Oct 5, 2013 0830 Quila and I arrived at Blackfoot -Cooking Lake for the Walk In Th Park Mock....this included many organizations....police, ground SARs, SARDAA , cadets, etc from across Alberta. This was to test the ability to handle a large disaster and to ensure that communications stayed in place etc. Coming after the major flood that was seen in Alberta , especially in High River, it was important to take that experience and learn from it....fixing and improving on any areas that were a concern .
Thirty hiders were put into place....the cadets were the hiders.
It took awhile to get everything going....at 1115 our SARDAA group ,( five dog teams and be field tech), got its directions. We were deployed to two areas and the police dog Handlers , two of them, we're deployed to a third area. This was different for us as we don't usually get deployed with more than one dog in an area, but off we went....discussing ,enroute , how we would coordinate the dogs etc.
Quila and I were with one other dog handler and the field tech. We had to walk a km through another area before getting to our search area...which proved interesting as there were lost people in that area.
Another one of our dog teams was ahead of us and their dogs found two hiders...both had injuries .
We continued on and shortly there after Quila found another hider....also injured...so we radio in per protocol , treated hiders wounds....but left hider there for group assigned area to "find".
We arrived at our start point for searching....we were doing a circle around a lake...so we decided one dog team would go one way and the second team the other way....meeting the middle. The field tech would go with me as I was the least experienced.
Quila did really well....going in and out of very thick bush. At one point she saw a squirrel and decided to chase it....this is something I will have to work to correct....she was corrected, brought back , refocused and she went back to work. We met the other team at the half way point....neither of us had found anything....so we decided to swap and cover the area that the other team had done...thus covering each area twice. Quila did find a group of three people that were sitting on a bench...alerted and so was rewarded....even though they were just hikers....it was good as she though she was doing her job. On completion there were no hiders found by either team...this took five hours of searching...the longest Quila had ever done...I was proud of her and pleased that she could stay focused.
Our other three dog handlers didn't find any hiders in there area either....turns out there were no hiders in either assigned area. This is one thing I would like to see changed next year...there should be at least one hider in every area....so that are dogs get rewarded for there hard work.
Overall it was. Great experience and I now know some areas that need improvement before we do our final test.
