The Calcutta Volunteer Fire Department is selling T-shirts to raise funds for the training of Solace, the German Shepherd puppy that will eventually be used for county wide search and rescues. (Submitted photo)

CALCUTTA — Fire Chief Dave McCoy of the Calcutta Volunteer Fire Department has been planning for some time the establishment of a county wide search and rescue team and has taken the first steps to get that going.

McCoy has been working on getting the search and rescue team started. He has scheduled search and rescue training on federal and national levels to take place in the fall which will certify the search and rescuers to go anywhere in the country through FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) and has been working with Peggy Clark, director of the Columbiana County EMA in Lisbon, to bring the certification county wide to create a Columbiana County Search and Rescue Team.

“It’s not going to be a Calcutta Search and Rescue, it’s going to be a Columbiana County Search and Rescue,” McCoy said.

McCoy would like to see first responders, firefighters, EMTs and law enforcement from all over the county be a part of this team.

McCoy plans for the search and rescue team, which will include a trained search and rescue dog, to be used in areas such as Beaver Creek State Park or in the instance of maybe locating an elderly person who perhaps has Alzheimer’s and might have wandered away from home, missing children and search and rescue where they deploy out of the area.

Solace is a 3-week-old German Shepherd that was donated to the fire department for the purpose of being the search and rescue dog for Columbiana County.

The pure-bred shepherd is being donated by McCoy and his family. McCoy owns the dog’s mother and his son and daughter-in-law have the father. Both are registered German Shepherds.

McCoy said they will have a p

Carmen McCoy, 4, granddaughter of Fire Chief Dave McCoy, holds the Calcutta Volunteer Fire Department’s newest member. Three-week-old Solace, a German shepherd puppy, will become after training a search and rescue service dog for a county wide search and rescue team. (Submitted photo)

Solace’s name means to give comfort to in grief or misfortune and that is what McCoy is hoping she will do when she is deployed.

The dog will be sent for obedience training when she is old enough and then her search and rescue training will begin. She will have dual handlers. McCoy will be one and his daughter Shelbie McCoy, a firefighter/EMT with the department, will be the other.

There will be several fundraisers taking place to help raise funds to cover the cost of the dog’s training and the establishment of a county wide search and rescue team. The Calcutta Volunteer Fire Department has T-shirts available for purchase with proceeds going to support the dog. Shirts can be ordered at the fire department for $20 for size small though extra-large and $22 for larger sizes.

Proceeds from the Columbiana County Airport’s Wings and Wheels event will go toward the establishment of the county wide rescue team of which the dog will be a member.

kgarabrandt@mojonews.com