The Cassidy Memorial (Aspen Mountain)
Cassidy was a search and rescue K-9 who was born on June 16, 1991 and died on November 11, 2007. A photo of Cassidy is attached to a tree near the Jerry Garcia Shrine on Aspen Mountain. ("Cassidy" is a Grateful Dead song.) Below the photo the following appears: "Thanks for all of the great adventures. Always smiling...Just this side of heaven is a place called Rainbow Bridge. We will see you there." Cassidy and Carla Wheeler were a team; see Carla's Facebook page here: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1794451827. Many thanks to Carla Wheeler for sending the author this information about Cassidy:
Cassidy was born the 7th of 11 pups in D.C. I thought that was lucky being sight-unseen to pick her. Me, being a Dead Head, chose what I thought was the coolest of names from a Grateful Dead set-list, with the help of another Dead Head, Megan. (See: http://www.lyricsfreak.com/g/grateful+dead/cassidy_20062422.html.) One night Cassidy ran off and was missing for 17 hours; at that point I decided to make her a search and rescue K9. While being a standard poodle, Cassidy had the battle of being judged as a "Fee-fee" from the get go. Then, there's me, blonde. Blonde and a poodle from Aspen doing search and rescue work; Ha Ha! But, we went along humble and quiet and kicked ass. Everywhere we went people asked, "What kind of dog is that?" We trained all over North America. In Colorado we first went to Ted Bennett, Snowmass Ski Patrol, and Steve Crockett, Emergency Coordinator for Pitkin County. Then we joined SARDOC (Search and Rescue Dogs of Colorado), which required that I join a people team: Mountain Rescue Aspen. The journey begins. Her specialty was trailing but she also air scented, and then branched out to water, cadaver and disaster, with an overlay on urban tracking/trailing. We had missions here in Aspen, Indianapolis, Mt. Hood, Lake Powell, Paonia Reservoir, and on Mt. Holy Cross. She was very special. Once we left her by Highway 82 and went to see a Widespread Panic concert. Oops! She air-scented us to withing 20 feet of where we were parked, and was sitting there by a security officer! Amazing. She flew in helicopters, fixed wing (both private and commercial), trains, snowmobiles, snow cats, and boats. It was always nice getting compliments on Cassidey from some amazing people in the search and rescue business. Andy Rebmann, the first cadaver K9 handler in the U.S. was blown away by her. Mongo, snow safety at Snowbird, was very impressed with her. Brad Benson and Aspen Ski Patrol Airedale Snowden were our best friends. We always had each other to bury if nobody else would do it. Day or night, we trained. So many hours go into training. We did demonstrations for patrols at Red Lodge, MT and did clinics and demonstrations at Crested Butte, Alta, Snowbird, Alyeska, Big Mountain, Big Sky, Copper, Silverton, Aspen, Jackson Hole, lake Louise and Steamboat.
Two photos of this memorial are below.
If you have any photos of or information about this item that you would like to share for use on this page, please send to the author at AspenShrines@aol.com.
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Click on images to enlarge.
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Here is a photo of Carla and Cassidy:
