Latest News

Keep up to date with our latest news

Here you can find details of our latest activities each month for both training and operational searches.

August 2023

Specialist Search Dogs and the Coast Guard were invited to Annan Day Centre to deliver an awareness talk on the work that they do in helping to locate and rescue people. K9 Zues, K9 Koda and K9 Jackson also attended the centre to meet and greet the staff and individuals [...]

July 2023

In July Specialist Search Dogs was approached to partake in a documentary. Victim recovery team Tina Walker and K9 Vendetta went along to participate and support the film crew. SSD team Colin Monk and K9 Koda on gaining their NASDU level 3 live victim-air scent qualification. However, the training never [...]

June 2023

Continuous training resumed in June with UK K9 in Wales. The focus of this month’s training was tracking and airscenting. The weekend was again hosted in Rhosneigr and was attended by Koda and Jackson who are both making good progress towards their NASDU qualifications. [...]

May 2023

In May, Colin was able to build on his mantrailing skills with Jackson through a Jeff Schettler event. This was a great opportunity as Jeff is regarded as one of the leading experts in tracking and it was great to be able to demonstrate some of Jackson’s ability at this [...]

April 2023

April was a busy month for Specialist Search Dogs with travel across the UK and Ireland. For 2 weeks SSD were involved in a search focused on Ennerdale Water in the Lake District. The second search of the month was another water search on the River Clyde in Glasgow. This [...]

March 2023

In March, continuous training was carried out with UK K9 in Rhosneigr, Wales. Koda continued to work towards her air scenting qualification alongside Zeus who was doing continuous training as part of his NASDU water cadaver qualification. [...]

February 2023

February was the busiest month to date for Specialist Search Dogs. The month started with team members Colin, Tina and Amanda attending a Forensic Investigation Conference hosted at Wrexham University with a presentation from Professor Ben Alexander. This was followed by Victim Recovery Dog (VRD) training which was organised and [...]

January 2023

January saw our teams involved in two major searches. On the 8th we assisted in a search for a missing person, sending 2 dog teams, Zeus and Shadow to Carrick on Shannon in Ireland. We spend 3 days searching a river in very demanding conditions. On the 21st Teams Zeus, [...]

December 2022

Dog training continued throughout December including the festive season, with Wee Jackson showing great improvement in his Mantrailing skills. We had our first course delivered for “Water Search and Rescue Technician”. The training was attended by a group of twelve who faced a day of hard conditions. [...]

November 2022

18-20.11 – Colin and Adrian went for training with UKLSI to train for Lowland LaMPS Search Technician. 25-27.11 – North Wales. Our Dog handlers get a part of a wide training. Colin trained dogs Koda and Jax same as Alistair with Juco and Tina with her man trailing dogs. Adrian [...]

October 2022

09.10 – Cumbria: Koda and Vendetta supported the search for a missing person, as requested by Cumbria Police. Our thoughts and prayers are with family and friends. 21.10 – 23.10 – Biggar, Scotland: Koda continued his training to become a live victim search dog. Zeus continued his training with boat [...]

September 2022

03.09 – 04.09 – Carlisle: Shadow, Zeus and Fern attended an ongoing search operation. Our thoughts and prayers are with the family and friends. 14.09 – 18.09 – North Wales: Koda’s Live victim search dog training continues in the Welsh mountains. 16.09 – 18.09 – Penmaenmawr, Wales: Shadow and Vendetta [...]