THE ADVENTURES OF A SEARCH AND RESCUE PUP

Proud owner of Mac, rescue-pup-turned-searchand-rescue-dog, Deziree Wilson discusses the joy this canine has brought into her life, and the bittersweet nature of standing by as he ventures out into dangerous conditions.

Looking back, I think we’d always had a Mac-shaped hole in our lives. Every so often, one of us, usually my husband, Mark, would brandish a picture of a cute creature with soulful eyes, silently entreating us to offer a safe new home. Then we’d go round the block of how we’d fit a dog into our itinerant work lives and leisure pursuits. Reality always kicked in before we felt able to commit.

It was probably lockdown that tipped the scales. The endless, rainy traipses around our local woods in Aviemore would, we agreed, feel a lot more purposeful if we had a dog trotting beside us. Then, in October of 2021, Mark underwent a double hip replacement. Years of guiding in the mountains had, at the age of only 42, taken its toll and he faced a gruelling recovery.

Both of us had grown up around dogs, and Mark’s collies had accompanied him and his father into the mountains when he was a boy. As a member of a local Mountain Rescue team, he’d always had an ambition to train a dog for Search and Rescue, and we agreed that having a focus at home might help him on the road back to full fitness.

Unbeknown to me, Mark had been keeping an eye on potential matches through the Scottish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SSPCA) website and, just before Christmas in 2021, he tentatively announced that he had ‘something to show me’. On the screen was a five-month-old collie cross, all white, except for his ears, a few black splodges around his nose and a charming teardrop on his head. He seemed to be just what we were looking for.

Our journey to collect him felt like a pilgrimage: we drove northwards through an increasingly bleak, frozen landscape for several hours. Arriving at a windswept outpost in Thurso, we were greeted by kindly SSPCA staff whose cheerfulness seemed at odds with the surroundings.

Through the wire mesh surrounding a concrete pen, we spied a lanky, ghostly figure careering around with a soft toy. Identifying a couple of new suckers, he dropped the battered toy at our feet and looked up at us expectantly, amber eyes gleaming. We spent half an hour playing with him and walking him around the enclosure before we had to choose whether to take him home with us. It seemed too monumental a decision to make after such a brief encounter.

Somewhat nervously, we signed the paperwork. Mac trotted happily away with us, until we reached the van. Reverse thrusters engaged. We’d not been told much about his background, but knew he’d been caged for a fair bit of his young life, so it was hardly surprising he was a bit circumspect.

After a lifetime of shirking the sorts of commitments most of our friends had now embraced, we now had another being’s welfare to consider, but as Mac settled down on my lap, chin nestled in the crook of my husband’s arm, I thought, How hard can it be?

The dreich, dark days of early January were never going to be an easy time to train a new puppy. The morning after his arrival, an almighty clatter heralded a new day. I found him charging around the kitchen, having yanked the electric heater off the wall, emptied the bin and strewn his bedding around the room. We looked on in alarm as Mac, heedless of boundaries, ricocheted his way around the house, oblivious to pleas for calm. He’s just a puppy, I thought, naïvely; he’ll settle in a week or two.

Alas, the following months were fraught as it became clear that Mac was not your average dog. He was described as ‘unique’, ‘challenging’, and ‘unusually active’ by various dog sitters who, one by one, fell by the wayside, having suddenly discovered hitherto unknown commitments. Everyone commented on his adorability; none seemed in a hurry to look after him. ‘I think he’s part Kelpie,’ said one, adding brightly, ‘so, good luck with that!’ I later looked up the character traits of a ‘Kelpie’: an Australian herding dog that is thought to share DNA with the dingo and is bred to work all day across vast distances in extreme environments. Its signature move, I read, is to jump on the backs of sheep and walk across the flock.

Called back early from some filming work to collect him, I listened in dismay to one harassed-looking lady’s description of Mac’s gymnastic accomplishments during his brief stay. These included climbing onto her kitchen table to access the worktop, then escaping out the first-floor window and, from a standing start, jumping onto a six-foot perimeter wall. She had spotted him prancing along the wall on a mission to see what was happening down the street. When she discovered Mac gnawing her husband’s best fleece in the front seat of their transit van, having wriggled his way through the halfopen window (and scratching the paintwork in the process), it was the last straw. He was suspended, pending a trip to the vet for the snip and some reflection on his behaviour. Further filming work was curtailed after receiving a phone call from an unknown number. ‘Aye, have you got a white dog?’ Oh, God. ‘He’s just come into the pub in Newtonmore. I rang the number on his collar tag.’ Another dog sitter bit the dust.

