{"id":75500,"date":"2012-05-30T09:00:24","date_gmt":"2012-05-30T00:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fukuoka-now.com\/?post_type=feature&p=22578"},"modified":"2017-06-26T18:41:04","modified_gmt":"2017-06-26T09:41:04","slug":"john-perry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fukuoka-now.com\/en\/john-perry\/","title":{"rendered":"John Perry"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

John Perry
\nHometown:<\/strong> Vancouver
\nIn Japan: <\/strong>14 years
\nIdentity: <\/strong>Search and rescue dog trainer \/ Hiking tour guide
\nhttp:\/\/www.amarok-outdoors.com\/en\/index.html <\/a><\/p>\n

Not long after John first arrived in Fukuoka, a tragic event took place back home that was to have a significant impact on his career path in Japan. A friend was swept away in an avalanche and it was days before a search dog finally found his body. After seeing the distress suffered by his friend\u2019s family, John decided that search and rescue was for him. Concerned by the lack of rescue animals in Kyushu, he taught himself how to train dogs and eventually earned certification through the Kyushu Rescue Dog Association. Since then, he has travelled to locations around Japan \u2013 including Tohoku \u2013 with his canine rescue partner, Mana, to aid emergency efforts. Unfortunately, search and rescue doesn\u2019t pay the bills, but he manages to combine his love of the outdoors as owner of Amarok Outdoor Adventures. The company organizes group hikes in some of the most spectacular spots in Kyushu. His personal ambitions remain firmly with search and rescue training, though, and he is working towards establishing a volunteer ground search and rescue team here in Fukuoka. <\/p>\n

What brought you to Japan in the first place?<\/strong>
\nI always wanted to do Japanese martial arts ever since I was a kid and I when I started working and making my own money, I found a dojo and I started aikido there\u2014when I was around 19 or 20. The main instructor was from Fukuoka originally. In \u201997 she brought her sensei, from Fukuoka, to do a seminar in Vancouver. I\u2019d always had a dream to go to Japan, just for a visit and after I saw that, I said, \u201cYeah, I want to go there and train.\u201d<\/p>\n

How did you first get into training search and rescue dogs?<\/strong>
\nWe always had a dog at home, when I was growing up, so I always loved dogs. Being able to do something as a team with your dog, instead of it just being a pet, has always interested me. The year that I came to Fukuoka, a buddy of mine got swept away in an avalanche just outside of Vancouver and they couldn\u2019t find his body for a while. Once the snow thawed out, they sent in a dog to look for him and it was actually the dog that found him. I remember seeing his family, who were saying \u201cWhere is he? Where is he? Why can\u2019t he come home?\u201d After I saw how they felt, I thought that this was something I could do. I mean, even though my buddy was dead, at least he was brought back to his family.<\/p>\n

I had spent three years in the army and I was always interested in the police and fire department and stuff like that\u2014I\u2019m not a sales kind of guy [laughs]\u2014so I thought it was something I could do.<\/p>\n

The thing that got me started in Japan was the thought that if I\u2019m going to be in Japan for a long time, I don\u2019t just want to just do aikido and English. There\u2019s got to be more\u2014there IS more that I want to do instead of just those two things. [As a foreigner] You can\u2019t join the army in Japan, you can\u2019t join the fire department in Japan, so there\u2019s only volunteer work. At that time, when I started, there was no rescue dog association in Kyushu.<\/p>\n

When I got to the first place that I could have a dog, I started reading a book and contacted people on the internet to see how they trained their dogs. After I started training my first dog, I found the Kyushu Rescue Dog Association. Its main headquarters are in Kumamoto. I went down there and took their test with my dog and got certified through them.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Are you on call?<\/strong>
\nBasically, we\u2019re on call. We\u2019re a group of volunteers and people have other jobs. If somebody goes missing, the call, when it does go out, is sent to the Rescue Dog Association and they send an e-mail or call up the main people who usually go out and ask if they\u2019re free. You get a basic idea of the situation, like is it a wilderness search or Alzheimer\u2019s\u2014we get a lot of old people with Alzheimer\u2019s walking out of their home and never coming back. That\u2019s actually the main thing we\u2019re called out for. Also, of course, there was Tohoku, last year.<\/p>\n

