Several ground search and rescue (SAR) dogs and their handlers from across B.C. will be testing their mettle this Saturday in Wilson Creek.
“I thought it was kind of cool to have so many dogs,” said organizer and Sunshine Coast ground SAR member Joyce Tattersall. “Usually we don’t have that. For six months we’re pretty much on our own.”
The volunteer training exercise will bring approximately seven dogs to the Coast for the weekend, with field exercises taking place Aug. 24. Some of the dogs attending the practice are training to be qualified search and rescue dogs, while others have already been certified. The dogs and puppies and their handlers will be arriving from Vancouver Island, Powell River, Kamloops and Surrey.
Tattersall’s five-year-old Belgian Malinois named Echo will be among those practising a few kilometres up the Forest Service Road to Dakota Ridge, mainly in the bush and off the trails. Signs will be erected to alert people in the area.
Obedience and other training will take place in the morning at Tattersal’s kennel in Langdale, followed by training in Wilson Creek, where Tattersal will have hidden articles of clothing for the dogs to search out, including items that dogs may not be used to. There will also be opportunities for the dogs to practise their “bark alerts,” which the dogs use to signify they’ve found something.
Only 13 dogs in the province are certified for search and rescue, which is what makes Saturday’s event special, said Tattersal, since outside of the bi-annual training camps where dogs are tested and validated by the RCMP, handlers rarely get the chance to train together.
The training and certification requirements are rigorous. Tattersal trains weekly. This weekend, Tattersal and Echo were deployed to search for a man who had been missing since Wednesday and who was last seen in Gibsons. They found him.
“It ends up being family,” said Tattersal of the tight-knit group of trainers and their dogs. “We recognize each other, you just get to know the different handlers.”
The next validation date is scheduled for September.
