The National Search And Rescue Dog Association

Scout is a Search Dog with Member Association NSARDA Kent.

He is an Initial Qualified, Fully Operational, Non-Specific Air Scenting Search Dog.

Scout was acquired from Hovawart Breeders ‘Lowenheart’.

Being Kennel Club Registered his full official name is ‘Lowenheart Kinder Scout’.

His mum Abby is an operational air scenting (non specific) search dog with Mountain Rescue Search Dogs England, based in Yorkshire. As such search was in his blood.

He was selected for me by Mark & Becky-Leigh Harrison based on some key attributes displayed when he was a puppy.

I Brought him him in November 2018 and training started very quickly with play to determine his favourite toys and also to work out his favourite reward. He does like food my Scout so he any food will do but I focus on gravy bones and peparami as his super special treat.

We signed up and went to outdoor obedience classes as soon as he’d had his jabs and we were able. He quickly got through his Bronze and Silver awards. There is also a significant requirement for other obedience in order to get accepted into a Member Association so we worked on all of those too eg 10 minute sit / stay.

With thanks to my friends Dick & Claire, who have their own small holding, I was able to expose him to Sheep, Chickens and Horses and very quickly established he was not interested. This was great as our dogs also have to be stock tested so I knew at an early stage this would not be a problem.

He was accepted into training before he was 1 and off we went. Unfortunately this was late 2019 and very shortly Covid hit in the March of 2020 and training was impacted. Training did continue in a different manner but it continued nonetheless.

He learned the find sequence and then we set about the long road to building stamina and the ability to be able to take on a rather demanding assessment, which involves 4 searches (minimum) over 2 days, each lasting up to 2 hours and having to find anywhere from 1 to 5 bodies on average. You do not know where you are going to search and how many people have been placed out of sight in your search area or search route. You are given a map, work out how you are going to search you area with your Dog Support / Navigator then off you go and tell the Assessors who follow you everywhere when you completed your search. You cannot miss anyone in order to pass and there is much more that is looked at and scored besides.

So on the final weekend of March 2023, Scout and I went through the assessment process and we were extremely pleased to pass.

As of April 2023 we were an operational search team deploying to searches with Kent Search & Rescue.

Due to mobility issues Scout had to be retired from the Air Scent discipline as he would not be able to complete the full assessment process again to gain ‘Senior’ status. The dogs work incredibly hard and cover significant mileage on all search activities, especially those in the Air Scent & Trailing disciplines.

When it comes to the Water Search Dog discipline when working water margins, the dogs will not be required to undertake such long distances. This discipline is about detecting the scent in and around target or specific locations.

As the Water Lead for Kent Search And Rescue, and having been a Kayaker / Canoeist for most of my life, it made sense to consider changing direction and see if I could re-train Scout in the Water Search Dog (formerly Drowned Victim Search Dog) discipline.

The retraining is not going to be easy as after 7 years of training and being an operational Air Scent search dog, I need to modify his behaviors for the Water Search Dog discipline. This means scent imprinting him and then get him to indicate, by barking, at the target scent. I also need to make sure he no longer performs the sequence he was previously training to perform which involved returning to me, indicating with a bark and then taking me to the missing person.

This is a BIG challenge but a chance of keeping him as a working dog, rather than full retirement, in a discipline with only a very few dogs and handlers currently. Worst case scenario if we do not make qualification, he will help me learn how to train a dog in this discipline so when I get another dog I will be able to hopefully make quick progress !

Currently we are ‘Training’ Status.

Scout is my second search dog. I originally qualified Sky, another Hovawart by the name of ‘Spicemill Atlantia Night Sky’. I got her in 2008, she qualified with me in 2010, retired in 2017 through injury at the age of 9 (somewhat unfortunately early) enjoyed retirement and passed away in the Summary of 2022. Sky was a wonderful search dog and I miss her a lot.