset”… over and over again until at last the dog and rescuer were back up on the trail. Miraculously (a Christmas miracle you might say) the dog was without serious injury and was able to walk back (now securely leashed) down to the trail head.

Ranger’s Happy Ending

It was neither dark nor stormy, it wasn’t even night. It was a rare occasion for OHSTAR as the usual callouts happen after a person and their animal out enjoying some daytime fun in the forest get into trouble. By the time someone can get to where they have phone reception and the call goes through the emergency response system and the rescue team is assembled at the trail head, night has fallen. 

The day prior to this particular occasion Ranger, an 80 pound mastiff mix, while nosing through the underbrush (as dogs like to do) fell more than 100 feet over a cliff at Butte Creek Falls. The local fire department in Silverton, Oregon was unequipped to perform a rescue. After going through various channels OHSTAR got called out the following day. The dog had fallen off one side of a rock promontory that jutted out into Butte Creek. Joshua Osmun, Mazama member Jeff Nastoff, and I were able to scramble down one side and rig up a fixed line to traverse the cliff below the falls, enabling us to reach the dog and better assess the situation. Ranger had been lying beside the rushing water all night. He was cold, tired, hungry, and most obviously in pain from the exposed bone sticking out of his shoulder (as well as other injuries we could not see). Still, Ranger had the decency to be courteous (his exhaustion and my handful of treats probably helped).

Ranger, post-rescue and post-surgery stops
by OHS to show the author some gratitude.

Conditions were too hazardous to attempt to bring him up the way we came down so we scrambled back up and the team formulated a plan. Our seven member team set up a haul system for a vertical lift about 100 feet from the cliff face, the closest anchor points, and I geared up to go over the edge.

Once I reconnected with the dog I signaled to the team to bring me back up. Ranger was very compliant, harnessed up and hooked to the ropes, as we dangled beneath an overhang at the bottom of the cliff while waiting for the team to reset the haul system. However, I smelled trouble in the air.

More specifically, I smelled skunk in the air and started praying that the team would quickly reset and get us out of there before someone decided that we were unwelcome guests in their home. Luckily it turned out to be a non-event. We got Ranger safely to the top of the cliff and littered him back to the trailhead. His owner later told us that after about $10,000 worth of surgeries he was again a happy dog.

It is a very rewarding feeling being part of a team and providing relief not only to an animal in distress but also the people who care for them. The best advice I can give to people who travel with dogs in the back country is that if you are traveling in hazardous or unknown terrain keep your dog leashed (it’s like putting yourself in a position to be lucky).

Whether it is front country or back country, contact the Oregon Humane Society Technical Animal Rescue if your pet, or someone else’s, is trapped or stranded and needs help. Trained OHSTAR volunteers can evacuate injured pets from wilderness areas, retrieve pets stranded on cliff sides, river banks, and other areas and structures that can only be accessed safely using ropes, climbing gear and other technical rescue equipment or extricate animals trapped in enclosed spaces whose lives are in danger.

Contacting OHSTAR
Monday-Friday, daytime hours: 503-416-2993
Evenings and weekends: 503-849-5655
In cases of emergency, please call your local police department.

About the Author: Bruce Wyse retired from the Army, returned home to the Pacific Northwest, and considers himself on permanent vacation. He started volunteering with the Oregon Humane Society in 2009. He joined the Mazamas in 2010. When not out with these fine organizations he can usually be found exploring in the wilderness with his Red Heeler, Sasha.

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When Fireworks on the Fourth Just Won’t Do

Just an hour east of Portland, man and dog find peace and quiet on the noisiest nights of the year

by Matt Carter

When the neighborhood fireworks begin each July, my dog Lily becomes an inconsolable mess of panting, pacing, whining, and shaking. In recent years I have used this as justification to get out of town and into the mountains with her.

In 2014, the Fourth fell on a Friday. The weather forecast was unusual, as it did not include rain, making it a perfect weekend for a backpack. I checked with Lily to see if she was available. She cleared her schedule for me and was ready to go in under a second. It took me a bit longer to load our packs. Our plan was to hike up Tanner Butte Trail to the Tanner-Eagle cutoff, down Eagle Creek to the Wahtum Lake Trail, around the lake past Chinidere Mountain to Benson Plateau, and out Ruckel Creek.

