AN INSPIRATIONAL search and rescue volunteer and her dog have been recognised by her colleagues for her commitment and morale-boosting skills.

Catherine Davis and her search dog Jack, aged five, of Okehampton, have been awarded an annual trophy as the team member of the year by members of North Dartmoor Search and Rescue Team (NDSRT).

The trophy recognises the ‘incredible amount of commitment to the team and the Mountain Rescue Search Dogs England (MRSDE) organisation, for the way she conducts herself in call-outs and fund-raising and the great effort on morale on the team.’

Catherine said: ‘I’m surprised to get the award, but it’s a great honour and I feel very flattered because it means a great deal to get an award from your team members because they understand what you have to go through in training and operations on the moor.’

Catherine, a lawyer, admitted a lot of the credit for morale-boosting should go to Jack, her collie-pointer-cross who is a trained search dog under MRSDE: ‘Jack is a great asset to the team, not only as a search dog, but also as a great defuser of tough and emotional situations.

‘He is a lot of fun and always on the go. He will keep going through bad weather and when we might be feeling down. He loves life and working with us. His main motivation is to carry out our mission and find someone, in order to be given his reward, which is his ball which he will play with along with a member of the team.

‘He has an overall good effect on the team who love working with him as another team member.’

Jack is Catherine’s pet, as well as her search dog. She took him in after he was offered to the team as a specialist search dog by his foster home who rehomed him as a charity’s rescued dog: ‘They suggested our team might want him because he was so good at following scents and we might want to make good use of him.

‘I went to see him and took him home when we soon bonded. He then underwent more than two years of qualifying under the MRSDE courses which meant he had to go every week to be trained, graded and assessed.

‘We have become a fantastic team and are used a lot. He can find a “dog’s body” or person, then find and bring me to the “body”.

She said dogs can cover a huge range of moorland in a search, far exceeding humans and reach lost people where the team could not easily search:

‘Dogs sense of smell gives them an advantage over humans because it can reach 400 to 500 metres. His nose can work in dark and fog when we can’t see very far and when helicopters can’t fly. Dogs can also find people in dense undergrowth or woodland by their nose, where we can’t even see, or initially, go.’

Jack is equally effective at finding people who go missing by accident or those who do not want to be found — categorised as cases of ‘despondence’.

Catherine said: ‘Very sadly about half of our call-outs are now for despondents, which can be people with suicidal thoughts, or who just don’t want to be found. Our calls used to be mostly for people who need rescuing because they’re stranded on the moor with fractured or broken legs and ankles. But this doesn’t happen so often now as people are more aware of how important it is to be prepared when they walk on the moor.’

Catherine, who has covered 450 hours of operations, fundraising and meetings in 2022, said: ‘I love being outdoors on Dartmoor and get great satisfaction from paying back to the community. I’ve worked worldwide as a lawyer and when I moved back here I combined this by joining the DSR. I can’t think of anything better way to spend my time.’