By Lisa Peterson

Ever since Fergus was a puppy, his long droopy ears, wrinkled forehead and swell nose landed him in the pages of books, glossy magazines and advertising campaigns. He even has his own website.

While a too curly tail kept him from his championship status as a show dog, he now has a bright future as a Search and Rescue star in the capable hands of 17-year-old Paula Wickman.

When Ripple Creek Alzac’s Fergus, his registered name with the American Kennel Club, isn’t smiling in front of the camera, he is busy working towards his certification with CCSAR (Connecticut Canine Search and Rescue). Fergus is the only Bloodhound among the eight dogs in a two-year training course. Wickman’s goal is to make Fergus a specialist in Water and Cadaver location. But on the way, the team must master all aspects of search and rescue.

“We started with short runaway problems and then worked our way up to older trails,” said Wickman, who trains with CCSAR two weekends per month. “Fergus is accurate up to one mile.”

Eventually he will “trail” day old and longer scents or distinguish between two people on the same trail. He will also work a variety of terrains from meadows to woodlands to water.

“He knows maybe 50 to 100 words,” Wickman said. “We play hide and seek games. I’ll say ‘watch’ and he’ll use his eyes or ‘check’ and his nose goes to the ground while ‘search’ starts him trailing.”

And then there’s “find fish” used when he’s on the bow of boat sniffing the air just above the water for a fresh whiff of the thousands of human particles that rise to the surface when someone is in the water, Wickman explained.

While all this learning fascinates the Newtown High School senior, on recent visit to the Wickman residence on Horseshoe Ridge Road, the 98-pound Fergus was unimpressed, taking up valuable floor space in the kitchen. When a series of police scanners went off he barely raised his head.

Love Of Law Enforcement

Wickman’s first taste of police work came when she took the Newtown Police Department’s Student’s Police Academy - fashioned after the Citizen’s Police Academy -offered during her freshman year at Newtown High School. Wickman was hooked.

“I’m a fan of TV shows like ER,” she said. Since then Wickman has become a certified diver, an EMT in Southbury (trained by the Newtown Ambulance Corps) and a member of NUSAR (Newtown Underwater Search and Rescue).

For her 16th birthday last year, her parents, Dave and Peggy Wickman, surprised her with Fergus. He came from Lisa Slinsky, a breeder in Norwalk that the Wickmans meet through volunteering at the Maritime Aquarium. Her parents felt it would be a great match with her love of law enforcement.

“I was pretty surprised,” Wickman said with a grin.

“He doesn’t respond to Dave and me,” Peggy Wickman said. “There is such a bond between them. He’s been good for her because he teaches an appreciation for living things and has taught her to trust his instincts.”

His Modeling Career

 Fergus has been a favorite model of photographer Tara Darling and has appeared in books, magazines and in law enforcement product advertising. His next photo shoot involves wearing a Sherlock Holmes hat with a cigar in his mouth. To see more of Fergus, visit his website: http://www.geocities.com/bloodhound_sar/Ferguson.html

There you can see great photos of his Newtown Labor Day Parade appearance or you can e-mail Fergus (and his mom) from the site or at Fergussar313@aol.com.

“He’s the NUSAR mascot,” Wickman said. “They had us on the boat and people said to us after the parade, ‘we saw the bloodhound but we didn’t see the dive team.’”

Fergus, in his own quiet way, attracts attention wherever he goes and leaves his audience with a big smile.