Dogs that lead the way in mountain rescue

[Daryl]

Dogs that lead the way in mountain rescue Retrieved from http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/news/display.var.2122570.0.Dogs_that_lead_the_way_in_mountain_rescue.php

Their shoulders stiffen and their noses go up in the air. This canine response to human scent on the wind has meant the difference between life and death for hundreds of people over the past 40 years - climbers, hill walkers or just people who got lost.

So the tens of thousands heading to Scotland's hills this morning should spare a thought for five people in Glencoe whose dogs are being examined to see whether they can join the call-out list of the Search and Rescue Dog Association Scotland (Sarda).

Volunteers will be dispatched to the slopes of Buachaille Etive Mor and near the White Corries ski runs. The dogs have to find them and alert handlers.

Novices are expected to stay with the lost party, but those seeking full qualifications will have to go back to the handler and lead them to their find. At present there are 23 dogs (20 full and three novice) who can be called out to a search the length and breadth of Scotland. Indeed, two handlers and their dogs had to leave the gathering at Kingshouse yesterday morning to join a search in the Cairngorms.

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By tomorrow afternoon, Sarda hopes to have 23 full search dogs and two novices.

In 2005, Sarda Scotland was called out 74 times, which meant 217 dog days concluding in five finds. This, for an entirely volunteer organisation, is quite an effort.

"It is a constant struggle to raise money," said Moira Weatherstone, Sarda's secretary. "It costs more than £3000 to equip a dog handler with radio, GPS, avalanche transceiver, protective clothing. We also have training meetings every six weeks."

A trainee accountant with Argyll and Bute Council from Lochgoilhead, Ms Weatherstone got her first dog 18 years ago when she joined Arrochar Mountain Rescue Service.

Her husband, Ken, is also in Sarda, but they try not to work together on searches in case their familiarity interferes with the dog/handler relationship. Hamish Thomson, an IT officer with Angus Council and a member of Tayside Mountain Rescue Team, meanwhile, was introducing four-month-old Brandy, a red merle collie, to Sarda.

He has had a rescue dog for 12 years. "Obviously if the person is dead, it is very sad, but it does the family some closure," he said. "That happened to me just a month or so ago near Achnashellach. But I have also found an old lady near Blairgowrie and two people out on Ben Wyvis who were alive."

He said the one constant was the obvious enjoyment of the dogs. "They love it, but I think they do know they are doing something important." The use of dogs for search and rescue is nothing new, as records from 17th century Switzerland show, but Sarda was founded in 1965 as more and more people were taking to the hills.

Its founding father was renowned climber Hamish MacInnes. Yesterday, he spoke with pride of his creation: "I think the progress they have made in recent years has been terrific. I first became interested in the use of dogs living in Austria in the 1950s. One of my colleagues was a mountain guide who had a dog which he used for searching in avalanches. I got a dog when I came back here but didn't have a clue about training."

He went out to Switzerland in 1964 and studied rescue techniques. The following year he held his own course in Glencoe. One person on the course was Kenny MacKenzie, at that time a policeman in Kinlochleven and of Lochaber Mountain Rescue Team.

Now retired on the Black Isle, he said: "Hamish showed us the methods he had learnt in the Alps. Then we had a meeting on May 28, 1965, at Hamish's house in Glencoe. That's when we decided to form an association. It was the first in the UK."



How boy of three was found under bushes

ONE of the Search and Rescue Dog Association's most celebrated success stories came in October 2000 when a three-year-old who had been missing for 16 hours in a Highland forest was found sleeping under bushes.

Cameron Munro was found after an air-and-land search of a remote beauty spot called the Falls of Shin near Dornoch, Sutherland. He was missing overnight in cold conditions in an area replete with fast-flowing rivers, thick woods and boggy moorland.

Dave Riley, the Sarda member who found him, made the discovery after his dog, Rosie, a 10-year-old cross-collie, led her handler to what was described as a makeshift den.

He attempted to put the boy at ease by getting him to tell the dog, who was by then barking ecstatically, to be quiet.

He said at the time that young Cameron was his first "live" find, his previous searches having ended with the discovery of a body.

The toddler, who had wandered into the woods while his mother was putting his sister into the car, was taken to a hospital in Inverness but was soon discharged.