The nomination "Responsible for those ...": A lost mushroom picker was searched at night in a forest area near Gusev.
The story of the pensioner's rescue was told by the journalists of the New Kaliningrad portal with reference to the press service of the regional Federal Penitentiary Service. In October, the police received a statement that a man had disappeared in the forest and could not find him on his own. Members of the Zapad search and rescue group came to the rescue along with their old friends, Yelizaveta Mamayeva, a dog handler at the Federal Penitentiary Service, and her dog Kali.
"We were able to start at 11:11 p.m. after we received a scent object from a relative of the missing man. Kali picked up the trail from the man's car, walked along the road and turned down one of the paths into the forest. For the next three hours, the search team meandered through the trees after the shepherd, which at one point seemed to lose track and began to spin in one place," said dog handler Elizaveta Mamayeva.
But, Kali is an experienced dog, so the owner gave her time, and Kali picked up the trail again. The shepherd caught the scent and forcefully pulled back into the thick of the forest. When it became clear that the missing person might be nearby, the volunteers began shouting the name of the lost pensioner. And soon they heard an answering hail. The entire search operation lasted almost three and a half hours.
According to the press service of the Federal Penitentiary Service, the man found confessed that he had been walking in circles in the forest all the time, and this information only confirmed the correct operation of the dog.
"The searches we are taking part in are being organized by the Zapad volunteer organization. And for us, this is a unique experience, because you can see a dog in real conditions, see what it has learned during service and training. Kali is a very active girl, I would even say impulsive and purposeful. She loves training, especially trail work. Kali is crazy, but when she follows the trail, she calms down and concentrates. Thus, she extinguishes her mobile psyche in investigative work, completely switches into it," says Elizaveta Mamayeva.
This is not Kali's first experience in saving people. Three years ago, together with her mistress Elizabeth, she was able to find an 86-year-old pensioner who had been unsuccessfully searched for three days. And this year, they were asked for help in September, when a 77-year-old pensioner got lost in the forest.
Elizaveta Mamayeva and Kali serve in IK-8 of the Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia in the Kaliningrad region. And at the same time they are engaged in volunteer work in the Zapad search and rescue squad. Kali is a Belgian shepherd. Elizaveta got it in 2021.
"Kali lives with me. At 4 months old, she was brought to us on IK-8. She was so tiny that at night she managed to escape from the aviary and ran towards the feed house, hoping to snatch an extra portion of food and human attention. So she ran away for 3 nights in a row, then I realized that it would not lead to anything good, and I took her home. We never broke up again. And I can't imagine life without her anymore," the hostess shares her memories.
It was Kali's breed and character that determined her success in finding people. According to Elizaveta Mamayeva, Kali seems to extinguish her psyche in investigative work, which allows her to be as focused as possible.
Photos from the personal archive of Elizaveta Mamayeva and the press service of the Federal Penitentiary Service for the Kaliningrad region.