Ares the K-9 rescue dog has a fan club and support base in the local community ever since his funding collared his training several years ago according to Dale Lawyer, Ares’ handler, “I convinced CES that we needed a search and rescue dog so I bought him and they supported me and sent us out for training and got certified in trailing and the next year we got him certified in avalanche then a year and a half after that we got him certified in cadaver or human remains detection and the year after that he got water certified, so he’s had a busy career and we’ve been really fortunate to have the support for local businesses like Cadre Feed and Twin City veterinary clinic, Soldotna Rotary, Gama Designs and a lot of individuals supporting us so we can have a rescue dog in our community,” said Lawyer.

Saturday, April 23rd the community again turned out to support Ares at a fundraising event held at Cadre Feed in Soldotna. Lisa Green organized the event and brought in other celebrities like Iditarod musher Paul Gephardt and bee keeper Jim Vanraden from Kasilof. “Ares is here to take care of us, so we planned an event to help take care of him and make his day an informative one for those interested in learning more,” said Green. “Ares was the first guy I wanted to see when I came here, he is very cool,” said Gephardt who just finished his 20th run of the world’s last great race, “The trail was fast and smooth this year but the lack of snow and cold weather made training really tough and we had to travel up to Willow and Glenallen to get it done and of course we haven’t even been able to run the Tusty 200 for the last three years and that was a great training run for us. But there are a lot of good dogs and mushers and good people on the Kenai Peninsula,” said Gephardt. While the mild winters have been hard for dog mushers on the Peninsula, bee keepers have been able to winter their hives through according to Jim Vanraden who was also at the event to show support and give information of bee keeping, “We were able to successfully winter outside this year with the warmer temperatures. The bees are out early this spring and are already bringing in pollen the last two weeks and some nectar coming in off the willows and we’re expecting a good season,” he said.

Those interested in learning more about bee keeping can get information at Cadre Feed in Soldotna. K-9 Ares and his handler are available for educational programs on what to do if people are lost. You can find them on Facebook at Ares Lawyer.