With their towering height and somewhat standoffish personality, you’d be forgiven for feeling a little intimidated by German Shepherd Dogs. But 9-year-old German Shepherd Dog “Besa” is exactly who you’d want at your side if you were lost or injured or had a loved one in peril. As a search and rescue (SAR) dog, Besa assists the Ohio Special Response Team with land, water, large source, and crime scene cadaver, wilderness and disaster live find, and tracking. Her certifications are through the International Police Work Dog Association (IPWDA), United States Police Work Dog Association (USPCA), and American Working Dog Association (AWDA).
K-9 handler Sarah Gentry of West Salem, Ohio is Besa’s proud owner and has been with the team since 2011. Most recently, Besa was certified in human scent and human trafficking through the USPCA, making her the first dog in the country to achieve this impressive certification. Besa’s enthusiasm and determination earned her the 2024 Award for Canine Excellence in the Search and Rescue Dog Category.

Besa has overcome significant odds, including a near-death experience with leptospirosis, which claimed the life of her sister, “Gertie.” Then, a year to the day of an appointment to be euthanized, Besa and Gentry were in an accident that left their car totaled and Besa momentarily shaken. But she bounced back and just recently, Besa survived emergency surgery and was excited to return to work after getting her stitches removed.
Each year, the AKC Humane Fund awards five dogs who do extraordinary things in the service of humankind in different categories: Uniformed Service K-9, Therapy Dog, Exemplary Companion, Service Dog, and Search and Rescue Dog, like Besa. Dogs in Besa’s category are certified to assist the SAR unit in responding to lost persons, emergencies, and disasters.
Finding a Foothold in Search and Rescue
Gentry’s first German Shepherd Dog, Gertie, came into her life amid big changes including losing her Australian Shepherd, going through a divorce, and leaving her horse farm. “I wanted to stay active with her and came across this SAR team who accepted us, and we started training.” Gentry was amazed at Gertie’s ability to read a situation along with her incredible nose and willingness to cross difficult terrain. “I just remember when I was training her, thinking, ‘How does she know to do that already?'”
Seeing what a fast learner Gertie was, Gentry began looking for a dog to start training from a puppy. Besa stood out as a potential SAR dog, managing to maneuver between crates while her littermates whined and gave up easily. “That’s been my experience with her, that she enjoys those challenges and doesn’t panic about anything,” she says.

Like other SAR team members, Gentry is an unpaid volunteer and is responsible for the costs of travel, team member dues, and maintaining her dogs’ certifications. The rest of the time, Gentry is a registered nurse working full-time in research nursing at a private physician’s office. Her employers are very supportive of her work with SAR and allow her to be on call for searches 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
Besa Knows When to Focus and When to Have Fun
While Besa has a serious side, Gentry says that’s only one aspect of her personality. “She’s always ready for whatever game there is to play,” she explains. “That’s basically what search work is for them. They have fun using their instincts, searching, and getting a reward at the end.” Besa keeps a close eye on Gentry, yet she’s also very independent. The captain of their SAR team always jokes that Gentry is “Besa’s chauffeur.” You just need to drop her off and she can run the search herself.
SAR dogs often have to go over difficult terrain and unstable surfaces. “If they don’t pay attention, they can injure themselves,” Gentry says. “Sometimes you can end up searching scary places where you have to be able to control your dog, get them out of dangerous areas, or have them wait for you to get there, so you want them to think heavily about their footing.” She appreciates how methodical Besa is and will think before jumping from a big height or traversing questionable areas.

To get certified in disaster live find, a K-9 handler has to send their dog up on a pile of rubble. “Basically, they’re out of your view and have to look for the live person,” Gentry says. “When they find them, they’ll bark.” They prepare for this scenario by working on environmental stability, which means adapting to any environment. Besa has been aboard an airplane and a helicopter and is unfazed by large crowds, sirens, and other loud noises.
When Besa isn’t training, Gentry says she’s bossing her pet siblings around like she’s the “fun police.” Her siblings are “Augie,” a Beagle who is certified in tracking and human remains, and “Vimse,” a German Shepherd who’s also certified in human remains. Outside of her siblings, Besa doesn’t interact much with other dogs because they don’t want her getting distracted when she’s off leash working. “We make sure searching is the most important thing in their off-leash life,” says Gentry.
Searches Are Like Solving a Puzzle