Neutering Mac dialled down some aspects of his behaviour, but it still felt like a full-time job trying to meet his needs – a task I felt woefully ill-equipped for. ‘It’s like he’s got ADHD,’ said one friend bluntly. She was right. It was nigh-on impossible to tire Mac out, mentally or physically, and we spent hours trudging around in all weathers, trying to dissuade him from grabbing or taking off after anything remotely interesting.

Mark’s ambition to enrol Mac in the Scottish Search and Rescue Dog Association (SARDA Scotland), a branch of voluntary Mountain Rescue, meant that he had already put a lot of groundwork into the basics of training. But while Mac really engaged with receiving and responding to commands, we struggled to maintain his focus for long; no treats were delicious enough to win his favour. Although it sounds obvious now, the day we took a ball out with us was a revelation. Nothing had really captured his attention before, but he’d do pretty much anything for a ball. Best of all, it tired him out, at least for an hour or two.

There was no doubting his intelligence, and we realised that much of Mac's frustration was because he needed a job to do. So, instead of walking him for hours, we began working him harder on shorter journeys. Finding; catching; chasing; digging; waiting; sitting; lying down: he was eager for commands and thrived on the praise and rewards he got from carrying them out. One day, he even slept for three hours in between walks!

The downside was that my vision of strolling contentedly with a dog at my heels became a pipe dream. There is no such thing as a simple walk with Mac. It must involve a dizzying array of games, instructions and progressive training. But as much as I lamented the loss of freedom to do as I pleased, getting to know and understand Mac has brought moments of real joy. His delight in his own ingenuity, evidenced by his victory laps around us, make us laugh out loud, something that had been in short supply the year before. Taking Mac into the mountains felt like a real milestone, he’s extremely robust and utterly at home in wild environments, and more than capable of keeping up with us on bigger days, even on grade 1 rock and snow. His innate curiosity is tempered by a surprising cautiousness, and the only challenge is persuading him that skis, like bikes, shovels, rakes and hoovers, are not monsters to be slain.

Unsurprisingly, Mac visibly thrived when he joined the SARDA team, and his searching and finding skills were obvious from the get-go. Dogs have over 200 million scent receptors compared to a human’s 5 million, and this ability is honed over time to detect human scent, enabling them to assist Mountain Rescue teams and the police search for missing people, both in the mountains and semi-urban areas. SARDA Scotland is, like all Mountain Rescue, a charity, and reliant on public support to meet the £4000 cost of training and equipping a search dog team.

For the dogs, training begins by building the association of finding a human (a volunteer who acts as a ‘body’) with fun and receiving a reward. Eager to play, Mac was encouraged to find the ‘body’ and then bark for a toy, after which he’d get a few minutes’ play time with. ‘Indicating’ in this way is a key part of the process, since SARDA dogs need to not only locate casualties but attract their handler’s attention when they do so. Although Mac’s finding skills are excellent, it took him a while to find his voice, probably because I tell him off if he barks at home.

Mac has now been with SARDA for almost a year. So far, he’s graduated from puppy training and passed his obedience test, which involved walking on the lead in control, sitting and staying over a distance of 15m, and coming back when Mark recalled him.

Next up is a stock test, where he’ll have to show he can be trusted around sheep. There is no better illustration of Mac’s heritage than when he’s around livestock: he’ll instinctively creep along in a collie crawl, ears flat, every muscle and sinew primed as he waits for instructions. The big test for him will be in March, when, acting on specific commands from Mark, he’ll have to find multiple ‘bodies’ in different areas over three days, indicating each find before moving on to the next. If he passes, he’ll become a novice SARDA Scotland dog and will be added to the callout list. It will also mark another stage in the long journey he’s been on with us, since those early days when he lacked any focus whatsoever.

