She is a three-year-old Bloodhound named Becka and already her list of heroic acts are piling up. Corporal Josh Pressley of the Banks County Sheriff’s Office teams with this tail wagging wonder to save lives and solve cases.
Search and Rescue
“Search and Rescue (SAR) K9 handling and man-trailing is one of the most rewarding and most difficult specialties in public safety,” Cpl. Pressley said. “We have deployed in every county around Banks and as far away as the city of Monroe to our south and Oconee County, South Carolina, to our north.”
Just this past weekend, Becka and Pressley assisted the Cornelia Police Department. “We are fortunate to have the ability to call on Becka and Cpl. Pressley of the Banks County Sheriff’s Office for assistance,” said Cornelia Police Department Major Kevin Marsteller.
Pressley and Becka have been together since she was 10 months old. Pressley said that Becka lives with him and is the first K9 that he has been assigned to handle.
As a Scent Evidence K9 Master Handler, Pressley trains with the Georgia Bloodhound Team. He and Becka have worked together to find many missing person recoveries and suspect locations.
Training
Pressley talks about Becka as a true partner and with great admiration. One of the most memorable trails for Pressley was a time when they were called to an abandoned vehicle in Banks County. The vehicle had wrecked on the shoulder of Hwy 441 but the driver was missing and believed to be having a medical emergency.
Pressley explained that Becka collected the odor of the person from the wrecked automobile and started trailing.
“Becka trailed through the woods, across two fields, and into a second wooded area before she located the driver alive. That trail was nearly two miles,” he said.
When Becka locates an individual she has been asked to find, she gives an alert by sitting at their feet with her tail wagging.
Pressley and Becka train with other K9 teams from all over the state to make certain when needed they are ready to help the citizens of Banks County and the surrounding areas.
