Report on NSARDA Conference of Friday 18th September to Sunday 20th September 2015

Our Water Dog Handler Dave Marsh, in his capacity as NSARDA Secretary, had a major role to play in organising this important conference, from which regular tweets kept all interested in the events of each day.

There follows Dave’s report on this conference;

This weekend saw long serving team member and Water Dog Handler Dave Marsh attending Lancashire Police HQ, at Hutton, Preston, to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the use of dogs for Mountain Rescue purposes.

During that time, developments have now produced dogs which are used in a variety of search types – they being Air scenting [Mountain], Trailing, Water Search, collapsed building and Victim Recovery.

Dave, attending in his role as National Secretary, was there to meet and greet the delegates who had travelled not only from the four corners of the UK and Ireland, but also from Boulder, Colorado; Iceland; Greece and Switzerland.

The theme of the conference was ‘Training for a Happy Dog ‘ which incorporated topics such as breeding, initial dog behaviour and the training of it, through to adulthood and retirement.

Other guest speakers gave presentations about trailing, water, and avalanche search dogs.

Over the course of the week end, it was pleasing to note delegates deep in conversation, swapping contacts and ideas – all to further the cause of using dogs to locate missing people, what ever the circumstances.