Medical Rescue Team South Authority has gone to the dogs, which has them ready for any search-and-rescue scenario.

Steve Kiray has been working with MRTSA as the search and rescue K-9 handler for nine years. During that time, he has worked with two dogs, Dakota and Taz.

"The first dog, Dakota, retired approximately three years ago," said Kiray. "I got Taz when he was 8 weeks old, so we started his training when he was about 13 weeks and he got certified last February. He will be 3 in May and was around 21 months old when he got certified."

Taz's main job with MRTSA is to do search-and-rescue work, but also is the focus of educational programs.

"We were called out on 13 searches last year," said Kiray. "His primary goal is search and rescue, how often that comes up isn't all that much, but when it is, it's truly a real emergency situation."

According to Kiray, Taz is trained to search for both live and dead people. There are two types of searches that the dog can perform: tracking searches and area searches.

"Tracking is like if a mother knows that her child was last seen by a gate and thinks he went through the gate, we can have him start there and follow his lead," said Kiray. "Or if we have a general area, like with a hunter lost in the woods, we need to make sure he's not out there somewhere. It's called an area search where he's off the lead and free to roam wherever he needs to go."

There is no real way to judge whether a search is successful or not, according to Kiray. During a search situation, Taz is assigned a general area, where he searches.

"It's not his fault if he doesn't find a person," said Kiray. "If the person's not in there, he can't find them. If they are in there and he finds them, that's great. But I don't consider it a failure if he doesn't find somebody who isn't there."

Kiray says the only way to deem a search a failure is if a missing person is found in an area searched by the team, which has not happened.

Taz has been on four searches in 2007, and because of his successful reputation, Kiray is expecting about 20 searches for the year.

"More and more people know that he's available, so we'll get more and more requests for him," said Kiray. "Also, he's local, so people aren't going to have to wait for an extended period of time for a search dog if they have a way to get out there fast."

Taz is always under Kiray's control and always on call, ready to conduct a search. But according to Kiray, Taz does all the work.

"You just hang on and go along with the dog," said Kiray. "You don't have a clue where the person went, but he does. Their nose is so unbelievably better than ours."

A big part of Taz's work schedule is doing educational programs, mainly for children. Last year, more than 3,500 participated in MRTSA's K9 Awareness Program. The program covers topics ranging from how to avoid being bitten by dogs, how not to get lost and how to act around strangers.

"He's great with kids, if he wasn't there is no way we could have even approached 3,500 kids," said Kiray. "I'm just a tag along, he's the real celebrity, whether it's for the educational programs or a search. He's the tool, I'm just along for the ride."