Meet our Teams: SARDA Scotland
Meet our Teams: SARDA Scotland
There are many people who are thankful of the work Mountain Rescue Teams do each year to protect, rescue and reunite those not so lucky.
Behind the scenes of these people are the families, missed meals and bemused pets.
There are however a very small number of family pets who are not bemused by a 3am call. They know it’s time to shine – waiting patiently with a wagging tail at the door with that, “You’re not leaving without me!” expression.
There are currently nineteen handlers, eight trainees and numerous dogs bodies involved in training SARDA Scotland Search Dogs.
Handlers are typically long standing members of their parent Mountain Rescue Teams from all over Scotland who have come to realise that they can give a little bit more.
The dogs and handlers attend organised training once a month along with local training and thereafter an annual assessment course. Members can be called out to anywhere in Scotland and also to provide support for SARDA Southern Scotland. We have also been called to the Lakes.
Dog handlers over the years have been used to having a car boot or van stuffed full of kit including sleeping bags, dog food etc and leave home with the parting words ‘I’ll see you when I see you’.
“Dogs smell humans stink”. It was Hamish MacInnes that started it all in Britain. Bringing the idea from the Alps, where dogs were used to search for people lost in avalanches. Many dogs and handlers have been and gone over the years all of whom have left something a little special and moulded the team into what it is today.
Our dogs are primarily trained to air scent and will indicate on a non-specific human smell. It doesn’t matter to a dog, if it’s dark or if there is poor visibility, their nose works just the same. Scent will move anywhere that air can move, and the dogs only need small amounts of “human” to trace its source.
The fact that our dogs are trained to find any human, means that we don’t have to wait for specific scent samples, but it also means that you might be found by a search dog when you’re having your sandwich out on the hill. If a dog with a jacket or harness on comes to you and barks, then either stays or disappears to find its handler, it’s probably ok. Wait a while and give the handler a break.
One dog handler, having found a young child hiding in a hay shed, feared that the child would be scared to come down if he saw the big black dog. He decided to have a conversation with the dog and it wasn’t long before the child appeared from the top of the bales.
As well as attending Mountain Rescue Team training, the handlers support Scottish Mountain Rescue in the delivery of Avalanche Courses and also have to ensure that their dogs can travel by various means, including by helicopter, for rapid transport to an avalanche incident, or getting personnel off the hill.
We don’t have as base we have a van. Our first one replaced an old trailer and was purchased 8 years ago. It was partly funded by the Order of St John. It is used to support our training and large scale call-outs. In order to accommodate all our needs, it has recently been replaced through fundraising efforts to a slightly larger model. We are lucky enough to have that extra set of paws and there’s always a biscuit for the dog when it comes to fundraising talks.
The dogs and handlers can be deployed in all open areas, woodland and mountains as an asset to the search. Mountain Rescue Teams can request dogs either by contacting the callout officer or through Police Scotland. The dogs love it, it gives them chance to do what they are born to do. What a place the world would be if we all liked our job as much as a search dog does.