Meet the park ranger, dog credited in rescue of missing hiker in Santa Cruz mountains

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    SANTA CRUZ COUNTY, California (KGO) — State Park ranger Brett Weber and his K-9 Rino were the first team to reach a missing at-risk hiker who had been lost in the Santa Cruz mountains for 10 days last week.

State Park ranger Brett Weber has to bring his dog to work. Rino is a law enforcement and tracking K-9.

“Working with a dog is the best, especially I think doing tracking and proximity alerts is probably my favorite thing to do with a dog because it’s so much of – dogs are great at watching human behavior, but humans are not always great at watching dog behavior,” Weber said.

Last week, Rino’s senses led search and rescue teams directly to a missing at-risk hiker.

The Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office said Lukas McClish had been lost for 10 days in the Santa Cruz Mountains.

Last Thursday, the sheriff’s office launched drones to help pinpoint where the 34-year-old was.

We spoke with Public Information Officer Ashley Keehn.

“Eventually, the drone ended up in the area of Forman Creek and we heard someone yelling that the drone was right over their location,” Keehn said.

With a general area in mind, Weber said he held onto the leash and followed Rino.

“We had a really steep hillside to the right side of us, that Rino wanted to pull to a few times, and in training we always say trust your dog. And so I said if he wants to pull up, that there’s probably a reason. I’m gonna trust him on this one,” Weber said.

All that training and trust paid off – Rino was the first to reach McClish.

“Seeing him was just like – this is great, like we’re going to get him out of here,” Weber said.

Weber said McClish was in an area that had been burned from the CZU Fire, so newer, denser vegetation was difficult.

“Cause instead of open floor canopy, it’s a lot of stuff that’s going to be anywhere from knee height to just past your head. That’s very thick and hard to get through, hard to see through. Very disorienting,” Weber said.

Weber gave the tired but thankful hiker his shirt.

And when we asked Weber how it felt to find him, he was quick to say their part was minimal.

“We played a very minor role. There was a ton of people out there. Everyone from the sheriff’s office to CAL FIRE – they even had hand crews of inmates were out there with us too. Very humbling to see so many people come together and to see the family reunited at the end, and like I said – Lukas really saved himself. If he wasn’t out there that long and still strong enough to cry for help or call for help, he at minimum would’ve been out there a lot longer,” Weber said.

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