Were you involved?<\/strong>
\nYeah, the earthquake and tsunami were on Friday and we went down on Saturday to the main training area and figured out where we were going to go. Originally there was a chance that we were going to get put on a military flight but that never panned out, so I took out the back seats of my truck and me and another handler put our dogs and our gear in and just drove up. We left early Sunday morning and it took about 25 hours\u2014one slept, one drove. We went to Kesennuma, in the upper part of Miyagi prefecture. It was pretty hard hit.<\/p>\n

When you got there what was it like?<\/strong>
\nIt was just crazy. And after driving 25 hours, we go into the disaster center, and we say to the head of the fire department that we\u2019re a rescue dog society from Kyushu\u2014Miyagi prefecture had actually asked us to come\u2014and he just looked at us straight and said, \u201cRescue dogs are only meant to find people who are alive. There\u2019s nobody left alive, so we don\u2019t need you.\u201d That was Monday morning. I mean, that\u2019s just a whole different article.<\/p>\n

What did you do then?<\/strong>
\nWell, at that time, I just got pissed off and thought, \u201cWe\u2019ve got to start looking somewhere.\u201d So, we were just about to start heading down\u2014and this is the thing that gets to me about the Japanese system\u2014when one of the other rescue dog associations met us and asked us where we were going. We explained what happened and they asked who we talked to. I said that we talked to the fire guy and he said, \u201cNo, no, the fire department, dame dame, here you have to talk to the police.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Canada and the States, there\u2019s more of a communication line that goes sideways, so that all agencies can inter-communicate and work together. But in Japan, it\u2019s police, fire army and none of this [gestures, indicating a lack of communication]. So we went up in the same room. What they had was a room and they had the fire, the police and the military here [draws a diagram of a room split into three different sections. We came up and spoke to a guy not three or four metres away [from the fire department representative] and he said, \u201cOh, thank you so much, we can use you!\u201d And while all this is going on, y\u2019know it\u2019s a disaster\u2014time, time, time is ticking! All the time it took me to drive up there and all the time it took me to talk to people, we could have been searching, but nobody seems to give a shit.<\/p>\n

Is this situation likely to change?<\/strong>
\nAfter Tohoku, things are starting to change. It\u2019s starting to get to the point where we\u2019re able to work together [with the authorities] to build a training model. After Tohoku, they realised that all the international teams, the one common thing they all brought was dogs. The Fukuoka Fire Department was saying that they want to build a role model of how to use volunteer dogs, so, yeah, it\u2019s getting there.<\/p>\n

When you did get going, what were you searching through?<\/strong>
\nEverything\u2014mud, wrecked buildings, cars, just everything everywhere. In the places where there wasn\u2019t wreckage, there was about this much [indicates about 6 inches] mud, and the smell of mud. A lot of the warehouses that got caught held fish that was freezing, so you had clumps of sanma (pike) all over the place. We came across a piece of tuna. I thought it was a leg at first.<\/p>\n

Did you come across any bodies?<\/strong>
\nWhen I was there, we found about four or five. Kesennuma is near the ocean, so a lot got washed back out.<\/p>\n

That must have been quite tough.<\/strong>
\nI don\u2019t know if that\u2019s why I feel that I\u2019m made for this kind of work. Of course, it\u2019s tragic and we have to treat these people with the utmost respect and if it was your friend, you\u2019d be devastated but you just try to keep that somewhere else. Luckily, it was still fresh, so, y\u2019know, it was just like people sleeping. There was no bad smell, there was no bloating, there were no bits because there was no explosion. And the way they were, they were covered in mud, so it was hard to tell that it was a person.<\/p>\n

The one thing that got me the most, was not from the dead. We were searching one apartment and there was a huge pile of rubble here [draws a diagram, indicating that the pile was beside the building]. We came in, searched the rooms and then got up on the rubble pile. When we were up there, a lady\u2014she was only in her mid-twenties, if that, and she had a baby on her back\u2014she came up to us, just in complete shock. She pulled out a pacifier and said, \u201cWill this help you? I think my baby\u2019s in here somewhere.\u201d There was just so much stuff in there, it was such a big rubble pile, it just wasn\u2019t possible. When you get up on top, you saw that the pile was going all the way down the road for hundreds of metres.<\/p>\n

