Night and Day

These are a few photos taken whilst on a live search, We did a night search followed by a return search during the following day. This search was highly advertised in the area and on the television. At night we rely on the dogs who will be wearing strobe lights and bells and on good torches and personal lighting and High visibility tops.
During the day we still need to wear Hi vis and as you can see ours are actually load vests which enable us to carry quite a lot of equipment in all the pockets as well as keeping us seen and telling the public who we are. The dogs can get wet dirty and as you can see in this case covered in Burrs, meaning a brief stop to clear her and make her more comfortable.

Alphapet Veterinary Practice

I am going to start this post by saying, I have just come off a night shift and need sleep!
Today Lu and myself together with retired search dog Skye went to receive a cheque from AlphaPet Veterinary Practice in West Meads.
They had put on a dog fun day earlier in the year with all money raised being split equally between two charities, ourselves, Search Dogs Sussex and Hearing Dogs for Deaf People.
Lu and I received the cheque on behalf of the team. Both of the cheques in the above photo were for £1220.79. so their show must have been a fantastic event. We thank them very much for choosing our charity to support.

Camping!

We are often called out to search for someone who may be in a tent,so today we put up a tent in the woods to get the dogs thinking about this. It was also quite interesting to notice how the dogs found the scent, which was not the same as someone who was not in a tent!
I did have to explain myself to an elderly couple who were out walking their dog though, as they were worried about walking past me in the tent.
When one of the Search dogs (Who shall remain nameless) found me, they leapt onto the tent, and subsequently me! So anyone who is thinking of going camping with one of our team members....make sure he leaves his dog behind!

Conference

This weekend I found myself in Newport Pagnell for the 2017 Lowland Rescue Conference. I had no idea what to expect but decided that if I just met other LR members it would be worth the trip!

It was a lot more than that! There were sessions on all aspects of the role, from Water training, through Rescue Drones onto Cadaver dogs and Radio comms. Besides all the sessions and input, there was plenty of time to meet team members from around the country, making new friends and eating some very nice food. There were stalls set up in the coffee area where we could buy clothing and equipment and also see what sort of kit there is that we might like to use.

All in all an excellent weekend, subsidised by Lowland Rescue.

Cheque this out!

Today our Team was presented with a cheque for £479.68 from our photographer friend Archie. We do a lot of fundraising for our team and there are a lot of people who support our work.
Thank you Archie.

I am a Dementia Friend.

During our indoor training tonight we undertook Dementia Awareness training, many of our Missing persons are living with Dementia and knowing more about it helps us to plan how best we might go about finding them when we are called to search. Valuable training and an interesting insight.

Woolbedding Show

Today Search Dogs Sussex went to the Woolbedding Dog Show, which was set in a very big grassy field. Our team did a stand which offered people the chance of having a go at search and rescue with their own dog in a fun fenced off area.  As well as the stand some of the team took part in the arena dog show classes with their dog, two of the team dogs, Millie and Rowan won rosettes in their chosen classes. Well done them! There is a bit of banter within the team, those who have Collies tease the Spaniel owners and vice versa, being a Collie owner I just had to take a photo of one of our Spaniel owners handling a member of the public's Collie, and have posted the photo just for fun.

Shows are a great way of letting people see who we are and what we do, as well as fund raising and adding to our team members.