We encountered our first hikers as the trail levels out then grades gently up Tanner Ridge: two young men and their freshly groomed Collie. They were trying without success to coach their pup to jump a log crossing the trial. Without a pause, Lily walked up to the log next to the Collie and hopped over. “This is how it is done newbie,” she wagged. The Collie watched and shortly thereafter hopped the log.

This young team was keen to get in front of us, most likely to secure what would surely be the last spot at Dublin Lake on such a beautiful weekend. I picked up the pace to no avail. Youth won out and they arrived at Dublin Lake minutes before we did. I tossed some sticks into the lake for Lily to retrieve and then hiked on. We would not see another person that day.

Shortly after the lake junction the trail picks up an abandoned road. Along the road we encountered two large patches of cut bear grass arranged to make beds. Not aware of any forest critter that cuts bear grass to form a bed, I was allowed to speculate on the cause as either Bigfoot or space aliens. Lily’s nose showed no interest in the piles of vegetation, so we moved on.

When Lily and I arrived at Tanner Springs Campground, we were amazed to find ourselves alone on such a beautiful weekend in the Mark O. Hatfield Wilderness, which lies barely an hour east of Portland. We set up camp along the stream and prepared for the evening. Lily sleeps at the tent door with just the bug screen. From there she can monitor the olfactory action of the night forest as I drift off to sleep.

The next morning, we encountered a few Boy Scouts and their leader, who reported an arduous adventure up from Big Cedar Springs that included losing the trail many times and being trapped in thicket. They looked beat. Lily wasted no time putting their unoccupied hands to use.

This is a well-practiced routine for her. She slowly moves into position alongside of a hiker and places her head into the hiker’s unoccupied hand. Without being much aware of what they are doing, they begin petting her. And if they stop, her head presses gently against their leg and the petting resumes. In the early days of hiking with Lily, I would try to stop her or at least alert the person that they were petting a dog without knowing it. More recently, I’ve just let it happen. When they depart from our trailside conversation, most are unaware they spent the last minute or so petting a dog.
I put Lily in the lead whenever a trail goes faint. She has the advantage of being able to follow scent beacons and can tell the difference between lost and not-lost scents. We are a well-integrated team. Thanks to her, we had no difficulty passing the section described by the scouting group as nearly impassable.

Once past Big Cedar Springs the trail improved and we found our first muddy tarn. Like a magnet, Lily is drawn to water features, and in she went, despite having been trained not to do so while wearing a pack. What emerged from the muck was a half white, half black dog and a pack filled with goo.

As we approached the west fork of Eagle Creek she began her water happy dance. Leading out and turning her head frequently, “Can I?!! Can I?!!” her eyes asked. The siren call of Eagle Creek again defeated her discipline; in she went, pack and all. On the plus side she and her pack cleaned up nicely.
Some time later we meet a young woman coming out from Wahtum Lake. Lily moved into position to receive pets. After the young woman reported that everyone out hiking that day is at Wahtum Lake, I told Lily to knock it off. The young woman pulled her hand away quickly, surprised to realize that she had been petting a dog. Before she departed, she called Lily adorable.

True to the young woman’s report, Wahtum Lake was packed with tents in every available space. Lily retrieved some sticks for me from the lake. On the move again, we headed past Chinidere Mountain toward Benson Plateau. Near Camp Smoky, we encountered a lone hiker. While Lily was working him, he reported a large group ahead of us was headed to the Plateau to camp. Again, the race was on. There are several trails in the Plateau. We took the shortest to Hunters Camp and turned up the wick. Arriving at Hunters Camp, we found ourselves alone again. Lily settles into camp life quickly, taking a position where she can comfortably track my progress setting up camp. Her keen sense of smell allows her to monitor me with her eyes closed.

The next day we began the hike out down Ruckel Creek. Over the years Lily has day-hiked all the trails we covered on this Fourth-of-July excursion. As we started to head down she stopped frequently to bark and stare at me. The message was clear: “This trail leads to the car. No, this can’t end!”

