The Boundary County Sheriff’s Posse held a training exercise in April and  about 20 posse volunteers and BC Search and Rescue gathered at Brush Lake.

The training was held in the early evening hours of Tuesday, April 23.

Their main objective, to find BCSO Investigator Dave McClelland who was to get lost in the woods with his lost partner Genevive Trumble and McClelland’s  German Shepherd Bruno.

“We wondered up to Brush Lake leaving the typical signs we see when we are on a real search along the way,” said McClelland.

The three walked for a mile or so until they felt they were good and lost. They found a spot and sat to wait for the posse to find them.

Basically all 35 members of the posse are search and rescue trained. Anyone can join the posse but will have to pass the routine back ground checks and take

There is also a canine team of five dogs but the dogs did not participate during this exercise. The canine teams are most often used when searching for a body.

The posse and search and rescue volunteers stages at a site chosen to be the two and a half ton military command post. Here they have a command post vehicle and emergency vehicles staged while they plan their strategy for finding their subjects.

After a couple hours the posse and search and rescue teams were successful in finding the three hikers by calling McClelland’s dog and listening to him bark at them.  This is a tactic often used when someone lost is known to have a dog with them.

“The dogs can lead us right to their owner most of the time,” said McClelland.

The training was a success and McClelland was happy to be back at his desk Wednesday morning.

“This posse was a vision our sheriff Greg Sprungl a dream he had of setting up a volunteer group of trained individuals who could be an asset in helping the community members stay safe,” McClelland said.

Each posse member goes through a process and they are vested rescue deputies with clean records.

Anyone interested in joining the posse can contact Dave McClelland at 267-3151.