As she runs along the trail in Goss Lake Woods, she sounds like a snorting pig. She’s looking for the scent. Usually it’s the scent of fear, sometimes it’s the scent of adrenaline, but it’s always the scent of a person to be found.

Ola is a member of the search and rescue dog group on Whidbey Island. And tonight is a play night. It’s only a training exercise, and another dog has already found the “lost” person, but she doesn’t know that.

So she runs, darting into the underbrush in the darkness of the tree canopy.

“She would never know if it’s real or not,” Ola’s human, Susan Marchese, said. “She’ll take any human scent, and the strongest one is what she goes for.”

As Ola, which is Spanish for wave, and Marchese briskly walk along a trail illuminated only by the glow of Ola’s golden coat, something in the air tingles at her nose. She darts around the woods and Marchese knows. They have a find.

Ola and Marchese are members of a collective of volunteers for the Island County Department of Emergency Services. Eight people and at least 10 dogs participate in the group of search and rescue dogs and their humans.

Don Mason, the de facto head of the group, said that since it is not an official group, people can join without the group politics.

“It is more a gathering of individuals who choose to workout and get together,” Mason said.

Even though they don’t have a name as a group, they come together when a community needs them the most. They spent long winter days last year scouring dense woods searching for Elaine Sepulveda. They have found people missing at Deception Pass State Park. They have aided in the search for missing criminals.

“This is neighbors helping neighbors,” Mason said. “We’re just here to help. We’re like a sports team — we’re ready for the worst you can throw at us.”

For some of the members, helping people is second nature. Coupeville resident Mari St. Armand had been volunteering with North Whidbey Fire and Rescue when she found the group. Mari and her three-and-a-half-year-old Jack Russel terrier named Zoom have been looking for lost people for the last two-and-a-half years.

Zoom does not fit the prototype for a search and rescue dog, he is dwarfed by the golden retrievers and black labs in the group. But he shows a heart bigger than he is. As he zips through dense underbrush, a bell almost as big as he is rattles incessantly.

He is a huge ball of energy that St. Armand has been able to channel into a desire to find people.

“Zoom has this innate passion for wanting to be around people,” she said. “It makes him want to do the job.”

Searching begins with the dog

Finding and training the right dog doesn’t have to begin with a puppy. But it does need to begin with a healthy, energetic dog that displays characteristics of being object driven and an intensive play drive.

Mason said that it can take at least two years to properly train a dog to participate in a search. Repetitive training begins with a simple drill called the runaway. The dog’s human will run a short distance down a trail where the dog can see him or her while the dog is held back. The dog is released and should run to its handler.

All dogs are handsomely rewarded. When Ola does something Marchese is especially fond of, the dog is rewarded with a hunk of cheese.

Gradually the games get more and more difficult, and the dog is trained to utilize its strongest asset — its nose.

“We shape the dog into using its nose,” Mason said. “It will use its nose to see things I can’t see.”

Traditionally, search and rescue dogs are large breeds such as German shepherds or retrievers. But the Island County group is almost exclusively retrievers.

“Which would you rather have coming to you in the woods?” Marchese said.

Zoom is the exemption to the stereotype, however. St. Armand said that because of his size he tends to stay close to her while they are searching. He also could not be used in a search in the snow because his legs are too short, she said. But in the winter Zoom does wear a coat to stay warm.

“With his size, covering huge, huge areas; yah, it’s going to take him longer,” St. Armand said. “But for confined space stuff, a small dog like Zoom would be very good at that.”

It’s just a dog’s game

For the dogs, going on a search is an elaborate game of fetch, but for the humans, a real search usually brings heartbreak.

St. Armand said that since she has been volunteering with the fire department for so long, nothing really gets to her any more.

“I’ve seen dead bodies, so it’s not something I prepare for anymore,” she said. “As far as preparing for what I’m going to see, it’s kind of a case by case basis.”

Mason and his dog, Cassie, have eight finds between them. He said that is a high number. Usually, only 10 percent of dogs who begin training ever make it out to a search. Of those, one percent will ever get a find.

Of the eight finds, seven have ended happily.

“That’s seven people who went home sooner or flat went home because Cassie works out regularly,” Mason said.

Even if they never actually find the missing person, Zoom and St. Armand are happy to be helping.

“Without the backup team, the rest of the team can’t function,” she said.

If the team can continue to function, it needs people and resources. It has only eight members, all of whom have other commitments as well. It takes a special kind of person to be able to commit to the training regimen the people keep up. They average five major workouts per month, Mason said.

“It’s easy to find people who claim they can do this job,” he said. “It’s the ones who have been training for a long time that turns the tide when the things go wrong.”

Mason said the people need to be dedicated and reliable as well.

“When lives are on the line, the standard goes way up,” he said.

But in the end, it pays off. When a child or an Alzheimer’s patient is returned safely, the happiness is worth the countless hours these people put in.

“That little nose on the end of that yellow dog is what turns it into a quick recovery,” Mason said.

You can reach News-Times reporter Eric Berto at eberto@whidbeynewstimes.com