Our last encounter was with a young couple. They were headed up Ruckel Creek just past the Indian pits. The young man pulled out a map and began to tell me where on the map we are (not even close), and asked how much further to Cascade Locks. They had taken the alternate route on the Pacific Crest Trail down Eagle Creek, and rather than walk the Old Highway to Cascade Locks, they were headed back up Ruckel Creek. I advised him that Ruckel Creek via Benson and the PCT to Cascade Locks was a very long way. He assured me I was wrong and they pressed on. Lily had scored pets with the young woman. Near the road they passed us up, retreating without a word.
We returned to a quiet Portland neighborhood. A tired dog is a good dog.

Author Bio: Matt Carter has been a Mazama member for 22 years, as well as a Climb Leader, BCEP Leader, Advanced Rock leader and has served on many committees and Executive Council. Lily, (aka The Lovely Miss Lily to her climber friends), is a nine-year-old Golden Retriever who can be found with Matt most weekends on local trail and off trail adventures. She is an accomplished mountain dog comfortable in pack and harness. 
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6,000 Miles in the Company of Canines: Meet Whitney “Allgood” LaRuffa

by Kristie Perry
Over the past 20 years, Whitney “Allgood” LaRuffa has logged more than 6,000 trail miles in the company of canines. 
LaRuffa’s journey to becoming an expert on backpacking with dogs started with a chance encounter while thru-hiking the 2,200-mile Appalachian Trail from Georgia to Maine in 1996. 
He and a buddy had been on the trail for about a month when in mid-March they reached the Bald Mountains, an 841-square-mile sub-range of the Blue Ridge Mountains. They made camp atop 5,516-foot Big Bald Mountain, which offered them a 360-degree panorama of the North Carolina–Tennessee border and a fierce wind.
“We’d been getting beat down by the wind all night long,” LaRuffa recounts. “Our tents were hitting us in the face. We hadn’t gotten any sleep. It was cold. There was snow on the trail.”
By 3 a.m., LaRuffa and his hiking buddy had had enough. They packed up their gear and headed down the mountain, collecting three more friends who perhaps more wisely had opted to stay in a lower-elevation shelter. 
They all trudged into the sprawling little town of Erwin, Tennessee. At that time, Erwin was a one-motel burg notorious for being the site of an elephant hanging in 1916.

“When I finally got to my motel, I was greeted at the front porch by this little mutt,” LaRuffa says. “I just sat down and played with him.”
Saved from the pound
For many weeks that little mutt had been following thru-hikers in and out of the Smokey Mountains. When LaRuffa and his friends were ready to hit the trail again, they decided to take the mutt with them.
Photo: Jeremiah “Sasquatch” Wright. One of the highlights 
of the Appalachian Trail is hiking through the Grayson Highlands 
of Mt. Rodgers State Park in Virginia. Wild shetland ponies are 
year-round residents in the park and are very accustomed to 
the numerous hikers. Photo: Kelley “Marmot” Douglas.
“The motel owner was threatening to take him to the pound,” LaRuffa says. We went to the store across the street and bought him a two-dollar collar and a bag of Gravy Train. We didn’t want to leave him in a town famous for hanging an elephant. We figured we’d keep him if he stuck with us.”
Officially dubbed Erwin, the dog stuck with LaRuffa and his friends all the way to the Maine border.
Along the way, he was repeatedly skunked; hailed by hikers who’d encountered him elsewhere on the trail; and equipped with a pack and ID tag by Damascus Dave of Mt. Rogers Outfitters in Damascus, Virginia. He faked an injury in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, to get out of wearing his pack. He was examined by a veterinarian in Troutville, Virginia, who pronounced Erwin bulletproof. 
Throwing up liverwurst
LaRuffa’s parents collected Erwin when the pair arrived at the New Hampshire-Maine border so LaRuffa could continue on to Mount Katahdin in Maine’s Baxter State Park, the northern terminus of the Appalachian Trail, which prohibits dogs.
Above, from left: LaRuffa and his current canine 
companion, Karluk, summited Mt. Adams in 
July 2012. Karluk ran alongside LaRuffa’s 
glissade path on the way down. 
“After spending the better part of three and a half months with Erwin, parting with him was one of the toughest parts of my AT thru-hike,” LaRuffa says. He and his hiking buddies … cried. “There were many days when we wished Erwin was with us as it was the first sustained stretch of good weather on the entire trip and I could envision him enjoying the romp through the Bigelow Mountains.”
After LaRuffa and his friends returned to the trail, LaRuffa’s parents discovered Erwin wasn’t so bullet proof, after all.
“My parents like to tell the story of bringing my ‘feral dog’ home,” LaRuffa says. He speculates that Erwin had been tossed from a car and abandoned at some point in his life, causing him to tend toward carsickness. “I told my father to give Erwin Dramamine and showed him how to pry open Erwin’s jaw and shove a pill down his throat. My father was too nervous to do that so he bought some liverwurst and put the pills in it. To quote my father, ‘there’s nothing like going down I-95 and having a dog throw up liverwurst in the back of the car on a 95 degree day’.” 
LaRuffa pounded out the miles, finishing up his AT adventure about three weeks later. When he returned home to New York, Erwin, naturally, was overjoyed, and greeted LaRuffa in a quintessentially canine way: “I remember lying on the floor of my parents’ kitchen with my pack still on my back, just loving on him.”
Disarming hikers

