Sometimes even a hero needs a hero - that's where Intermountain Lifeflight steps in. Thanks to my guest Darby Earle, Flight RN, LIfeflight now has a program to provide treatment and helicopter transport for operational K9s when they are injured and need emergency care. Since the program's start, two police K9s have been saved and returned to work the streets with their human partners.

In this episode, Retired CT State Trooper Andy Rebmann, author of the Cadaver Dog Handbook, shares lots of great training information and fantastic K9 capers with his Patrol K9s, Trailing Bloodhounds, and Cadaver Dogs. Hard to even scratch the surface of someone with 50 years experience but it was a super fun conversation with a legend in the industry. Thanks for the chat Andy!

Andy's bio: Andy has been involved in search work and K-9 training since 1972. He is a retired trainer for Connecticut State Police. During his police career, he trained K-9 teams for patrol, tracking, trailing, narcotics, explosive, arson, wilderness, disaster, water and cadaver work. He developed the State Police training program for cadaver search dogs.

Andy trained and handled bloodhounds from 1973 until 1990. His hounds were responsible for over 200 walk-up “finds.” The Connecticut Supreme Court upheld several cases on appeal. In addition, he has qualified in several states and Scotland as an expert witness regarding scenting dogs. He established the CSP SAR K-9 Team and served as team leader and search coordinator. Since retiring in 1991, he has conducted numerous seminars, schools and workshops throughout the U. S., Germany, Czech Republic, Mexico, Canada and Japan. Seminars and workshops include cadaver, disaster response and urban trailing. He is a consultant to law enforcement agencies.

Andy is the retired past president of Northwest Disaster Search Dogs, Redmond, WA. The unit provides disaster search trained K-9 teams in support of the Puget Sound FEMA Task Force as well as local response. He is a founder of King County Search Dogs, a multi-tasked K-9 search unit that supports King County Police Special Operations for missing person searches. He has been a member and instructor for the National Police Bloodhound Association since 1974.

Andy has participated in over 2000 missions in his career in a variety of roles; Trailing dog handler, cadaver dog handler or in a search management capacity.

He has presented numerous papers at national seminars and is the author of “The Cadaver Dog Handbook,” published August 2000.

Renee (Retired Col. Annette Renee GrandPre) has lived a life of service from start to finish. With military deployments to Kosovo in 2006 and to Kandahar in 2018, she rounded out her military career as a full bird Colonel with too many awards and decorations to enumerate, culminating most recently with the Legion of Merit award.

Her civilian work as an ER, Trauma, ICU and Psychiatric care nurse in Los Angeles lead her on a path to pursuing work as a Coroner Investigator for the County of Los Angeles. Among her accomplishments while at the Coroner's Office was starting a Human Remains Detection K9 Program.

This episode is a must listen for HRD Handlers and CSI enthusiasts. It gives a detailed perspective of the inner workings of the largest coroner's office in the United States, the forensic considerations and details for skeletal remains and body recovery, and a handler's journey with a wonderful HRD K9 named "Indiana Bones!"

Follow this link to a youtube feature with Renee and Indy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1WcZ7sgz48

If you enjoy this podcast, please give it a kind review and check out these links

To learn more your host Sonja Nordstrom and her K9 training, follow these links:

American Tactical Aggregate K-9 | Sonja's Dog Training

Email: atak9.team@gmail.com | sonja@sonjasdogtraining.com

Websites: www.atak9.com | sonjasdogtraining.com

ATAK-9 apparel: www.atak-9.myspreadshop.com/all

www.facebook.com/AggregateK9 | www.facebook.com/sonjasdogtraining2

www.instagram.com/ata.k9 | www.instagram/k9_top_tales

YouTube: ATAK-9