Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
That's why there is no substitute for watching other people and dogs train. It's only then
you fully realize that the stupid things you see them doing, you're doing, too. I didn't have
Solo with me when I was watching Roy and Suzie, so I got to observe. I don't know how well
we might have done. I've suffered from debilitating stage fright at training, though that has
gotten better over time. Paul Martin, running a seminar in Western Carolina, once told me
in his slow, comforting drawl, “Your dog is doing just fine, but you're making me nervous.”
Some months after my visit to Georgia, I got another chance to realize how much I had
to learn. I was in the Mississippi Delta. It was early fall and the cypress, their toes dug deep
in the water, were turning gold and crimson; monarchs were wending their way south before
the first frosts. And I was getting to learn from Lisa Higgins of Pearl River, Louisiana, one
of the many handlers who has trained with Andy Rebmann and gone on to become a top
cadaver-dog handler and trainer herself.
If L. Frank Baum had spent his life in Louisiana rather than New York and the Midwest,
Glinda, the Good Witch of the South, might have looked like Lisa Higgins, with large hazel
eyes slanting at the corners, a strong nose, round cheeks with slight freckles, and short salt-
and-pepper springing hair. Her voice is soft, precise—and firm when needed. When she
laughs, which is often, it's a merry peal. Lisa has responded to more than four hundred
searches across the United States and Canada since she started training her first dog, Frosty, a
golden retriever, in 1990. On Frosty's first callout, in 1991, she helped pinpoint the victim's
location, under four feet of water and three feet of sand. Lisa then went on to handle Molli, a
Labrador. Now she has Dixee, a wild-child Malinois-German shepherd cross, and Maggie, an
aging Australian shepherd who looks like a well-loved stuffed panda. A panda who has helped
secure five federal convictions. Lisa has worked with the FBI on numerous cases.
Lisa had set up “a little problem” in Mississippi for handlers who arrived a day early and
might want to get started—a simple scenario with some buried placenta. The most basic and
wonderful training material. The handlers weren't just to release their dogs to look for scent.
Instead, Lisa asked them to focus their search first using something called the “Winthrop
Point.”
No one in the group had heard of the Winthrop Point. I doubt anyone forgot once Lisa
had described it. he point was named after the investigator who realized he saw a pattern
in some clandestine grave sites, Lisa told me. Killers, the investigator realized, were doing the
same thing that soldiers used to do when they needed to bury excess ordnance. The military
needed to know how to get back to it. Murderers want to return to visit their victims but
need to recognize where they have hidden their bodies; they also need to know if law enforce-
ment is getting close. The Winthrop Point is a distinctive landmark that won't burn, die, rot,
or be covered with kudzu. Trees can't be a Winthrop Point. Gravel roads are out, since roads
