The Northern New Jersey German Shepherd Dog Club Presents              
Penny Sullivan
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
7:15 pm
Bergen County Health Care Center, At The Chapel, 35 Piermont Road, Rockleigh, NJ 07647-2702 

 

Search and Rescue Demonstration

Penny Sullivan and members of the Ramapo Rescue Dog Association will be demonstrating Search and Rescue techniques used in wilderness, crime scene, and disaster response and assistance. They will demonstrate how they use play to build the dogs' drive, the early training steps, and the "finished product."  They will also show the trained indications most commonly used. And they will show a dog finding a live subject and one locating human remains.
 
About Penny:
Penny has been a member of the Northern New Jersey German Shepherd Dog Club since 1963. Her first German Shepherd, Catana’s Zorita (CH Ulk Wikingerblut daughter) was bred to Joe Bihari’s import Greif vom Asterplatz (a VA Jalk vom Fohlen Brunnen son). Her great interest in the German Shepherd expanded – she loved training her dogs in all aspects of their abilities – among other things she became Tracking Chairman of the Club and developed the criteria for Tracking – she was on a sub-committee of FEMA, the federal emergency organization – she was on the 1968 National Specialty Tracking Committee – she was the liaison of Search and Rescue of the GSDA, and the list goes on.

Just training her dogs was not enough. She knew that our dogs are capable of using their great intelligence in helping people. It was at this time that she met Bill Syrotuck, a pioneer in the field of Search and Rescue. Along with Marty Miraglia, another club member, she went on a field trip with Bill Syrotuck and became fascinated with what the dogs could do. It soon became evident that Search and Rescue was a field in which they could utilize their particular skills, and she wanted to be a part of it.

Since that special time in the 1970’s, when the American Rescue Dog Association was first established, Penny and her crew have made us so proud of them in so many ways. They can boast to being the oldest Search and Rescue Association in the country and is one of the few search and rescue dog units in existence today that still prefers to use German Shepherd Dogs exclusively. A few of the many missions they have been on include: A mud slide in Puerto Rico, A lost person in Minnesota in 1980, Johnstown flood disaster in 1976, Armenian earthquakes in 1988; the gas pipe line disaster in Edison, NJ and of course 911 for ten days at Ground Zero; Search for human remains in Staten Island; and several homicides and lost people.

Penny is also the Author/Contributor to Search and Rescue Dogs:  Training Methods, by the American Rescue Dog Association (ARDA) (winner- Maxwell Medallion for Excellence - DWAA);  Search & Rescue Dogs:  Training the K-9 Hero, by the ARDA; the ARDA News, German Shepherd Dog Review & various other magazines & periodicals.