Meet the park ranger, dog credited with saving missing hiker in Santa Cruz Mountains

SANTA CRUZ COUNTY, Calif. (KGO) — State Park Ranger Brett Weber and his K-9 Rino were the first team to find a missing at-risk hiker who had been lost in the Santa Cruz Mountains for 10 days last week.

National Park Ranger Brett Weber has to take his dog to work. Rino is a police officer and a tracking dog.

“Working with a dog is the best, especially I think doing tracking and proximity alerts is probably my favorite thing to do with a dog because it's so – dogs are good at observing human behavior, but humans aren't always good at observing dog behavior,” Weber said.

Last week, Rino's senses led search and rescue teams directly to a missing at-risk hiker.

VIDEO: Missing hiker found alive after spending 10 days in Santa Cruz Mountains

The Santa Cruz County Sheriff's Office said Lukas McClish had been lost for 10 days in the Santa Cruz Mountains.

Last Thursday, the sheriff's office launched drones to determine the whereabouts of the 34-year-old man.

We spoke with Public Information Officer Ashley Keehn.

“Eventually the drone ended up in the Forman Creek area and we heard someone yelling that the drone was right over their position,” Keehn said.

Thinking of a general area, Weber said he held the leash and followed Rino.

“We had a very steep hill on our right, which Rino wanted to stop at several times, and in training we always say to trust your dog. And so I said if he wanted to s “I'm going to trust him on that,” Weber said.

All that training and trust paid off: Rino was the first to reach McClish.

“Seeing him, it was like — this is awesome, like we’re going to get him out of here,” Weber said.

Weber said McClish was in an area that had been burned by the CZU Fire, so newer, denser vegetation was difficult.

“Because instead of an open awning, there's a lot of stuff that goes from knee height all the way up past your head. It's very thick and hard to get through, hard to see. Very disorienting ” Weber said.

Weber gave the tired but grateful hiker his shirt.

And when we asked Weber how it felt to have him back, he was quick to say their role was minimal.

“We played a very minor role. There were a lot of people there. Everyone from the sheriff's office to CAL FIRE – they even had inmate teams that were there with us too. It's very emotional to see so many people come together and to see the family reunited at the end, and like I said – Lukas really saved himself. If he hadn't been there that long and he wasn't still strong enough to scream for help or call for help, he would have at least stayed there a lot longer,” Weber said.