Man’s best friends train for mountain rescue
Dedicated handlers unleash their dogs’ special talents for wilderness missions
OPAZ cocks her head. Her large ears are erect, taking in every sound as her eyes dart from Robyn Harflett’s face to the pocket of her khaki trousers and the protruding bells of her “special collar”.
The Belgian Shepherd’s lean body bristles with excitement as she barks at her owner to hurry her along. Topaz is ready to work.
In the dry veld that leads down to a dam shielded by gum trees, a volunteer K9 handler is hiding and if Topaz finds him, she will be rewarded with her favourite toy.
The dog charges off with her owner, but soon leaves her behind, zig-zagging through the knee-high grass with her head held high.
Topaz’s first sense is that of smell, but sight is just as useful in finding her prize. The K9 search and rescue dogs are skilled in tracing live bodies, so they home in on a channel of scent.
There is a good breeze, which the handlers say helps the search dogs, and Topaz moves confidently, diligently scouring the grassy area.
Harflett lags behind, but when Topaz finds the concealed person, she darts back. A short, sharp bark, as she dutifully sits in front of Harflett, tells her owner that she has made a find. Harflett anxiously follows the search dog to the spot.
The Gauteng K9 Search and Rescue Association (K9SARA) is made up of 14 volunteers, with seven qualified dogs. The civilian crew of handler and dog teams differ from the SAPS Canine Unit in that they learn to seek out warm bodies or the “fresh dead”, as Gauteng chairman John Traas coins it.
The unit was launched by Traas and Robyn Harflett in
T1998 when the Mountain Search and Rescue Club of SA spotted the potential to use dogs to find the missing.
The police dog unit often does not have the capacity that would allow it to spare the manpower or animals. As a result K9SARA has been involved in a number of field rescues and, more recently, disaster callouts.
The resources and equipment are supplied by the handlers. They receive a grant from the aeronautical rescue organisation, which falls under the Department of Transport, but otherwise the unit funds itself.
Traas says the biggest hurdle is that so few people know about the unit. Marketing it to the right people – hikers who may lose their way, for instance – is a challenge.
“People just don’t know we exist – we get most of our callouts through the Mountain Club of South Africa. It would be good if all hikers and adventure enthusiasts had our onecall number,” says Traas. The organisation tries to assemble every two weeks for a training session at an outdoor venue in and around Joburg.
In addition to wilderness and mountain training, the K9 dogs are skilled in disaster rescue and trained to detect bodies in water.
The demand for disaster rescue assistance has increased in recent months. The K9 association was on standby after the Nigerian tragedy, in which more than 100 people died when a church guest house collapsed.
Traas said the officials couldn’t get approval for the dogs to go soon enough and there was concern about Ebola.
Recently, the team recreated a disaster mission at the Brixton Fire Station, staging an earthquake or “ground zero” site. Large pieces of rubble provided places for adults to hide, so the dogs could seek them out. Old appliances, window frames and other genuine building debris litter the mound, offering an authentic experience.
Harflett, head trainer for the association, said the team held a 48-hour practice, setting up tents in which the owners and dogs slept. Every detail of a disaster site was replicated, including the dehydrated meals.
“It was a joint exercise between a number of organisa- tions, where we tried to simulate an international callout.”
Rissa Parker is a veterinarian who specialises in horses and has studied the reports made public after the September 11, 2001 attacks in the US.
“It gave the team a good idea of how dogs tolerate disaster sites. The US found the dogs inhaled powder from the cement rubble and toxins. They needed to be thoroughly washed down after their stints.”
Parker said the ideal shift for a search and rescue hound is 20 minutes. More than this could induce scent overload and exhaustion. The US dog teams worked over two weeks searching for bodies. Hundreds of units were called in from around the country.
Disaster recovery is distinct from wilderness searches in a number of ways. The dog is deployed without a collar, to avoid the chain or fabric from snagging on an obstacle and possibly choking the dog. The dog is also taught to stay with the warm body it finds and call its owner by barking loudly rather than return to summons him.
Wilder ness work can involve large expanses of mountainous and undeveloped land.
The dogs need to be fit and equipped for outdoor activities just as their owners must be.
Traas said the K9 club received a lot of calls from the mountain club’s rescue association. Sometimes the dogs were required to abseil down a cliff with their owners or be dropped from a chopper.
“It’s exciting, but dangerous. I worry so much about my dog’s safety that I’ve looked into getting a tracker fitted in case Lunga falls or hurts herself while we are in the mountains,” says Parker.
As the dogs are schooled in finding warm bodies, they are trained to be friendly.
Often the victim has survived a crime or has been injured or lost.
Unlike the dogs of the SAPS unit, who are “man-trained” to respond to potentially dangerous situations, the rescue dogs are compassionate in their approach. Warming up before a training session is important for the dogs. Parker helps Lunga balance on a water-weighted double Pilates ball to activate her hip flexors.
It is the handler’s responsi- bility to keep herself fit and the dog agile.
For the rescue unit, training the owner first in all aspects of handling dogs and dealing with search situations is vital.
Parker spent six months on probation, acting as a volunteer victim and learning scent techniques, before introducing her year-old dog to the unit.
Traas says the typical K9 dog owner is “a bit of a nutcase”.
The owners need to be extremely in tune with their hound’s needs and abilities and appreciate the traits of a working dog.
One of the wilderness requirements for a handler is that they will be able to carry their dog out of a situation if the need arises.
The handlers are on call 24/7 and, if dispatched, are required to carry all the water required for 48 hours for their dogs and themselves.
Map-reading skills, flanking methods and victim behaviour are taught to the handler over time.
They also need to know what to do when the person sought has died.
K9SARA stats show that a failed mission is the fault of a handler rather than the dog.
The dogs are guided by instinct and a drive to please their owners. Reward and affirmation play an important role in their motivation.
When Topaz leads Harflett to the volunteer lying in the veld, she sits proudly and seeks out her owner’s face with her keen brown eyes.
Harflett pulls out a ball attached to a long cord from her back pocket and tells Topaz how clever she is.
Her work done, Topaz wants to play.
Call 078 137 1073 for an emergency. For more details, visit www.k9sara.co.za.