2 May 2011

Dogs To The (Mountain) Rescue

Teesdale & Weardale Search & Mountain Rescue Team now have two additional team members, search dogs Sam and Fern.

Graeme, Sam, Karen & Fern

Photo: TWSMRT:

The dogs and their handlers Karen Fisher from East Hedleyhope and Graeme White from Shildon have both successfully completed a two year training and assessment programme organised by The Search & Rescue Dog Association (SARDA).

The difference between mountain rescue search dogs and other search dogs is that mountain dogs search for a human air scent where other dogs tend to track an individual's scent along the ground.

In ideal conditions the dogs can pick up this scent up to 1/2km from the casualty.

Karen has been training Sam, a rescued dog from Battersea Dogs Home, since 2008 passing various assessments before spending 3 days in the Lake District in the middle of the coldest spell of weather for some years on their final assessment.

Full Time Challenge

Karen said "Training a Sarda dog is a full time challenge, yes you meet up twice a week locally to train and go on national courses, but a dog needs 24/7 consistent training.

"A dog is very ‘black and white’ in how they learn. For example it’s no good training a dog 20 minutes every night obedience covering elements such as walking to heel if the other 23 hours and 40 minutes of the day you let the dog to pull on a leader."

Graeme said "The initial training includes obedience and a stock test involving putting the dogs in a pen of sheep where they must ignore the sheep. This can be difficult especially for young dogs.

"Farmers must be 100% confident that SARDA trained dogs will not disturb their flocks while searching. Our final assessment was physically and mentally demanding for both Fern and myself. We needed to search 6 large areas of the Lakeland Fells over 3 days, locate any casualties and be sure the area was clear when we had finished". Senior SARDA Assessor, Des Toward, coordinator for the North East said "This is a great achievement for Karen and Graeme.

Only 50% of dogs and handlers who set out on this training achieve search dog status. They now join a relatively small group of less than a dozen operational dogs available for searches in the North East of England".