As is the case with most canine SAR teams, MARK-9 is an all-volunteer organization. We pride ourselves on training and searching as volunteers committed to professional standards. Apart from the team, many of our members have working backgrounds as first-responders, in the military, in medical fields, aviation, dog training, scuba, amateur and commercial broadcasting, construction safety and crime investigation. Apart from that background, we have a common concern for humankind, a drive to serve, and a love and respect for the working dog.
We have worked small neighborhood searches and full-scale national disasters, searching for a single elderly Alzheimers' patient or an entire community devastated by storm. The boy in the creek, the teen gone missing, the child who pushed out the screen door and strayed. We were part of the recovery team for the astronauts of the shuttle Columbia. Large or small, every search renews our commitment. Every search matters.
A SAR team takes dedication. MARK-9 trains approximately 51 weeks a year, between 3-5 hours per week, nights and weekends. It is not uncommon for us to search all day one day and train the next. A good team never rests on the search experience behind it — as with a crisis or emergency response team of any sort, we have to think ahead, train ahead, learn from our past searches, but think forward to new forms of peril and new rescue possibilities.
We're proud to serve. We're ready to go.