There follows a report by Bolton MRT team member and former SARDA England Air Scenting Search Dog Handler Dave Marsh;

Today saw the return of the ‘Teams Dog Section’ back in harness after
the very sad loss of retired Search Dog Chi last weekend.

A very wet, cold and overcast sky over Rivington Moors [rather apt
under the circumstances] saw Dave Marsh; Alistair and Alison
Greenough;Paul Chisholm with his 13 week old Cocker Spaniel pups
[Bella and Beacon] Paul’s daughter Courtney, Team Training Officer Elaine Gilliland

and Mike Dewar [Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service, USAR / Fire Investigation Dog Handler] with his
new area trainee dog Ace [a honey coloured Labrador].

Dave walked the area with Paul and Courtney [with the pups and Dave’s
other trainee dog Sasha] explaining as they went about how the the
ground conditions interacted with the wind to channel and funnel human
scent into the numerous peat groughs and streams that are prevalent in
the area. Smoke bombs were ignited to assist with a visual explanation
as to where, what and how this interaction takes place.

During this time, Mike and Ace were undertaking the first stages of
air scent training with the assistance of Alistair and Alison Greenough, ably
assisted by Elaine, who all acted as ’ Exercise Bodies’, lying out in
the mud and wet, only to have a thunderous trainee hound hurtling in
on them as they lay down in their pre-set positions.

All in all, it was a very enjoyable training session.We can now look
forward to the next report as to how Sasha did when she undertakes
her very first cadaver training exercise later on this week. More
news to follow. (Dave is training Sasha to be a DVSD; Drowned Victim Search Dog)

The teams newly operational Search Dog unit, Handler Steve Nelson and Trailing Dog Boris missed out on todays training, as they were away on holiday for the weekend.