A STRAY dog saved from certain death by a Tavistock vet has found a new life — as one of Dartmoor's search and rescue heroes. Jilly the Springer Spaniel Cross has qualified to become the fourth search and rescue dog for the Tavistock branch of the Dartmoor Rescue Team after 18 months of training. It's a far cry from 2004 when Jilly was found straying on the streets of Ireland. She was picked up by a dog warden and put in the local dog pound. 'She was due to be put to sleep when they had the Christmas clear-out,' said her owner and handler Catherine Clarke, who works at Westmoor Vets in Tavistock. Catherine took an instant shine to the dog when she saw an e-mailed picture of it at Wingletang Animal Sanctuary near Tavistock — the centre regularly receives rescue dogs from Ireland who are ferried across. 'My friends run the centre and they knew I was looking for a dog to train as a search and rescue dog,' added 30-year-old Catherine, who has been a member of the Tavistock branch of the rescue team for several years. 'This dog had a nice head and there was something about her — it turns out that she loves working and is a natural search and rescue dog. She is a bit crazy and very lively.' Jilly has excelled in her six areas of training. These include obedience and stock training with her tough three hours a day training schedule posing no problem. Search and rescue dogs are trained to locate people by air scenting. They do not track people like tracker dogs but detect the scent of a person in the air, locate that person and run back to the handler. They indicate they have 'found' someone by barking. They are often used to search areas that would be difficult for people, for example, dense woodland and rough ground. 'When she is not working she is always looking for things anyway,' said Catherine. 'Search and rescue dogs are really important because they can do the work of a large foot team. 'Because they are relying on their nose they can search an area much more effectively than humans can.' One of the group's first rescue dogs was effective when foot teams and police dogs were unsuccessful in locating a 14-year-old boy with special needs who went missing from his school party on the moor. More recently a woman trapped waist-high in a bog was found by a rescue dog — it is believed she would have perished from exposure had she been there any longer. At three years old, Jilly has many years ahead of her as a search and rescue dog — the average age of retirement is eleven.
