On Saturday, November 18, SARDA Ireland will likely be holding their annual flag day in Jetland Shopping Centre, in Limerick metropolis.
SARDA (Search and Rescue Dog Association) is a voluntary emergency search and rescue organisation involved with the coaching, evaluation and deployment of Air Scenting Search and Rescue Dogs to seek for lacking individuals.
Audrey McNicholas, Public Relations Officer at SARDA Ireland, defined: “If someone likes dogs is more than welcome to come and meet us, if somebody is interested in becoming a member, if you just don’t know what we do and want to know more about us, you can come and have a visit. And for us it’s a fundraising event because we’re a charity.”
Audrey stated that the money raised will likely be used, amongst different issues, for the costly tools wanted by each dogs and handlers.
She stated: “We do get funding for some items from the government, but a lot of our money comes from donations from the public. Insurance costs a lot, the upkeeping of vehicles costs a lot, the equipment. It’s not cheap to actually gets somebody qualified. So every penny helps with us.”
Audrey defined that the dogs at SARDA are an especially useful gizmo for Mountain Rescue Ireland and for Gardaí.
“Any search we go on we help. We clear areas, so you can be sure that when a dog searches an area you know that it’s clear, that there’s nobody there. And that’s the majority of our work, we clear areas so that the guards or searchers don’t have to go into that area. The dog would cover as much ground as about 10/15 people. And the other thing with the dog is the dog works in fog, in the darkness, as the dog would pick up on the scent of a person,” she stated.
Audrey continued that dogs stay their lives as regular pets, however each time there’s a lacking person SARDA Ireland get known as and “we send whatever handler is closest and if it’s a case they need one dog or they need five dogs, we’ll provide as many dogs as we can.
“So any of our members, any of our dog handlers, are actually just normal people, they go on about their daily work, be it as a farmer, be it as an office administrator, we have one or two doctors. So people basically get the call, if they can go in an hour, if they can go straight away, they’ll answer the call to say they can go and make their way to whatever area they’re needed.”
SARDA Ireland at the moment has 11 certified dogs and over ten extra at completely different levels of coaching.
Audrey, whose canine is an Air Scenting Search and Rescue Dog herself, stated that for pets this can be a nice sport: “She’s my pet, she’s here and she’s like any other pet, she’s up on the couch watching TV with me, she goes for a walk, the majority of the time she’s just a dog.
“But then there’s when we go training, and for them it’s just a big game, and they absolutely love it. She gets awfully excited when she sees me putting on my gear. So she feed off my energy and she knows where we’re going and what we’re doing.”
However, coaching isn’t simple as new members and their dogs must go a variety of checks and it may take as much as three years to be certified.
“It takes between two and a half and three years to actually get a dog qualified. It’s not the case of turning up and it happens within five months or a year, it’s a big undertaking to actually join the organisation, because it does take a lot of work,” Audrey defined.
SARDA Ireland organised a flag day in Limerick
She continued that first, those that apply to hitch must do a minimal of six months of what SARDA name ‘dog’s physique’.
Audrey defined how necessary this determine is: “Basically a dog’s body is somebody who lies out on the hills when we’re training, and the dog finds him. And without the dog’s bodies we wouldn’t have somebody missing for the dog to actually go and find.
“You do your time on the hill as a dog’s body, and you learn from the perspective of the missing person. So the dog would come in, find me, and then would go off, find the handler and guide the handler to the missing person. So you see what’s that like.
“Once you’ve done your six months at national training doing the dog’s body, then you’re invited along with your dog. But at the same time in that six months you’re working with your obedience with your dog, because it doesn’t happen overnight. You’re working on your obedience, and then you’re going to local training.”
Then, the dogs must go a variety of checks earlier than being certified as an Air Scenting Search and Rescue Dog and earlier than they and their homeowners can discover ways to seek for lacking individuals in larger and greater areas. Among the checks, they must go an obedience take a look at and the ‘stock test’.
Audrey stated: “Their first assessment is their stock test and their obedience test. So their obedience test would come first, where they have to do various different things like walking to heel, down and stay.
SARDA Ireland organised a flag day in Limerick
“And then once they pass that part they go onto their stock test – to see if they’re fit to go on hills with sheep – that’s when they go to a farm with sheep in it, and if the dog has any interest in the sheep, unfortunately they won’t go forward. Because can you imagine, our dogs are air scenting dogs, and they are working independently of the handlers, so they are not on a lead, they are roaming free, zig zagging, and following the commands of the handler.
“So if they come across a sheep or a deer, or anything like that, we have to be sure they are not going to follow that animal, that they are just going to work on finding the person and not the animal.”
Audrey continued that the coaching isn’t solely helpful for the canine, however for his or her proprietor, as new members even have a lot to be taught.
For instance, she defined that because the coaching strikes to greater areas, members “learn how to search the area, so it’s not just letting the dog roam free, you actually come up with a plan on how you are going to search the area and how you are going to make your dog work.”
Audrey stated that regardless of the onerous coaching, what SARDA volunteers do isn’t solely helpful but additionally personally very rewarding: “It’s a great buzz, yes it’s hard work what we do, but it is very rewarding.”
For donations, you may go to their social media accounts or their web site web page.
