MOUNTAIN RESCUE SEARCHDOG DOTTIE: Callouts and watching other searchdogs

Well this year has got off to a bit of a quick start.

Kaz and me had been out helping Kath and her trainee dog Mara do some searchdog stuff on Sunday over at Nine Standards.

They did really well and me and the Dram dog kept a sharp eye on the proceedings as you can see!

We got home from training and me and Kaz settled down to have a good read (well she was reading - me and the Angus and Dram dogs were chewing on a rather nice bone I seem to recall). Suddently at about 4.30 the team pager went off for a search for 2 missing people lost somewhere near High Street.

This is what it looks like in the day time at the moment....

Me and Kaz jumped in the van and drove to Mardale Head where we met up with our team member Vic who was going to be our navigator. Our job was to go up to Blea Water, up to Caspel Gate, Long Stile, High Street Summit and then work out what to do from there. Blimey it was a bit difficult - the conditions were pretty awful (even I'll admit that!). As we got up to Caspel Gate and then onto the scramble up to the top, the wind starting really blowing and both Kaz and Vic got knocked over a few times. Even I was blown over and I've got four paws on the ground at all times!

We also met up with Kaz's team mates Glenn and Matt who decided to go from High Street North towards Kidsty Pike to meet up with team members coming the other way. That meant we had to go from the High Street Summit over to Thornthwaite Beacon which was very windy and very wet and foggy.

Kaz and Vic were losing radio signal at one point so we were very pleased to hear that they had been found on Rest Dodd over towards Hayeswater by Patterdale team members. Kaz and Vic had a sit down and a cup of tea then we started making our way back round Mardale Ill Bell towards Nan Bield - I was being very helpful and running in front - apparently that wasn't too helpful cos the visibility was only about 10 feet!

We eventually arrived back at the Mardale Head carpark at about 11pm and we were all a bit tired!!

We drove back home and Kaz did something terrible - she left me outside all night on the doorstep!! That's terrible isn't. She reckons that she'd let the Dram and Angus dogs out for a quick comfort break and thought I'd already gone to bed in the kitchen but I hadnt - I was still in the garden. The other two ran back in and she locked up for the night. When I got back to the front door it was all locked up so I ended up curling up on the doorstep all night until she remembered in the morning and opened the door! The other two dogs laughed at me - dont worry I'll get my own back on them one day.

Then this weekend me and Kaz have been assessing the SARDA England Searchdogs which was great fun. They were really good. 1st off the assessors gave the handlers the area to search - it was really interesting cos the area we were assessing was the one that me and Kaz did when we finally passed our assessments.

Then they ask the handlers to work out how they are going to do their search (some of the handlers draw pictures of their area to help themselves) and then they set them off -