The National Search And Rescue Dog Association

Ben had an unfortunate start to his life, being a trainee sheepdog that didn’t really much care about sheep meant he found himself in a dog rescue looking for a new home. Fortunately, he was found by Alex who rescued him and gave him a home and a purpose – exploring mountains and finding people.

Ben’s “can’t really be bothered” attitude to sheep suddenly becomes a great asset helping him through the sometimes tricky stock training and putting him on track to be a search dog. He had a fantastic work ethic and learnt the search game quickly, before working on training Alex to be a handler, saving his embarrassment on numerous occasions, and winning the admiration of many.

Ben was a great dog to hide for, he liked nothing more than playing and loved bodies as they just wanted to play with him, the more they played the more he loved them. He was a real character at training and if nobody would play fetch with him he would often take himself to one side pull up some grass, or a small plant and use it as his own toy, throwing it into the wind and chasing it repeatedly until it was his turn to do something!

By March 2018 Alex and Ben had managed to train each other enough to make a successful dog team, passing their first assessments and so joining the callout list as a Lowland Open Area Search Dog team, getting their first of many callouts just an hour after earning his red disk.

Working in mountains was always Alex and Ben’s objective and in March 2020 they successfully completed their upgrade to Mountain Open Area Search Dog. During their years of service, Ben and Alex completed many searches all over North Wales and had multiple finds.