Members of the ChesCo Search Dogs team never know when they will get the call. Whether it be to search for a lost hiker or a missing child, the dogs and their handlers are ready to be dispatched wherever they are needed.

ChesCo Search Dogs is an all-volunteer nonprofit organization dedicated to training and providing trained K-9 teams to help find missing and lost persons and to detect human remains. ChesCo Search Dogs has more than 20 K-9s and their handlers in various stages of training who provide free ground search services to locate lost or missing persons in Chester County and throughout eastern Pennsylvania, New Jersey and northern Delaware.

"A lot of times the person is missing but not lost, and there is no contact. We go out regardless," said team president Keith Studnick, who is the owner of a trained search dog named Hunter, a golden retriever.

Studnick emphasized that the team only goes out to search when requested by a law enforcement agency. "It could be anyone who has jurisdiction, local police, state police, a state game warden or federal park ranger. We can't go out for families," he said, noting that the team had 22 calls in 2023, with three this year to date.

Past assignments have included searching for youngsters with autism, elderly residents with dementia or Alzheimer's or hikers lost in the woods. The teams are also involved with finding those who are deceased, including those people who have died by suicide.

However, the team does not get involved in finding escaped criminals. For example, they were not part of the search for Danelo Cavalcante, who escaped from the Chester County Prison and was hiding for nearly two weeks in the Chester County terrain before being captured by law enforcement. "We do not (get involved with) criminal activity. We did not search for Cavalcante," Studnick stated. "We are looking for people who are not trying to run away. Police dogs are looking for people who may not want to be found."

Unlike Yoda, a police-trained Belgian Malinois that helped to take down Cavalcante, ChesCo Search Dogs are trained not to bite for their own safety. "We are looking for kids on the spectrum or elderly people with dementia or Alzheimer's, and you don't know how the person will react when the dog finds them," Studnick pointed out.

He explained that when a call comes for the group to provide assistance, it goes through the Pennsylvania Search and Rescue Council. "They give us a location to meet and our chief, Craig Snyder, will send out a call asking who has a ground team available and (provide) the nature of the call and location," noted Studnick.

On a recent search, the team was dispatched to find a missing male in his 20s in Centralia, which is a two-hour drive for the volunteers. The searchers were warned of the danger of the situation because of the town's underground fires that could open holes in the terrain. As it turns out, the man, who failed to provide his family with his location, was found safely with friends.

"A lot of our dogs get injured in training or during searches. My dog fell into a hole in the woods and got lame for a few weeks," said Studnick, adding that Hunter is a Live Find Dog. "Hunter will look (at the beginning stages of the search). If it's a week later, then they will send a HRD - human remains detection - dog, formerly known as a cadaver dog."

He noted that different dogs on the team have their own strengths. "Hunter is awesome in cold weather," Studnick stated. "But if it is too hot for him to work, we have some short-haired dogs that do well in the summer and can't stand the winter. Pennsylvania has such diverse weather, and it works out that we have people with heavier-coated dogs and others that are much more suited to summer conditions."

Ultimately, he added, the searchers hope to find the lost or missing person alive. "You want to help the community by finding that missing person, hopefully alive, and getting them home," Studnick stated.

To learn more about the team, visit http://www.chescosearch.org or http://www.facebook.com/ChesCoSearchDogs. Those who would like to donate to the effort or volunteer with the organization may visit the website for details.