Late in the afternoon of March 16th, Dennis Clark & Rugby and Gary Durian & Tanker were deployed to search for a vehicle that had plunged 800 feet over the side of a cliff in Mt. Baldy, in Southern California. One person was airlifted out immediately, but Rugby and Tanker searched the area to be sure no one else had been inside the vehicle when it crashed. After clearing the area, it was concluded that no one else had been in the vehicle.
"The terrain threw Rugby for a loop—he's so used to being able to use his large size to barrel through obstacles, but he couldn't do that in this scenario. At one point, he tried to actually hop on top of the brush and was able to walk along the top for a good 20 feet or so! This deployment was a great training experience and I'm taking the lessons learned and will be applying them at the next wide-area search training for our teammates." - Dennis Clark, Los Angeles County Fire
"Luckily, we got called out at about 4pm and, in that altitude, it wasn't as hot as in the city during the day. The terrain was really steep and the thick shrubbery made things more difficult but Tanker did great! The dogs did an amazing job dealing with the difficult footing and the heat so I knew when we left the mountainside no one was left behind." - Gary Durian, Los Angeles County Fire