We found out later, that the family had stayed in their house because they didn\u2019t think the tsunami was going to be so bad, but then when it got crazy, they were going to evacuate. She had her newborn on her back, so I guess it must have been a one-year-old son that was getting washed away and the father went to save him and they both got washed away, so it was only the mother and the new born that escaped. Seeing her face, I think that gets to me more than bodies.<\/p>\n

How long does it usually take to train a search and rescue dog?<\/strong>
\nIt depends, usually for standard response, it takes about two years. Some dogs just get it, so in that case, it can take a year. Also, it depends when you start\u2014if you get dogs when they\u2019re pups and start to play games that make them use their nose instead of their eyes, it happens a lot quicker. Also, when they\u2019re small, if you take them to a whole bunch of different places, like where they can feel vibrations from jackhammers or they can feel vibrations from engines, they become a more solid dog.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> <\/p>\n

So, you own the dog too?<\/strong>
\nWith rescue dogs, it\u2019s a team. You really want to keep the handler and the pup together for as long as possible.<\/p>\n

How often do you go out?<\/strong>
\nThis year has been slow, which is good. There\u2019s the disaster side\u2014there was Tohoku and two years ago in Hofu, Yamaguchi, there was a landslide and part of an old folks\u2019 home got washed away. They were the main two disasters. Other than that, there are hikers that go missing and don\u2019t come home and, like I said, people with Alzheimer\u2019s. Those happen every once in a while\u2014probably four to eight times a year. Also, we go out looking for suicides.<\/p>\n

Besides you, are there many other search and rescue dogs in Fukuoka?<\/strong>
\nNo, right now I think there are other organisations but in Kyushu, but the Kyushu Rescue Dog Association is the biggest one. With them, there are about sixty dogs and not as many handlers all around Kyushu, and in Fukuoka there\u2019s just me.<\/p>\n

I want to start a volunteer search and rescue team in Fukuoka. In Japan, there aren\u2019t any. They have them in Britain, in Canada \u2013 in the States alone, they have 1,500\u2014where people undergo actual training to do this stuff safely.<\/p>\n

In Japan, there was one search about three years ago, an eleven-year-old boy went missing on Karakuni-dake in Miyazaki. He went hiking with his mom and dad and grandparents and he thought they were walking too slow, so we went on ahead and they said they\u2019d meet him up further. When they got to where they were supposed to meet him, he wasn\u2019t there. It turned out that he had gone along a different trail and on his way back, he fell into a ravine.<\/p>\n

They put out a call at three o\u2019clock that their son went missing\u2014they called the fire department, who searched until five o\u2019clock when they said, \u201cOh, it\u2019s getting dark, we have to call off the search.\u201d In North America, you do not stop, for 72 to 96 hours, you do not stop. There\u2019s always people on the ground searching. But they\u2019re logic was sekinin, responsibility\u2014they\u2019re worried about nijisaigai, or rescuers getting hurt. They don\u2019t want any of the rescuers getting hurt because it\u2019s the responsibility of the person upstairs who sent them.<\/p>\n

If you go on a search, people get hurt, it\u2019s just the nature of the job, but they don\u2019t see this. So, then there\u2019s this boy out in the woods, on his own, in the middle of the night, scared shitless\u2014and nobody\u2019s coming. Then, if you check the weather report, the next day, from early morning, the temperature\u2019s going to drop. It was October 31, it was going to drop to five degrees and it was going to rain for the next three days.<\/p>\n

It was a full moon that night and on a full moon you don\u2019t even need headlamps, you can see, but they wouldn\u2019t go search in the middle of the night. I was told that you\u2019re not allowed to go. I said \u201cI\u2019ll go!\u201d They said, \u201cNo, no, you can\u2019t go. If you go and you find him, you\u2019re not allowed to say it was a rescue dog that found him. You have to say you went hiking at night to go take a picture of the sunrise and you found him.\u201d<\/p>\n

What happened to the boy?<\/strong>
\nHe died. [He went missing] on Saturday. I only got the call on Sunday. They searched Saturday but they didn\u2019t put the call out to everybody. They said, \u201cOK, well this is in Miyazaki, so let\u2019s call out people in Miyazaki first.\u201d Then they searched for a day [on Sunday], and didn\u2019t find him, so they were going to search for him the next day, which was a Monday. I got the call on Sunday night, and drove down and I think we started at 7:30 am, Monday morning. At noon, they finally found him and he had severe hypothermia, so it was the cold that got him. He did actually fall into a ravine, and he had a cut on his head, but where he fell to where he was found, he had moved, so he was still alive after that. But, they didn\u2019t search for him. If they had searched on a full moon when he was probably still partially conscious and he could respond (it\u2019s really, really quiet out there at night), he might have come home alive.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Tell me more about what you want to do to improve search and rescue in Fukuoka.<\/strong>
\nWhat I want to do is start a volunteer ground search and rescue team where rescue dogs are one component. I\u2019ve got a couple of friends down in the Fukuoka Fire Department who, on their days off, have been going out and looking for people where the fire department search has been called off.<\/p>\n

