A dog's life suits Andy down to the ground... - Craven Herald

12:20pm Sunday 16th January 2011

Search-and-rescue dog trainer Andy Colau could be heading for the history books.

He has just started training his fifth mountain rescue search dog – and, if he succeeds, he believes he could be the first member of the Search and Rescue Dog Association (Sarda) to achieve the feat.

However, it is still early days. Belle will have to complete at least two years of training and then there is no guarantee she will make the grade.

“Training a search-and-rescue dog is time-consuming and quite daunting,” said Andy, a part-time lecturer at Craven College and a part-time electrical contractor. “There are only 35 Sarda dogs in the whole of England.”

Andy, who lives in Stainforth, began training Border collies more than 30 years ago – and his interest almost came about by accident.

A keen mountaineer and potholer, he was a member of the Clapham-based Cave Rescue Organisation, and saw an advert on the centre’s noticeboard asking for volunteers to sit on Ingleborough and wait to be found as part of a dog training exercise.

“I didn’t think I would be found, but while I was sitting there, this collie called Gwen came out of nowhere. I was intrigued and I decided to try training search-and-rescue dogs myself. Three weeks later, I got my first dog. She was advertised in the Craven Herald as ‘free to good home, sheepdog-type bitch with spotted legs’.”

That first dog was Corrie. He then trained Corrie’s daughter, Gael, and their exploits were filmed over two years for the BBC documentary Search Dogs Of The Summits. Both Corrie and Gael searched for survivors after terrorists blew up a Pan Am plane over Lockerbie in 1988.

“It was a big learning curve for everyone involved,” said Andy, who subsequently launched K9 Search and Rescue to train dogs specifically for UK disasters.

He even trained one of his dogs, Fionn, to search for people trapped under collapsed buildings. “This was frowned on by some mountain rescue teams because up to that point, Sarda was the only dog rescue team recognised.”

His third mountain rescue dog was Gael’s daughter, Rhona, who helped to search for missing tourist Jeffrey Hodgson on the island of Ibiza in 2001. Sadly, they had been looking in the wrong place and his body was found 18 months later.

Rhona went missing in 2003 and her body was found in quicksand at Helwith Bridge five months later.

It was in Rhona’s memory that Andy started training Tara, who is still an active search and rescue dog at the grand age of nearly ten.

“After that I vowed never to train another search dog, and give up my life as a volunteer mountain rescuer and spend more time with my wife, Jennifer. But, I just couldn’t do it – I am still fit and capable.”

So now the household has a new member, Belle, who was bred by a hill shepherd and trainer on the slopes of Blencathra, near Keswick.

Andy, who is also a member of the Upper Wharfedale Fell Rescue Association, attended 25 Sarda callouts last year.

“I may be in my 60s, but I am very happy being out there in the dark, snow and cold. These days I usually have a navigator and we have Satmap which pinpoints your position to within an inch and very powerful LED lighting. It is much easier than it used to be.”

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