Although it’s immensely rewarding to see Mac thrive as he’s allowed to channel his skills and express his character fully, we have a deep sense of responsibility for this wee creature’s welfare, and it’s nerve-racking knowing we’re training him go into hazardous environments. Like all Mountain Rescuers in Scotland, handlers can receive callouts at any time of day or night, sometimes to venture into remote, inaccessible areas.

As a member of a busy Scottish Mountain Rescue team, Mark has been laying the groundwork for this by exposing Mac to the rescue helicopter when it’s on exercise. ‘What I don’t get,’ I said to him the other day, ‘is why Mac is totally unphased about being around a noisy helicopter, but is scared of the hoover.’ He shrugged. ‘Who knows what goes on inside that dog’s head.’

Search And Rescue Dogs A Brief History

Dogs can work in all weathers and can cover huge areas quickly without loss of speed. The practice of using them for search purposes can be traced as far back as 1800: according to records, a Küherhund (cowherd’s dog) called Barry lived in the Hospice du Grand-Saint-Bernard on the Swiss-Italian border and saved 40 lives in his lifetime. Barry is reputed to have once found a young boy in an ice cavern. After licking the boy to warm him, the dog manoeuvred the child onto his back and carried him to the hospice.

During the First World War, dogs were used in The Blitz to locate buried casualties, and more recently they’ve been deployed in disasters such as the 1988 Lockerbie bombing.

It was Hamish MacInnes, one of Scotland’s foremost mountaineers and Mountain Rescue experts, who first conceived of SARDA Scotland, back in 1965. He had been inspired by a visit to an avalanche rescue training course using dogs in Switzerland, and immediately recognised the benefits of establishing something similar back home, which at the time had only informal rescue networks in place, mostly consisting of local shepherds and dedicated mountaineers.

The first Search and Rescue dogs in Scotland were German Shepherds called Rangi and Tiki, owned by Hamish himself. (Sadly, Rangi perished after being swept away by an avalanche during a call-out to find a missing climber in Glen Nevis – a brutal reminder of the risks faced by both human and canine rescuers.) Although there are no restrictions on breeds, a search dog must have excellent scenting ability and be large and strong enough to cope with the physical demands of the job. The handlers must also be active or have recent experience within a recognised Mountain Rescue team. Navigation skills are important, as is being able to operate in inhospitable environments, day or night, sometimes far from home.

Together, and through intensive training, a SARDA dog and its handler form a highly effective team and contribute a unique and vital role to Scottish Mountain Rescue.

Makers And Innovators

A closer look at the world's first technically designed niqab and hijab

Amira Patel is a firm believer that if you can’t see something, you should go create it. After discovering her own passion for the outdoors three years ago, she founded hiking and adventure group The Wanderlust Women in a bid to share that passion and improve the representation of Muslim women in the outdoors. From its humble beginnings with a few friends gathering for walks in the Lake District, the organisation has since grown into an international community, facilitating outdoor activities which help women discover or reignite their skills and confidence in a safe and supportive space. It’s not just an organisation, but a sisterhood

Around the same time that Amira started her journey into the outdoors, she made the decision to wear the niqab (veil). As a Muslim, wearing the niqab symbolised a personal act of worship for Amira. ‘The niqab to me is liberating and dignifying,’ she says. ‘It gives me strength and freedom.’ These sentiments, echoed by many other women, challenge common misconceptions surrounding the hijab and niqab – and challenging misconceptions is something Amira is particularly good at.

Venturing into the mountains, Amira quickly realised that balancing the modesty of the niqab or hijab with functional, outdoor wear presented a challenge to Muslim women. A lack of availability of modest outdoor wear was hampering women’s ambitions to explore and experience the benefits of being outside. An idea was born.

‘When I started hiking, I didn't really know where it was going to take me, I just went out because I needed to heal and find myself again. I was like, you know what, let's go hiking, it was a self-discovery journey,’ Amira explains.

‘Along the way, I realised that I didn't really have the correct kit, and also that there wasn't even kit available that was suitable for me. I was hiking and trying to be modest at the same time, wearing my normal niqab and I’d be really sweaty, or in the wind it'd be flapping everywhere! I had all these ideas and thoughts about how it'd be so cool to have something that was modest and practical in the outdoors… But it wasn't something that I thought would actually happen.’