If we can show them, \u201cWe\u2019re volunteering and we\u2019re a higher level than you, so what are you guys doing?\u201d and get them to change their ways of thinking, then maybe we can get them to change the way they\u2019re being trained. I\u2019m just tired of finding dead people, when you don\u2019t have to, if you just train for it.<\/p>\n

Moving on the business that pays the bills\u2014your hiking tours. What\u2019s your favourite hike in Kyushu?<\/strong>
\nOne of the most beautiful places is Yakushima.<\/p>\n

Like Jomon-sugi?<\/strong>
\nJomon is nice but it\u2019s better to spend your time going through the whole area\u2014going through places like Shiratani. All my customers want to go to Jomon but you have to start at 5am and then GOOO!!! LOOK AT THE TREE! TAKE A PICTURE! AND THEN GOOO!!! You\u2018ve got to get out of there. You have to ask, \u201cDid you really have fun?\u201d We do that, but I also like to put in a nice, slow day at Shiratani or do the three-day traverse around the island. It\u2019s really, really nice \u2013 we did that last year.<\/p>\n

Kuju, in Oita, and Okue, in Miyazaki, are also nice.<\/p>\n

What about in Fukuoka?<\/strong>
\nYeah, I did one yesterday. The trail we took was from Saga but it\u2019s right on the border with Fukuoka. The mountains up there are Ihara-yama and Baizan. During Golden Week, mitsuba tsutsuji (azaleas) are in bloom, so it\u2019s a nice hike. Also, Fukuchiyama, in Kitakyushu\u2014we go up there quite a bit. And Hiko-san, of course. Yeah, there\u2019s a lot of good hiking around Fukuoka.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Finally, I often see people on hikes with what seems like crazy amounts of gear and I\u2019ve always wondered, it really necessary to have all that when you\u2019re going hiking?<\/strong>
\nThere are certain parts where you have to have the proper gear\u2014like vibram soles on your hiking boots and stuff like that\u2014but you don\u2019t need the big-ass leather boots that weight 50 lbs. You have to carry all your gear so, if you can, pack light. As long as you know what you need\u2014you have a stove, you have gas, you have water. Usually when I go out, I plan that I might have to be out for a night. You don\u2019t have to be out for a night in a hotel, right, you just have to survive the night. It might the worst night you ever have, you might be cold, but you\u2019re not going to die. There are essentials like a first aid kit and if you\u2019re worried about your knees or your ankles, you might want a trekking pole, or two. If you\u2019ve got a tarp, you can use the trekking pole as a pole for the tarp. <\/p>\n

Originally published in Fukuoka Now Magazine (fn162, June 2012<\/a>)<\/strong>
\nInterview and text by Hugh McCafferty.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Not long after John first arrived in Fukuoka, a tragic event took place back home that was to have a significant impact on his career path in Japan. A friend was swept away in an avalanche and it was days before a search dog finally found his body. After seeing the distress suffered by his friend\u2019s family, John decided that search and rescue was for him. Concerned by the lack of rescue animals in Kyushu, he taught himself how to train dogs and eventually earned certification through the Kyushu Rescue Dog Association.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22579,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_locale":"en_US","_original_post":"22578","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4911],"tags":[5124],"class_list":["post-75500","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-people","tag-outdoors","location-fukuoka-prefecture","en-US"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.fukuoka-now.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/IMG_0041-e1337928211445.jpg?fit=640%2C480&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fukuoka-now.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75500","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fukuoka-now.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fukuoka-now.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fukuoka-now.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fukuoka-now.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75500"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.fukuoka-now.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75500\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":98388,"href":"https:\/\/www.fukuoka-now.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75500\/revisions\/98388"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fukuoka-now.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22579"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fukuoka-now.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fukuoka-now.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fukuoka-now.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}