Search & Rescue Dogs

This landscape has remained unchanged for years.

It’s away from the well-trodden hikers’ tracks and too craggy to farm. But it’s perfect for testing the tracking skills of Duddon and Furness Mountain Rescue Team’s newest recruit.

Upon the call of “Way find” Skye darts off through the bracken. Seconds later her silhouette appears dramatically on a rocky outcrop.

With firm encouragement from her handler John Leadbetter the collie weaves through the undergrowth searching for the ‘casualties’.

From a vantage point on Stickle Pike in the Duddon Valley, search dog handler Les Telford talks us through the process.

He explains the “Way find – Indicate – Return – Show me” sequence Skye and John are demonstrating.

Skye is using scent to track the bodies hidden on the fellside. Her demeanour changes as soon as she makes her find.

A single bark announces to John that she’s been successful.

She then returns to John further down the valley and with her handler close on her tail makes a beeline to where the body is located.

Her reward is the toy hidden in team member Cynthia Crawshaw’s pocket.

“A good search dog is a dog that enjoys hunting,” explains Les.

“If it doesn’t enjoy doing it, it won’t do it well. As you can see they’re eager to do it; they’ve got to have stamina and be able to work through the night.

“They’ve got to be tough enough to withstand harsh conditions. That’s why we use collies, because it’s their breeding to work and work.”

Skye belongs to an elite group of 16 dogs trained to sniff out casualties across the Lake District.

This young collie recently passed a demanding two-year training process, being put through her paces by SARDA (Search and Rescue Dog Association).

Similarly trained dogs saved eight people in 2008 through 59 call-outs.

Their sniffing skills are crucial in giving the mountain rescue service the best possible chance of finding a casualty on the fells.

“To have a dog is a great asset to the team, purely because of the way now we can search,” explains John, 36, a senior project engineer at Oil States MCS Ltd in Barrow.

“She can cover more ground than team members can.

“The team leader knows I can go with maybe one person with me to navigate and clear one section of fell side while utilising team members on another area of fell side.”

One dog can do the work of 20 people on the fell.

A search dog relies almost entirely on smell and can cover a huge area of ground, unhampered by failing light or difficult ground.

Les explains: “John will send the dog 100m one way and 100m the other way to cover a strip, 200m wide. And they do it without complaining as well.

“People often assume it’s the dog that does the finding and that certainly isn’t the case.

“A big search area is going to be divided into lots of small areas. If you can put a dog in one area it enables you to move into the next area quickly.

“There’s still a chance it will be a human who finds but that doesn’t matter because it’s all about the teamwork and that gives you a chance to speed things up.

“There’s a chance John can go through his entire career and the dog will never find a body, but doing the work and coming out and seeing there’s no-one there is important in the grand scheme of things.”

Les has been working with his dog Kess since 2003, during which time she’s had four finds.

So far in 2009 SARDA Lakes search dogs have attended 10 call-outs, resulting in six people being located by search dogs.

Two hypothermic casualties found in severe winter conditions on Skiddaw and Crinkle Crags earlier this year owe their lives to search dogs Mac and Beinn.

Not to mention the debt they owe their handlers, whose expertise and dedication the team relies upon.

SARDA dog handlers are all volunteers, and members of a mountain rescue team before they can apply to train a dog.

Following a 999 call John could be deployed as a Duddon and Furness MRT member to search an area from Waberthwaite to Newby Bridge or respond as a dog handler anywhere in Cumbria.

The handlers and their dogs are often airlifted to dangerous mountain areas in winter conditions, so winter mountain skills and navigation are crucial.

“On the whole call-outs are at weekends,” explains Les, a freelance translator.

“As far as dog searches are concerned most are at night, which means you lose out on sleep but you don’t lose out on work.

“You need some very understanding employers or accept you can’t go on certain call-outs.

“There are occasions when I’ve been out all night, come in and had one or two hours’ sleep which means ultimately I’ve lost some money – but no-one’s forcing me to do this and that’s a side of things I’ve accepted.”

Having spent half his life as a MRT member John obviously recognised the huge commitment involved.

He explains how he made the transition from ‘dogsbody’ to handler. “I liked working with the handlers on call-outs so decided to help them on training weekends and evenings by becoming a dogsbody,” says John, of Windermere.

“A dogsbody is someone who willingly will help train the search dogs by laying on a fell side as part of a search area waiting to be found. I continued being a SARDA body for six years. Handlers used to ask me when I was getting a dog. I used to tell them, when the time was right, because it needs great time and commitment to train a search dog.

“We got Skye three years ago and I knew we wanted her as a search and rescue dog.

“Your (MR) team are like a family to you but we’ve got another, closer one, which are the dog handlers. You get this unique, real close-knit feeling which I wanted to be part of.”