It was a chance interaction at an outdoor industry event that saw Amira’s dream begin to actualise. A shared belief in the project set the design process in motion. ‘I was just chatting to one of the experts at Trekmates, and I mentioned my idea to have an outdoor-specific, weatherproof niqab and hijab. And she just said: Yeah, it's possible,’ remembers Amira.

‘We often feel like we've got limits, but those limits sortof go away when we feel like someone's listening. With all the misconceptions that are attached to the veil, the hijab and niqab, it makes it a lot more difficult to bring these visions to life. Sometimes it just takes one person to believe in it.’

With support from Trekmates’ Head Designer, Emma Wakeley, Amira liaised closely with design placement student Tabitha Day. Tabitha made the initial patterns and prototypes for Amira to test, tweaking and refining the design based on her feedback.

‘The all-female Trekmates design team has more than 40 years combined experience in the outdoor industry,’ says Emma. ‘We’ve all seen the challenges women face in accessing the correct outdoor kit over the years in a male-dominated environment.’

The Amira Niqab

The Amira niqab is made from a soft, wind-proof stretch polyester shell with a durable water repellent finish. Its high-density polyester mesh panel allows ease of breathing and ventilation during activity, whilst the Haya hijab features strategic waterproof panelling and a softshell lower section for breathability around the neck. Both the hijab and niqab have fastenings to prevent them from blowing around in windy conditions, and are cut to maintain a modest appearance, whilst allowing for hair to be tied up and covered comfortably underneath.

Creating an outdoor-specific hijab and niqab was uncharted terrain, presenting a number of challenges and requiring extensive testing and prototyping in order to make something that would be both lightweight and breathable, as well as durable and waterproof. ‘The main challenge was obviously that there was nothing like this before,’ says Amira. ‘How can we, first of all, make something that's never been made before? Is it going to work? Are the materials going to be ok?’

And so, with the help of the industry expertise and technical knowledge of Trekmates, The Wanderlust Women set out to test the first iterations of the products. Braving all kinds of weather and different environments, they pursued the perfect fit and functionality for Amira’s idea, and reported back to the design team.

‘The fabrics that we used in the Hijabs were ones that we use in many other Trekmates technical glove, hat and gaiter products,’ explains Emma. ‘So we not only have lab test reports to show the performance of the fabric when new, but also have the history of longer term performance through years of end use testing. The main challenge for us as a team was understanding the specific needs of the customer, as none of us had personal experience of wearing the hijab and the modesty requirements that we needed to consider. In the case of the Niqab for example, it was important to get the correct balance of enough drape around the face so the Niqab hung correctly to preserve modesty and allow free flow of air without being so loose as to cause it to get in the way when in use. So it was really important for us to work closely with Amira to gain that understanding to apply it to the design process.’

To widespread praise among the wider outdoors community, the final designs launched in March 2023, including the Amira Niqab, Haya Hijab and a silk hijab liner. The combination of high-performance materials and a carefully considered design that allows women to feel confident and comfortable in the outdoors is a huge advancement in inclusivity in outdoor clothing.

‘Everyone should have access to the correct protective clothing and accessories to keep them safe on their adventures,’ says Emma. ‘Supporting women of all faiths and backgrounds is something we will continue to champion over future seasons with new product launches.’

And as Amira firmly believes, there will always be room for progression. With ongoing development and feedback from the women wearing her designs, she hopes to continue the evolution of the technical hijab and niqab, improving functionality and meeting the specific needs of the community.

‘It feels surreal to finally hold it in my hands. But it's still a journey. It's just part of any process when you're making something new, you have to have the mentality that it's not always going to be right the first time,’ says Amira. ‘But for now I feel like we've done everything we can to make it suitable. Seeing people wearing it out and about and in stores will definitely get me really emotional. It’ll be a really proud moment.’

“At Trekmates we aim to inspire and enable everyone no matter their gender, beliefs or experience to get outside and enjoy the great outdoors. We believe the outdoors is for everyone and that everyone should have access to the correct protective accessories to keep them safe on their adventures both big and small. Supporting women of all faiths and backgrounds is something we will continue to champion over future seasons with new products.”

Emma Wakeley Head of Design