Bethel resident Keith Cox owns a special kind of dog, writes Peg DeGrassa for the Daily Times.

Nakoma, a six-year-old American Indian dog, is a Pennsylvania Wilderness Search and Rescue dog.

 He’s trained as a Scent-Specific Trailing Dog and Human Remains Detection/Water Search dog.

Cox and Nakoma work with a dozen other certified PaWSAR dog/handler teams in the region.

PaWSAR is a nonprofit that creates the dog and handler teams. Handlers are trained on search/rescue/recovery techniques. The dog is taught to enhance its natural tracking and hunting abilities.

“The dog is working for us, because he wants to be rewarded and all searches end with a reward for the dog,” Cox explained. “Even if it’s a negative result and they did not find someone, they still did the same job that we asked them to do, so rewards like praise are still given.”

Half of the searches are for missing live persons, lost hikers or dementia patients. The other half are searches for potential suicide victims.

Other searches are for bodies.

 “Looking for a deceased person is just as important to us, because you’re bringing closure to a family,” Cox said.

  Read more at the Daily Times about these search and rescue dogs.