What A Year!
Hello everyone. First off we can not thank you all, for the support we have received. I cannot believe it is already the middle of October, but it has been a very productive year. Here are some of the highlight points.
Murphy Gets A Job:
Early this year we wrote and published our children’s book, "Murphy Gets A Job" (click here to purchase). Thanks to your support we have seen success with this project. Due to individual sales, and corporate sponsorship, we were able to get the book into many kids hands. This book helps to teach kids about search and rescue in a fun way. We were also able to incorporate it into our classroom demonstrations. The kids have love meeting the canines on our team, and reading the book. Each visit has been a positive experience that we have loved sharing. Thank you to Northwest Specialty Hospital, who purchased 250 of these books to distribute during these visits.
Come See Us:
We have enjoyed interacting with you all at the various events we have attended in North Idaho. Each day provides us the opportunity to interact with members of community and teach them about this valuable and needed resource. This resource is heavily dependent on support, and we can’t thank you all enough for taking the time to visit and support us. Our next big event will be the Fall Festival/Grand Re-opening, at Northwest Pet Resort on October 28th, 2023, 12pm-4pm. Some of our team will be there, in addition to the Companions Animal Center. There is also a costume contest with prizes. For those of you who don’t know, Northwest Pet Resort has been a long time sponsor of Idaho Disaster Dogs, as well as many of the other working canines in the area, such as law enforcement. They have been providing the food for our canines for years, as well as many other services. We cannot thank them enough. We hope to see you all come visit with us support them at this event. More info on our social media, and theirs.
Deployments:
As many of you saw, we had two of our canines and handlers deploy to Maui for the Lahaina Wildfires with FEMA Wa-TF1. Our heart continues to go our to the people of Maui and the devastation they suffered, and continue to deal with. We have also responded to several local searches in North Idaho this year.
Expanded Capabilities:
Our team has a long standing history of providing recovery search teams. We recently were able to expand that capability to include water searches for victims that succumb to water related emergencies. We truly hope that we never have to deploy this resource. However, with the amount of water surrounding us, we also know we must prepare for the possibility. Our recovery canines and handlers attended a water recovery seminar this summer, and then brought the training back here. We were able to practice here and prove competency. Again we hope to never deploy this resource, but we also want to be able to do the most good possible with the resources we have.
Upcoming:
Of course we are also looking towards the future. Keep checking back to our social media and you will eventually find yourself looking at some new young puppies! The unfortunate reality is that our dogs age, and eventually we need to think about succession planning. That season is now upon us. We will be bringing in some fresh furry faces to start their training. The training process can take 18 months to 2 years, so it is time to get going. They will be cute, they will be fluffy, and we can’t wait to meet them! K9 Chava is coming along nicely in her training. She has been with us for a little over six months, and we are enjoying watching her learn.
Sponsors:
This has been a great year for sponsorships. As we all know, everything has become increasingly expensive. In addition to the support we received in regards to our Children’s Book, we also had several other local entities partner with us. I want to take a moment to thank them. Northwest Specialty Hospital provided the funding to purchase the books as mentioned above. Avista Utilities sponsored the purchase of one of our upcoming puppies. They also awarded us with a grant to buy some new training equipment. Coeur d’Alene Eagles partnered with us to purchase one of our new puppies. In addition they want to help provide ongoing support the pup, which is a tremendous blessing. Puppies are expensive, but their ongoing needs naturally add up. Kootenai County Office of Emergency Management awarded us with a grant for new GPS units and tracking collars, as well as new transport kennels. These new items have already been used on deployments. After using them, I can’t imagine performing searches without them. Of course I would be remiss to not mention our other long time sponsors, City of Coeur d’Alene/CDA Fire Department, Rathdrum Animal Clinic and Northwest Pet Resort. Without these long standing entities we could not effectively provide this resource. It has been a big year and we cannot thank you all enough! We are always in need of other sponsorships. If you would like to partner with us, please let us know and we would love to talk with you.