LaRuffa and Erwin spent the following two summers patrolling a 75-mile stretch of the Appalachian Trail in Pennsylvania as Ridgerunners. 
Ridgerunners provide an important service on the Appalachian Trail, acting as ambassadors, educating people about Leave No Trace Principles, doing light trail maintenance, administering first aid, and discouraging bad behavior. “The program is designed to keep a pulse on what’s going on out there in the woods,” LaRuffa says. “It was a great gig in the summer for a college guy who liked hiking.”
And it was a great opportunity for LaRuffa to hone his backpacking-with-dog skills. Erwin almost always wore a pack on the trail. “And that was back in the day before doggie backpacks were popular,” LaRuffa says. “That always disarmed people and encouraged them to ask questions. It also raised a lot of spirits. It can be really lonely out there for thru-hikers.”
The dog comes first
LaRuffa and Erwin went on to log many more trail miles throughout the United States, including within the South Dakota Badlands and the Cascade Range. Erwin accompanied LaRuffa on his first trip to the top of Mount St. Helens. 
For that outing, Erwin got a special jacket—fleece with a waterproof shell.
LaRuffa had no nervousness about that climb because he had already walked 5,000 miles with Erwin. “Having a dog with me at times can help calm my nerves,” LaRuffa says. 
Still, climbing or backpacking with your dog is a lot of work, LaRuffa acknowledges. “If you’re going to do those things, you need to understand that it really becomes your dog’s outing.”
 “You have to take care of your dog before you take care of you. If your dog is having a bad time, you’ve got to leave.”
For the Mount St. Helens climb, “The hardest thing was teaching Erwin to hike behind me so I wouldn’t step on him with a crampon. The main femoral artery in a dog is right through their leg. If they get cut there, they’ll bleed to death.”

Erwin has also been up through Mt. Hood’s Pearly Gates.

After 13 years of hiking together, LaRuffa said goodbye to Erwin when he could no longer walk. “Thanks to Erwin, I developed a deep love for hiking with dogs that continues on.”

Whitney “Allgood” LaRuffa is a Leave No Trace Master Educator. Over the last twenty years he has shared his tips with countless people who want to backpack with their dogs and has helped spread the gospel of how Leave No Trace principles can be applied to dogs in the backcountry. He shares his home in North Portland with Suzy, his wife of 12 years, and Karluk, a black lab mix adopted from the Oregon Humane Society in 2008. LaRuffa is a brand ambassador for Ruffwear Dog Gear, TurboPup, Barker Bags, Gossamer Gear, Mont-bell, Sawyer, Toaks, Purple Rain Adventure Skirts, Salazon Chocolate, UGO Bars, and Point 6 Socks. To learn more about Whitney “Allgood” LaRuffa and his tips for traveling in the backcountry with dogs, visit his website at www.allgoodsk9adventures.com.