Isla our 18 month old trainee Search And Rescue Dog Association search dog and is the personal pet of team member, Mark Williams.

Mark and Isla have now been training together for around 14 months.  It is a real roller coaster of emotions with lots of high when the training goes well and frustrating when you think it will go well and dog just doesn’t do what you want / expect.

Isla has now progressed to doing returns.   Which means she searches and finds the casualty ‘barks’ and then returns to her handler Mark and indicates ‘barks’ and takes him back to the casualty.

The game is still all about play and reward, as when Isla successfully takes Mark to the casualty, she gets her toy to play with.

The ‘toy drive’ needs to be really strong for when Isla is fully qualified she might be expected to search for lost people for several hours on a dark rainy night. 

The training goes on with two or three nights a week dedicated practicing rescue work.  It takes real dedication to become a search dog handler but support is offered from team members who volunteer to lie in the cold and dark waiting for Isla to make her find.   The training goes on !