Posted on 07/31/2015 10:14:29 AM PDT by w1n1
Looks can be profoundly deceiving. At first glance, Tracy “Trace” Sargent could easily be a high-powered corporate CEO or lead a marketing firm. This petite Georgia blond with a commanding presence and the charisma and intellect to match, looks like she would fit elegantly at the head of a boardroom. You certainly don’t envision this refined, vibrant woman with a sweet Southern drawl to be out enthusiastically hunting lost persons, getting dirty, crawling through rubble, or chasing down fugitives by moonlight. Yet that is exactly what she has been doing with her K9 partners for over 20 years, gracefully shattering stereotypes and saving lives along the way.
Sargent is one of the nation’s leading K9 handlers who specializes in search, rescue and recovery missions. It’s not something most people want to think about, but there is nothing more precious than a specialized K9 team when loved ones are lost or missing.
One conversation with Sargent and you realize that she is one of those extraordinary people who found her calling, changed her life’s path accordingly and never looked back. A story in Reader’s Digest would depict her as someone who went from not knowing which end of the dog wagged to founding K9 Search and Rescue Specialists, Inc. (K9 SARS) in Georgia. Sargent has also been a program manager for Homeland Security, and has conducted search missions across the globe.
Chance, Cinco and Drako are three of Sargent’s current K9 partners. All are highly trained in search, rescue and recovery, and are some of the most highly decorated dogs in the country. Cinco, a 10-year-old black German shepherd, is perhaps her most talented K9 partner. By the time he was a year old, he had received five national certifications. His predecessor Brooke, a sable German shepherd, was the first dog licensed for SAR work in Georgia, and is honored in the Georgia Animal Hall Of Fame. Together, Sargent and her dogs have found lost children, Alzheimer’s patients and tracked down violent domestic terrorists such as Eric Rudolf, who was known as the Olympic Park Bomber and was responsible for a series of bombings across the South between 1996 and 1998. Read the rest of the story here.
My brother in law’s wife did that for many years, raised specialized search dogs and went into the field with them. Brother in law was a Florida ATF guy. She was great. He was scary to be around.
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