AN EAST Lancashire mountain rescue team has welcomed its newest member.
Bowland Pennine Mountain Rescue, which covers a large section of Lancashire including Chorley and the Ribble Valley, now has one of only two scent discrimination dogs in the country.
Welsh Collie Mij has been trained to be able to tell one human scent from another and, once on the trail, track it right to its source.
Mij and handler Iain Nicholson already have a great success rate and are in great demand by other rescue teams around the region.
Iain said: “Every one of us has a unique body odour whether we like it or not. As we walk along we shed thousand of microscopic skin cells much like talcum powder. As these cells fall to the ground they are blown by the wind into drifts much like snow particles are. When Mij is shown an item of clothing from a particular individual, she can follow the trail despite the possible distractions of other human odours.”
Recently the pair were dispatched by Bowland Pennine’s search managers to the outskirts of Oakenclough in The Trough of Bowland where after a short search located the lady with mental health issues, returning her to the safety of her family.
They also helped to find a confused elderly lady who walked out of her house in Garstang in the middle of the night wearing only her nightie and slippers.
On another occasion when Cumbria police had found a missing person’s car at The Kirkstone Pass car park, Iain and Mij were able to direct searchers towards a cliff face where they sadly found the man’s body. Without their help the forty five minute search could have taken a couple of days.
A separate organisation-under the umbrella of Mountain Rescue -called SARDA (Search and Rescue Dog Association) trains the dog teams recruited from the membership of the individual rescue teams.