MUDDY CREEK TWP - Friday and her owner, walking near the shore of Lake Arthur, might have looked as if they were out for a stroll in Moraine State Park.

But the 2-year-old English shepherd and her owner, Craig McMillan, a transplanted Kiwi from the south island of New Zealand, were on a manhunt.

The pair were on what is called a "hasty task," an initial test for someone wanting to become involved with dog rescue work.

The two hours it took to traipse through roughly 40 acres of brush on a snowy afternoon probably didn't seem hasty, especially to the person lying several feet inside the mouth of a culvert.

Dressed for the event and covered by a camouflage cloth, this "victim" grew cold waiting to be found in this game of hide-and-seek that mimics a real search.

McMillan and Friday were taking this test to become part of the Allegheny Mountain Rescue Group, a volunteer search and rescue resource that helps locate, stabilize and move victims in wilderness and suburban settings.

The group is associated with the Department of Emergency Medicine at Mercy Hospital in Pittsburgh.The group responds to requests in southwestern Pennsylvania and areas in West Virginia, Ohio and Maryland within a four-hour drive of Pittsburgh, according to the group's Web site, www.amrg.info.The group responds to about 20 calls per year from emergency officials.McMillan isn't new to search and rescue work."In New Zealand, you just use a helicopter," he said, explaining the topography of the south island is significantly different from the woods of southwestern Pennsylvania.Wanting to join a search and rescue team in the Pittsburgh area, McMillan and his wife, both emergency medical professionals, began the training and then bought the puppy perfect for the job.The hasty task test for McMillan and Friday is one of the first in a series of training events over two years. Training begins when the dog is 7 weeks old.Friday is trained for air scenting a live human. That means she can pick up the scent of anyone who is or recently was in her immediate area.According to articles posted on the group's Web site by member Ken Chiacchia of Cranberry Township, "An air-scenting dog can often detect and localize human scent from 100 yards or more. A dog may catch a whiff of a person's scent that's too brief to follow, but a watchful handler will notice this 'alert' and search commanders can note the location of the alert and the wind direction on their maps."During the test, McMillan was forbidden to use a global positioning device, one of the tools available to searchers.Chiacchia carrieda personal digital assistantthat provided him with a wealth of information, from radio frequencies to weather information."Technology is changing everything; even … wilderness-based searches," said McMillan.On this February day, frozen Lake Arthur was dotted with ice fishermen, and their scents wafted on a light breeze. Friday noticed them all, and it was McMillan's job to decide if her nose had detected their quarry or to instruct her to disregard what she'd found.Since neither McMillan nor Chiacchia, his test evaluator, knew whether there really was someone out there waiting to be found, it was even more difficult.Only the one who defines the search area knows if and where the subject is hidden.Friday was also alerted several times on something she detected on the hillside, and it was noted for future investigation on the return path along a ridge.The scent of a human picked up by trained dogs is caused by a continuous stream of gaseous molecules people trail behind them as well as microscopic flakes of dead skin, called "skin rafts" we shed, explained Chiacchia in his Web article."The bacteria, perspiration and skin secretions (skin rafts) generate more scent molecules over time," he wrote."The different components of the cloud of debris that we emanate act very differently. Larger flakes of dead skin tend to fall to the ground relatively quickly. They, and the scent molecules they continue to generate, become a trail of ground scent. Other scent components - smaller skin raft particles and gasses - can travel indefinitely on the wind, becoming the air scent."

An air-scenting dog will usually not find a dead person. That is the job of a cadaver dog, which has been trained to detect the different scent of the dead."Some of the smelliest of human scent molecules are created when bacteria create carboxylic acids out of skin oils, and when the body releases 'panic scents' - steroid-like molecules" that humans can smell too, according to Chiacchia's article.This means a threatening dog and a person can indeed smell fear.In this test, McMillan had to be able to understand the maps he had been given that delineated his search area.He had a satellite photograph taken more than a decade ago. He had to be able to recognize "travel aids," which are in essence the paths of least resistance and ones which naturally channel a walker - often leading a person into more trouble, such as in ravines.He had to understand air currents as affected by topography and weather conditions, and he had to make sure the team didn't become disoriented and become lost in the woods.And he had to understand what Friday was telling him and how serious she was about it.On his return leg, along the ridge top, Friday made her find.McMillan and Friday passed this test and will move on to tougher field tests that include combing a 40-acre patch at night, a difficult terrain test and a test compassing a 160-acre search area.A hasty task in a search and rescue mission is usually one of the first undertakings."We do a hasty task early on when we don't know if someone might be out there," said Chiacchia. "We'll walk along a creek or a ridge top hoping to get the easy find.""You have to be of a mind-set that he's out there," said Chiacchia's wife,Heather Houlahan, a member of the rescue group who devised this test."Otherwise you and your dog are along for a walk in the woods. You also have to have a detachment from the larger issues and that's not a bad thing."There's an axiom, 'It is an emergency, but it's not your emergency.' Sometimes you know there's not going to be a happy outcome Occasionally, I think I'm looking for a dead person and I find a live one," said Houlahan. "The reward is getting the technical job done."In at least 30 percent of the cases of hasty task, there's no chance of finding someone because they have never been in the search area.While many people entertain the idea they would like to be part of a dog search and rescue team, "I get about one good candidate per year," said Houlahan."Just wanting to do it is not enough. It's a lifestyle choice," she said. You have to be willing to spend two years before ever going in the field with your dog."Training sessions continue on a weekly basis even after the handler and dog pass all the tests."This is a commitment, not a hobby or a sport," said HoulahanThose who are part of the rescue dog contingent of the group hail from all walks of life, although many are trained in emergency medicine, from emergency medical technicians and paramedics to emergency room physicians."We have lots of engineers and a couple of writers," said Houlahan, who is professional dog trainer."It helps if you're self- employed," said Houlahan.As a dog trainer, she can always cancel a client to undertake a search mission.Dog teams are only one segment of the rescue group. It also is involved withwilderness rescue, ground search using trained human searchers, wilderness medicine and technical rescue that use ropes and pulleys.