Tracker teaches kids outdoor safety

Photo by Paul Robeson, Reporter

READY TO FIND: Tracking dog Niko sits with his handler Katy Yoder as he awaits a command to hunt. Yoder and Niko are volunteer members for the Shasta, Tehama and Siskiyou County Sheriff’s offices’ Search and Rescue teams

Katy Yoder is a man tracker. She volunteers her services and the services of her dog to track down lost people in three counties. She helps the Shasta, Tehama and Siskiyou County Sheriff’s offices’ Search and Rescue (SAR) teams look for people who have been declared lost by law enforcement.

She has also produced a program for children about being safe in the outdoors. “Safe Outside / Safe in the Woods” is a three-part program which presents information about being safe in the woods, being lost in the woods and being found in the woods.

Yoder teaches children to “buddy up” and not venture into the woods alone. She reinforces the importance of always telling an adult where they are going and what shoes they are wearing when they are outside, camping, or in the woods.

“The basics have been lost along the way. They are what past generations took for granted and as common sense,” said Yoder.

In her program, Yoder emphasizes keeping members of hiking or camping groups in sight at all times, carrying a whistle and a light source and wearing a hat.

“A whistle, light and an ID tag should be worn as a unit, on a lanyard around the neck” she said.

“They should be part of one’s body, not as part of one’s gear. Prevention is cost-positive, monetarily (helicopters can cost over $3,000 an hour), and from the personal suffering perspective,” she added.

“Serious hikers should have a ‘space blanket,’ trash and Zip-lock bags and high-energy food. What is needed can be kept in a small fanny-pack,” said Yoder.

Yoder said that if someone is lost, the California Highway Patrol helicopters, law enforcement teams, SAR volunteers, family and friends, park rangers, man trackers and dog teams go out in search.

Yoder has even tested the space blanket visibility with groups. She has climbed some 300 yards away, up a wooded hill, to show how well the aluminum-clad fold-out blanket could be seen in the woods from that distance. She also tests distances that whistles can be heard and has youngsters make footprints by stepping on pieces of tin-foil. She then mixes them up and has the children find the prints.

Yoder works with her German Shepherd tracking dog, Niko. Yoder said the dog loves to work and help find people and has tracked people who have been missing for over five days.

Search dogs wear bells and are usually alone. Trailing dogs, which also wear bells, will be with a search and rescue person. If a lost person hears their bells, or if they see a dog, they should call to the dog or blow their whistle in short bursts.

According to Yoder “if you hear a noise, make a noise,” and “blow the whistle three times.”

“I tell them to shout if they hear the bell and then blow their whistle,” she said.

Yoder said that the lost person should not play with the dog if it finds them and that the dog will leave the lost person to find and alert his handler. The dog will lead the handler to the lost person and that they “should not be scared and feel that they have been abandoned because the dog has gone for help.”

Yoder said she got started as a member of SAR after her friend helped locate Katie, a young girl, in the Lassen National Park when she was lost on June 22 and 23, 2003.

According to Yoder, Katie was clad only in a “T-shirt, jeans and ‘Winnie the Pooh’ boots.” When she was not found the first day, Katie spent the night in the woods where the temperature dropped into the 30s. A man tracker went out at 8 a.m. and the first “Pooh print” was found around 9:30 a.m. By 10:45 a.m. “she was found — cold, hungry and thirsty — but alive.”

For more information about “Safe Outside / Safe in the Woods” presentations, recommended woods safety whistles and lights or dog safety rules for children, contact Katy Yoder at 246-3015 or 945-9589 or via the Internet at: katy66@snowcrest.net.