We were very honored to have Phoenix Fire Captain Dana Medlin present at this past week’s meeting. Â Captain Medlin has been a firefighter for 30 years. Â He has worked in NC, Ok, Texas, Â and Arizona and currently is a Captain with The Phoenix Department. Captain Medlin became involved with Arizona Search Dogs 12 years ago. He became interested after having the opportunity to work with Search Dogs during the Oklahoma City bombing and knew immediately it was something that he wanted to be involved with.
Arizona Search Dogs is a nonprofit (501c3) organization that trains, certifies, and developes Canine Search Specialist teams to be mobilized with Urban Search and Rescue Task Forces and to assist state and local jurisdictions in urban and wilderness search and rescue activities.  Captain Medlin has had 3 dogs live with him and currently has 2 dogs named Rainy and Elvis.  Captain Medlin has been deployed to disasters like Hurricanes Harvey and Ike.  At the meeting Captain Medlin brought with him Rainy and Elvis, and he discussed canine training, why canines are so important for the fire department, how the dogs work, disasters he’s been to and much more.  Also, the dogs demonstrated what they’ve been trained to do.