When I was a child, my heroes were a kid named Danny and his beautiful Irish setter, Red. They were the main characters of Big Red and Irish Red, outdoor adventure books set along the Smokey Creek and amid the beech woods and brambles of a northeastern wilderness by author Jim Kjelgaard. I was raised in Fresno, California, a large industrial city surrounded by plush agricultural land. Even though the closest creek to our house was a cement-lined irrigation canal, and the only brambles I’d ever seen were in our weedy flower bed, when I read those books, it was easy to imagine that it was me living in the mountains, going on adventures, and leading my smart, loyal hunting dog through it all.
In the end, it wasn’t the Irish setter that I set my sights on. And it wasn’t the adorable pocket-sized dogs many of my friends favored, either. It was the Weimaraner, an ancient breed, famed for its steadfast work, legendary for their distinctive looks and catlike skills.
Weimaraners are known as “gray ghosts.” Tall, sleek, smart, and graceful—the ultimate dog breed as far as I’m concerned—they earned their nickname in part because of their smoky gray coats and in part because of their swift, silent work in the field. They have a reputation for being hardworking, loyal, loving pets that makes some people think the breed is almost robotically well-behaved. The photographs William Wegman has been circulating for the past fifty years of his Weimies dressed to the nines and posing for the camera have added to the perception that these dogs are docile. But the truth is they have big, independent personalities.
My first glimpse of a future working with dogs happened in 1981 when I watched a TV documentary in which a marine biologist talked about his lifelong love for sharks. I call this my “shark man moment.” The producer asked the biologist if he loved his job. The biologist said, “When I was a child, I swam in a pool and pretended I was a shark. I read shark books, watched shark movies, played with toy sharks, and went to see the sharks at SeaWorld.” He ended the interview by saying, “I love sharks. So, for me to do what you call ‘work’ isn’t really work at all. If you ever have a chance to be paid for your passion, you’ll truly be blessed.”
The shark man’s words resonated with me. At the time, I was trapped in a job (as a 911 dispatcher) that I hated. I asked myself, “What is my passion and how could I be paid for it?” I knew the answer was “working with dogs” but my heart sank as reality set in. I was twenty-one, I did not have the knowledge or experience to become a paid dog trainer, and I couldn’t envision any dog-related career that I was qualified for or that I sensed I would enjoy. That dream melted away, but it returned eight years later in 1989 with just one magazine article.
The article was in Dog World magazine, and it was about the new, innovative concept of training and using cadaver dogs (now called “HRD” or “Human Remains Detection” dogs) to find human remains. I was hooked. I didn’t actually believe that I’d ever be paid to work a cadaver dog, but the thought that I could become a search dog handler and help solve law enforcement cases felt to me like the birth of my passion. My volunteer, so-not-paid passion.
I think the most pressing thought that kept coming back to me, over and over again, was why was it that I loved my “hobby” of training my dog Katie in dog sports (flyball racing and agility) but I hated my job? Why couldn’t I find a career, like the shark man had found, where I loved my job, looked forward to going to work, and where my Mondays felt like Fridays?
I wasn’t in a good place spiritually in my life and it would be a lie to say that I “prayed” about this decision back then. But I had given the idea months of thought and decided that obtaining and then training a search dog was the next step for me.