Arnie

Hello Julie It was good to catch up with you in Brisbane at the USAR exercise recently. It brings back memories of the times when you and Andrew were members of ours and we were working on area search with you and your dog (Andrew at the time didn’t have a dog). If I remember rightly, we also worked on USAR with you because I think it was not long after our Swiss trainer had introduced our members to USAR that you and Andrew joined our organisation. It is great to see you going places with your group since taking it over. Congratulations also for the successful deployment last September, I wasn’t aware until you told me your story up in Queensland. ASSDA For those of you who follow this forum, you may be interested to know that I am talking about the Australian Swiss Search Dog Association Inc www.assda-sardogs.org. Please let me introduce ourselves to the forum. We have been going since February 1995 training dogs and handlers in area search, avalanche/snow search at Falls Creek and disaster search or USAR, meaning Urban Search and Rescue or, put yet another way, searching for persons buried under the rubble of collapsed buildings. However, the concept was really born in 1994 when my wife Elke and I were in Europe for two months with much of that time spent in Switzerland with REDOG trainers and assessors and the REDOG president, Kilian Schnyder who was in fact the first trainer to visit us in 1996. ASSDA is a partner organisation of REDOG www.redog.ch/ and we train, assess and deploy according to their standards. Since our inception, six Swiss REDOG trainers/assessors have visited us, one of them twice. In addition to being REDOG trainers, handlers and assessors, most of these trainers are, or were, either police or military police dog instructors and handlers. In addition, some of us have made numerous trips to Switzerland to take part in REDOG’s specific courses such as area search instructor courses, their USAR assessor course and the USAR equipe or team leader course. ASSDA currently has three members who are REDOG qualified USAR canine assessors and team leaders, this certification gained in October 2005. We are very fortunate that we have the backing and support of such a well-known and highly regarded rescue dog organisation in the global search and rescue world. It is interesting to note that REDOG is Switzerland’s only Swiss government accredited organisation to train, test and deploy dog/handler teams in area search and USAR search disciplines both within Switzerland and globally. QUALIFICATIONS In respect to dog/handler qualifications, two ASSDA teams passed the area search operational test in October 1998 under the REDOG area search assessor, Ruedi Gantenbein (who now spends much of his time in South Korea developing a canine search capability in that country). Another team passed the area search suitability test. In about April 2000, two teams re-certified for area search and one team passed the suitability test under Edi Bucher (who is now developing a canine search capability in China). Edi also introduced our members to USAR canine search. The following year Bruno Maurer paid us a visit. He is the president of the REDOG Technical Committee, was a police dog handler and instructor/assessor and, like all the others, has been on many overseas deployments such as Armenia, Mexico City, Kobe, just to name a few. Bruno took our USAR training a step further for us and in that visit, also introduced us to avalanche search in Falls Creek. Four teams passed the first level of Avalanche assessment under him. Rolf Hausermann visited us two years later and instructed ASSDA teams in area search, USAR search and avalanche search. Two teams passed the then USAR suitability test, two teams re-certified in area search and three teams re-certified in avalanche search. That was an extremely hectic time and by the end of that stint, dogs and handlers were very tired. In April/May 2004 Elias Kalt paid us a visit and at the end of that time, three teams were assessed for Disaster Search (at the time a four-search test with an unknown number of victims) under his eagle eye and exacting requirements. To the best of our knowledge, we were the first internationally assessed USAR dog teams in Australia and were therefore also the first equipe of three dogs and handlers ready for deployment under the Swiss system. Elias paid us a visit again last year in October/November and apart from the usual training, he tested two teams for our Advanced USAR Canine Operational test of 6 searches for an unknown number of victims. One of the teams is from Melbourne and the other team is from Queensland. In Adelaide Elias also taught us how to work effectively and efficiently as an equipe with a trained equipe leader when on deployment. Our Adelaide member and I took turns in being equipe leader whilst Elke elected to focus on handling her dog. The three of us are the REDOG certified equipe (team) leaders. NETWORKING Besides all that training and assessing, ASSDA