Helps to have Courage at her side

Dogs are very useful in field searches, according to Björk Arnardóttir, secretary of the Canine Unit of the Icelandic Association of Search and Rescue. This weekend, the Canine Unit holds a training program in field search at Skógar, South Iceland.

Björk is herself the owner of a five-year-old Labrador by the name of Kjarkur (Courage). “Dogs can search large areas, fast and thoroughly, without much effort,” she tells mbl.is . “They’re useful when it’s dark out, and we can’t see well from afar, because they don’t need to see anything; they just use their nose. In a thick fog and when our view is limited in some way, dogs are extremely useful.”

The dog training program is part of an Erasmus program that began almost two years ago, and participants will convene there from Norway, England, Sweden and Malta. The goal of the project is to increase cooperation between the countries, to increase knowledge about the training of search and rescue dogs, strive toward comprehensive and professional work that reflects the professionalism of the teams involved. Collectively, there is a vast amount of knowledge within these rescue teams.

Field rescue is the focus of this training session, but previous training programs include avalanche search training in Norway and a session in Malta that focused on searching in ruins.

About 20 rescue workers will participate in this weekend’s program, ten of whom come from Iceland. The Icelandic participants will bring their dogs along. Most of the training, however, takes place indoors, including a number of lectures.

Björk has been a rescue worker for 14 years, and Kjarkur is the second rescue dog she trains. “A lot of work goes into this,” she states, “and endless training. We train once a week and hold four field classes and one week-long winter training program.”