Collegian | Ally Hall
The bloodhounds Daisy May and Bruno walked into the Hillsdale Elks Lodge bar for a fundraiser on Feb. 25 to support their search and response training.
The bloodhounds’ owners are Gale and Terri Pauken. They are a part of the Southern Michigan K-9 Search and Response Unit, a nonprofit that serves law enforcement agencies by helping locate lost people, dead or alive. Available for dispatch 24/7, the unit works with law enforcement all over Michigan and the tri-state area.
“We’re always on call,” Gale Pauken said. “We’ve been called in the middle of the night and sometimes many days in a row.”
The event, called “Support a Bloodhound, Save a Life,” featured drawings, a kissing booth with two bloodhound puppies, and an auctioned off opportunity to hide and be found by a dog. An expensive game of hide-and-seek is a sliver of what the unit’s dogs do. They were at the Elks Lodge for the weekend and back to their job on Monday.
Tammy Bowditch Regner, Exalted Ruler of the Hillsdale Elks Lodge #1575, helped organize the event.
“The Hillsdale Elks are thrilled to be able to open the doors of our historic lodge to our community for both private parties and fundraising events,” she said. “We were more than happy to say yes when this opportunity came up for us to support this amazing K-9 Rescue team. Everyone had an absolutely wonderful evening and we look forward to hosting again next year.”
Keith and Jackie Harris, a couple with years of experience in search and response, founded the Southern Michigan K-9 Search and Response Unit. This specific unit is composed primarily of bloodhounds, as well as two labrador retrievers. They are trained in different areas of search and response including night trailing, scent specific trailing, and water trailing. The search and response team helps locate people, whether that be dementia patients or children, once law enforcement has been formally notified.
“We had a friend have a kid go missing,” Terri Pauken said. “It was hard to turn them down initially, but we don’t want to step on any toes, especially if the situation ends up being a crime scene.”
Whether it’s in search expenses, fuel, hotel, or first aid kits for the dogs, the Elks Lodge fundraiser aided the team in covering basic expenses. The bulk of funds raised at this event were put towards the team’s trip to Kentucky for a training seminar. For a nonprofit through which most everything is paid out of pocket by the trainers themselves, fundraisers like these are vital, according to the Paukens.
“It’s important for people to realize that the people who helped us also helped the families,” Harris said about the fundraiser.
Working in a search and response unit requires the dogs to begin training as puppies, and a fully trained dog is ready to work a handful of years later. Harris is currently training an 11-week-old bloodhound puppy for the FBI. When the dogs are ready, they help change lives.
“We don’t make any money from what we do,” Harris said. “But we get paid from the heart. We get to give families closure. There’s no amount of money that can replace that.”