has been very busy working with the various user agencies taking part in exercises in various states, forging a strong network and creating an awareness and appreciation of the value of trained USAR dog teams to an international standard. In the early days we also went out on searches with the police looking for persons missing in the wilderness. However, about seven years ago ASSDA management decided to concentrate solely on USAR and to developing a sound working relationship with the user agencies, i.e. the various fire brigades such as the MFB and the CFA and the SES, in Victoria, NSW, QLD and SA. Our first big exercise was Labyrinth 2003 and this is when the potential user agencies really became aware of the value of well trained USAR dogs. This was the biggest USAR exercise of its kind ever held in Australia. It was organised and hosted by the MFB and held at the Maygar Army Barracks in Broadmeadows in November 2003. It ran over eight days and nights and we attended with our then two dogs, my Olga and Elke’s Achim for about 80% of the time. Our Adelaide member was our team leader who liaised with the Incident Controller throughout the exercise. We worked with the Victorian, NSW and Queensland USAR task forces, were on 16 searches and had a 100% success rate. Since then we have participated in numerous such exercises (albeit on a much smaller scale) every year in various states. Over the years we have spent many a day training at the CFA training facility in Fiskville and in Carrum Downs as well as the now defunct MFB disaster site in Abbotsford. We have written the canine section of the manuals for the fire brigade USAR Taskforces of both South Australia (SAMFS) and Victoria (MFB). We have made the Canine USAR presentations for all the Victorian USAR CAT ll responder courses since 2003; also for the now three such courses held in South Australia and we will be attending the fourth one this May. We have also done demonstrations at all these courses with our dog teams and in South Australia we are fully integrated with the task force. Our Queensland members are always present at the task force exercises in that state and our Adelaide member and I usually also take part. At the inaugural multi-agency CAT 1 course held in Fiskville in 2005, we gave the presentation and demonstration with our dog teams. The filming of our dogs done at the time now forms part of their presentation. Over the years our members have also done the mandatory CAT l course, the latest one being Sonja at Fiskville last May. Do you remember her, Julie? She was there at the same time as you and your members. Most important of all, we have introduced the canine USAR deployment model developed by REDOG and this is now an accepted model in South Australia, Victoria and New South Wales. OTHER HIGHLIGHTS Some other highlights are our attendance at an Emergency Management Australia (EMA) 2-day conference held at Mt Macedon in 1998 on the subject of volunteer search dogs in Australia, Elke’s visit to NZ at the request of EMA to be an observer at their assessment weekend in 2004, Elke’s three-day USAR canine workshop in Perth in February 2006 as well as numerous presentations to the MFB and the Army Reserves, plus a workshop/presentation by Elias Kalt in Adelaide in November last year. I attended the International Rescue Dog (IRO) symposium and workshop in Vienna in 1996 together with REDOG representatives. MEMBERS All our members are dog handlers with their own dogs. We currently have one member in Adelaide (a fire fighter and USAR CAT ll responder), two members in Brisbane and ten members in Melbourne. Our ACT member unfortunately had to resign because his work commitments now take him out of the country for many months at a time. He and his wonderful Labrador are a great loss. OUR DOGS Breeds represented in ASSDA are German Shepherds, Golden Retrievers, a mixed breed and a Border Collie. In the past we have had a Hungarian Vizla, a Toler, a Leonberger, Airedales, Labradors & cross breeds. As already mentioned, we have two teams with the Advanced Operational Test (6 searches), three with the Foundation Skills Assessment (equivalent to the NZ Basic CREP) and the rest are in various stages of training, some very close to their first round of testing. Well, I think that is enough for now. I hope you have found this interesting reading. You are welcome to browse our website www.assda-sardogs.org/ However, some time ago we lost our webmaster and our new one is still in the process of revamping it. We hope that in a few weeks it will be finalised. But even the old one is still worth looking at. There are also SAR dogs in WA (SES unit) http://www.rtdogs.net/ - which have been operating for a very long time in landsearch (tracking) and are also now working in the USAR environment. SA has a SAR dog unit within the SES working at landsearch only as far as I know. Regards Peter Peter Effler [email protected] Australian Swiss Search Dog Association Inc. – ASSDA www.assda-sardogs.org