Stuart and Chivas at
St. Mungo's
Chivas explores the hall
Chivas meeting some of the audience
Making sure no one gets lost!
A treat for a job well done
|
| | | Scottish Search and Rescue Dogs Association |
 Stuart
Hadden of SARDA, the Search and Rescue Dog Association spoke at
the Guild meeting on Monday 6 February 2012 about what the organisation
does and how he and his Border Collie dog Chivas became involved.
Stuart had
long been a member of the mountain rescue community when he dcided to
buy a dog and undergo the rigorous training to become a dog search and
rescue team.
Chivas is now 5 years old and into his prime as a
search and rescue dog, but as Stuart described they operate very much
as a team. "Chivas treats the search as a big game, like all the SARDA
dogs. Chivas likes the challenge of trying to find the person who
is lost, and or injured regardless if it is on a mountain, or on open
moorland. It is important when we do find the person that he receives his
reward of an energetic game, which is something that he always enjoys".
 On
call 24 hours a day 7 days a week, apart from holidays or training,
SARDA crews have to be ready to travel anywhere, usually when the
police call for
assistance. With members across Scotland, there are others across
England and Wales, Stuart has seen calls that have taken him into the
Cairngorms as well as into the Borders. "Training in important and
carried out regularly" said Stuart. The weekend before this talk he was
up in the Cairngorms. "Volunteers walk out into the countryside and lie
down in the grass or snow and wait to be found" continued Stuart.
 SARDA
dogs tend to work on airbourne scent rather than tracking scent. A
tracking dog may take the scent ffrom something the person owns or has
worn, but a dog can become confused when tracking as it may find the
path but set of going the way the person arrived, rather than the
direction they departed. also a track can easily be lost if the walker
walks on a tarmac road, or walks through a stream, something we all see
in films!
All humans give of an airbourne scent, and a dogs
scent receptors are about a million times more sensitive than the human
sense of smell. "Chivas will stick his head in the air to try and
locate the direction of the scent and follow that". said Stuart. "It
gets difficult where a person is buried below the surface, for instance
under an avalanche, where smell has difficulty reaching the surface. It
is really difficult if the person is under a slab of snow under the
soft snow surface"
 Chivas
is also a good air passenger. Just as well as the helicopter air sea
rescue may have to take the dog team up into the mountains to start a
search. "Unfortunately if a person is found the helicopter will take
the patient away for treatment and Chivas and I have to walk down the
mountain ourselves". said Stuart. We were shown Chivas's flight harness
which Stuart uses to lift him into the helicopter.
SARDA form an
important arm to mountain rescue and are ready to search for anyone
taking to the hills or moors should they get lost or suffer injury
while out an about. With people like Stuart and his dog Chivas around
we can all sleep easier knowing they are on call at all times.
Many thanks to Stuart and Chivas for taking the time to
speak to the Guild about this important arm of our search and recscue
teams.
Back to Top
| |
Home
| Services | Church Groups | Events | News
| History| Contact Us 
