(soothing music) - Utah Search Dogs connects government agencies with highly trained canines that support search and rescue operations.

Joining us in the studio with more about the organization are Ryan Breitkreutz and his search partner, River, welcome to the show.

- Thank you, thanks.

- Tell me a little bit about River's story.

- Well, he has quite a story.

He's was lost in the mountains, just kind of left and came to me through a lot of foster work that I do.

And I had some friends that were in the search world and they said, they always told me that if you think you have a search dog with enough drive, you probably don't, but when you find one, you'll know.

And this guy was running up and down the walls and wouldn't stop with his ball, insane drive.

So I called him up and I said, "I think I have one."

- Tell me a little bit about the organization and what goes into training dogs like, canines like River to become search dogs.

- Sure, yeah, it's a lot.

It's a lot of hours a week.

Typically you want to try to do something just about every single day.

We have a big team training on the weekends where all the team gets together at least one day a week.

But other than that, it's a lot of small drills that kind of you kind of chain them together to teach them to do the big projects.

- And then when you're out there actually doing the searches, what is that like?

- Every one is different.

Sometimes they're urban tracking scenarios and sometimes we're, you know, dropped off in the middle of mountains in the middle of nowhere where we're independent on ourselves and that's kind of what River's specialty actually is.

- What drives you to continue doing this like year after year?

- I, you know, it's really satisfying when you get out there and you see the dogs working and you see how happy they are when they get out there and get to do their jobs.

And then there's the other side of it too where you get to bring people home.

- Yeah, and so many people don't know that this is a service that they can use, right?

- Right, right, yeah, we're there, we're available.

We work in Utah.

We work on the states around us as well.

Whether it's urban tracking scenarios or water scenarios or like I said, in the middle of the mountains and in the Uintas or wherever it might be.

- If someone's missing, you guys are available to help find them.

- Exactly.

- Well, thank you so much for being on the show and for bringing River as well.

If you would like to learn more about Utah Search Dogs, we have the website for you on the screen.

Just head to utahsearchdogs.org to get more information and details or to reach out if you need help as well.

I'm Liz Adiola, and thank you for watching "Contact."

(soothing music) Philanthropy, Arts, culture.

It's what brings us together.

Hi, I'm Liz Adeola, the host of Contact, a show that connects you with local events and organizations that serve your community.

If you work for a nonprofit and would like to be on Contact, please visit pbs.org/contact