Gentry trusts Besa’s instincts. “Nothing works quite like a dog’s nose,” she says. “I mean, they are amazing. Every SAR handler’s biggest fear is that you go out on a search and miss somebody.” That’s why they train and over-train every Sunday and throughout the week whenever they can. With SAR, there’s never a typical month. “You can go months with no calls and then have five searches in five weeks,” she says.
Live Person Searches
When Besa is trailing, she’s on a harness and long line and is trained to follow a specific scent left by a missing person. With wilderness live find, there’s no specific scent article like a piece of clothing. “You just send the dogs out into an area to look for a live person,” she says. “If she finds somebody, she’ll stop and bark until I get there and so far, it’s never been the wrong person.”
Once, they were called out to locate an elderly man with mild dementia who had wandered away from home. After about 45 minutes, Besa went into the woods and barked to signal that she had located the man. He had fallen and was trapped amongst some trees. “When I got there, Besa was sitting perfectly next to him just giving a nice steady bark,” she says. Instead of being excited and jumping around for her reward as she does during training, her calm demeanor and rhythmic bark showed she had an understanding of the situation.

Disaster Live Find
To get certified, Besa had to complete an agility course where she had to climb a ladder, walk across an eight-foot-high plank, go through a tunnel with a turn, walk over a teeter, and jump onto a pile of rubble. “You can’t be ahead of your dog for any of these obstacles,” she says. “You have to be able to direct your dog from the foot of the rubble pile.” Although they haven’t been deployed to a disaster, these agility skills also come in handy during missing persons cases or when they have to search unpredictable environments, such as homes in disrepair.
Human Scent and Human Trafficking
When Besa certified for human trafficking, “I don’t think anybody realized that she was going to be the first in the nation,” Gentry says. It was a timed test, beginning with Besa searching for a live human concealed amongst several boxes over a large outdoor area. Then, she had to locate people hidden in buildings, behind walls and furniture. The last round involved finding persons concealed in a lineup of vehicles.
Cadaver Searches
Besa’s first search concerned a missing person in a suspected suicide. It was a team effort, and they were able to locate the person’s remains. “You don’t want to hear that anybody’s lost or went out to die by suicide or drowning,” she says. “When it comes to human remains, I consider it the last kind act you can do for someone in a horrible situation.”
During another search, Besa was trailing into heavy vegetation. “I looked at the officer and said, ‘Rather than trying to struggle with the line and holding her back, I’m going to send her for her area search,'” she says. When they caught up with Besa, she motioned by running from the top of a missing bridge to the water’s edge, leading them to suspect that the person may have jumped into the river. Besa ended her search down river where she indicated with a sit, which is a passive alert, meaning she had found human remains.

Working Grave Sites
When Besa locates a grave site, she sits to alert her handler, finding burial sites as far back as the 1900s. Recently, they were called out to help a university student with a project locating unmarked graves. With human remains, dogs tend to go to the strongest odor, the location of which may be affected by heat, sunlight, rainfall, and the passage of time.
Water Searches
Besa has also been trained to go out on a boat and assist with water searches. She hangs her head over the edge of the boat and sniffs the air for odors. She alerts with her passive sit when she picks up on the strongest odor, which can be influenced by the current, wind, and boat traffic. Like all searches, it’s a team effort and couldn’t be done without knowledgeable people handling the boat and law enforcement.
Unpredictable But Rewarding Work
“It is an overwhelming honor to be chosen amongst such a great group of handlers and K-9s who are all deserving of recognition,” she says. “Receiving this award helps validate the work we’ve done over the years and inspires me to work even harder.”

The reality with SAR is that you never know the outcome of a search and whether you’ll find the person safe, injured, deceased, or at all. “You can have many acres to search, so you bring in multiple dogs and assign them different areas,” she says. “What we can do for law enforcement is relieve the burden of searching those areas, freeing them up to do their specialized work.”
For Gentry, it helps to be a nurse. “I’ve dealt with plenty of death and what keeps you going is that you’re helping someone and working with your dog on something that really matters,” she says. They may not be able to bring the person home, but they can help bring closure to loved ones.
You won’t want to miss seeing these hero dogs in action. Catch the 2024 AKC Heroes: Awards for Canine Excellence Show on ESPN2 on December 15 at 6pm ET.