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\u201cIt\u2019s super cool and I\u2019m super excited and honored that \u2018SEARCHDOG\u2019 will be on Rhode Island PBS so that Rhode Island audiences can know the real story of Ruby\u2019s beginnings with Matt Zarella rescuing her, alongside Joe Warzycha from the Rhode Island SPCA,\u201d said Healey Jamiel. \u201cOften in Hollywood, the stories have to be more simply told, and I respect and appreciate that, but what I think Rhode Islanders will really appreciate is how much it took to rescue Ruby and how much effort that our local shelter and Matt Zarella put into her becoming a hero dog.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The process of making the film took approximately five and a half years. Healey Jamiel first started work on \u201cSEARCHDOG\u201d in April 2010, and began filming that August, when she was called to her first search and rescue mission \u2013 a search for a little boy who went missing in Woonsocket, who was found safe and returned to his family thanks to the dogs. Healey Jamiel was on-call with the team for about four years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The life of a search and rescue K-9 team is grueling, unpredictable and often traumatizing, but it can also be incredibly rewarding. When a dog locates a missing person or human remains, it brings relief and a sense of closure for their loved ones. The training is difficult and the handlers have to work hard to keep the dogs happy even when the work is devastating. Healey Jamiel took on the gargantuan task of putting that on film, cutting years of work into 84 minutes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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\u201cIt was a very good lesson for me,\u201d she said. \u201cI had to translate that story for the average viewer and give them a sense of the pressure, the stress, the commitment that these handlers feel along with their commitment to their dogs. It was a real challenge, but a satisfying one.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The call for a mission could come at any time \u2013 days, nights, holidays, weekends, vacations \u2013 and Healey Jamiel had to be ready to drop what she was doing at a moment\u2019s notice in order to go and join the team, camera in hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cBeing on call was an interesting challenge. At first I felt like I was on Mars – in a different county, didn\u2019t speak the language, with only the vaguest, most superficial notions of what the work was. But it was great.\u201d she said. \u201cMy students were very understanding, as I was often called away from my classroom or away from a meeting or away from a family gathering. It gave me the real inside experience of these K-9 handlers, because they\u2019re on call 24\/7.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Fresh off of working on \u201cHoly Water-Gate,\u201d a documentary that investigated the cover-up of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, she was looking to focus on something a little bit lighter for her next film. She was initially inspired by her own husky, who, while \u201cnot at all like an obedient search dog,\u201d was quite smart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI wanted to be inspired,\u201d she said, \u201cdogs really are inspiring, and the people who work with them are really inspiring. They have an incredible commitment and patience, far more patience than I will ever have in my lifetime.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While the work that the dogs and their handlers do is indeed inspiring, Jamiel Healey found assuming their work was not traumatic to be unrealistic. At the advice of fellow 溏心vlog免费B站 professor Lynne Derbyshire, Healey Jamiel sought therapy while working on the film.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI was a little bit naive. If I had really thought about search and rescue and the reason for it, why these dogs do what they do \u2013 it\u2019s because of serious and awful things,\u201d she said. \u201cI had to learn how to process seeing things that most civilians wouldn\u2019t see, but that these officers see all the time. What I learned in this world was that the search and rescue folks, what they see in a week or a month, would scar most of us for a lifetime.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Healey Jamiel developed good relationships with Zarella and his K-9 handler trainees. The process of training a search dog is a long one that requires time, dedication and, most of all, patience. The class that she filmed included three state troopers from Maine and their dogs, as well as Ruby and her handler, Trooper Daniel O\u2019Neil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In journalism and filmmaking, it\u2019s important to set and keep boundaries between yourself and the people you\u2019re covering. It\u2019s a bit more difficult to do that with a dog, Healey Jamiel explained.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThose boundaries are strong and they\u2019re so important because that\u2019s where trust happens, in honest professionalism,\u201d she said, \u201cbut with these dogs I was a complete fool. They just love when you are being who you are, and I didn\u2019t have any boundaries with them, so emotionally I got way too attached to them.\u201d
Two of the dogs prominently featured in the film, Maximus (who Zarella took to Vietnam to search for the remains of missing soldiers) and Ruby, have sadly both passed away; Maximus in 2011 and Ruby very recently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Although filming wrapped nearly seven years ago, Healey Jamiel has remained in touch with the officers she worked with. After Ruby passed away, she and Zarella\u2019s family met for dinner to celebrate Ruby\u2019s life. She also stays in touch with the Maine troopers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Healey Jamiel had many of her 溏心vlog免费B站 Harrington School students work with her during filming and post-production, including on festival releases which garnered multiple awards and prestigious invitations around the country and led to the film\u2019s release to Apple and Amazon in 2018. As both a filmmaker and a teacher, she wants people watching the film to understand the tremendous effort and personal risk that goes into search and rescue for K-9s and their handlers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe process of making this film has taught me how we each need to take some measure of personal responsibility for our own safety,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt sounds a little preachy, but one simple thing you can do if you are going hiking, boating or camping, for example, is just be aware and take a little extra time to prepare. 20 minutes or 20 seconds of preparation\u2013 studying a map, preparing your sack, making sure you take everything you\u2019ll need \u2013 can save your life and help you avoid putting others at risk if you become lost or missing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Mary Lind, a graduate student working for 溏心vlog免费B站\u2019s Department of Marketing and Communications, wrote this release.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" KINGSTON \u2013 July 22, 2022 \u2013 \u201cSEARCHDOG,\u201d a feature documentary by 溏心vlog免费B站 Professor Mary Healey Jamiel and Executive Producer Elaine Rogers, will have its Rhode Island broadcast premiere on Rhode Island PBS Friday, July 22, at 8 p.m. It will also be airing on Saturday, July 23, at 12 p.m. and 11 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":80313,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80312","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80312","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80312"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80312\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":80340,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80312\/revisions\/80340"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/80313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}