Meet the search dogs and rescue volunteers helping to save lives in Buckinghamshire.

Lowland Rescue dog team Search Dogs Buckinghamshire (SDB) continues its critical work in assisting police and associated rescue outfits to locate missing individuals – children and vulnerable adults.

Covering Buckinghamshire and its bordering counties, SDB operates 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, relying on the dedication of its entirely voluntary team of operational members and their nationally certified search dogs.

A report indicates that between March 2019 and April 2020, Thames Valley Police recorded 13,198 missing person incidents.

One volunteer, John Bates, joined the SDB organisation in 2018 after being charmed by the search and rescue dogs during a summer fete.

John had to wait until January to commence training with his dog Freckle, owing to the organisation's policy that dogs needed to be a year old for training.

John said: "Our training consists of having people hide in woods and getting him to find them by using wind direction to pick up their scent. This is called air scenting where his job is to alert me to anyone he finds in the woods (most of our searches are night searches where there isn't anyone else there.

"We have three dogs in training to qualify as trailing dogs where they will be searching for a specific person.

"The highlight so far has been qualifying as a Level 2 search dog and being able to go out with him on live searches.

"The qualification is to search a 2 kilometre path, searching 25m either side of the path in 1 hour and be able to give a grid reference of where we find the missing person.

"This is done at night and during the day and we are looking for between 2 and 4 people."

Bucks Free Press: Freckle doing a jump alert Freckle doing a jump alert (Image: John Bates)

SDB is an integral entity within the emergency services, providing rural search support to Thames Valley Police.

The team is composed of volunteers who operate regardless of weather conditions to search for missing persons, including dementia patients, youngsters and individuals suffering from depression or suicidal tendencies.

John added: "SDB are a vital part of the emergency services in providing rural search capabilities to Thames Valley Police, we have specialist training in search techniques, navigation, first aid and communications via our radio network.

"We are a team of unpaid volunteers who train and go out in all weathers to search for vulnerable missing people, such as dementia patients (who sometimes don't know they are missing) young people or despondent or suicidal cases.

"I am presently the training officer for SDB and assist  with the dog and search training. I am also a trustee of the charity and sit on the committee to help decide how we run in line with our constitution."

In its present form, SDB has 14 operational members, 10 trainee non-operational members, 3 certified search dogs, and 15 dogs currently in training.

SDB responded to 46 callouts until November 24, 2023, with total field hours adding up to 470. 

A standard dog team includes a handler and a flanker, or support person, who may be accompanied by additional supports depending on the terrain, the search type or prevailing conditions.

SDB mainly deploys "air scenting" dogs that can quickly sweep both sides of a path or cover a prescribed area.

Upon detecting the scent of an individual in the search area, the off-lead dog returns to the handler and guides them to the missing person.

The team's dedication remains unwavering, with all of SDB's members and their dogs providing their time absolutely free of charge.