Lake District Mountain Rescue Searchdogs

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Lake District Mountain Rescue Searchdogs

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For more information about our work, you can visit our website: www.lakes-searchdogs.org

27/10/2026

Today we are paying tribute to Barbara ‘Babs’ Wilkie who recently passed away.
Babs was one of our amazing and dedicated dogsbodies who joined our association in July 2018 after hearing about our Search and Rescue Dogs and their handlers from “a man in a pub”!

Babs was always smiling and full of energy, no matter what the Lake District weather threw at her. Babs approached every training session with the same enthusiasm and bubbly personality, seemingly enjoying every moment of being ‘found’ by our dog teams.

In Babs own words:
“After many years of enjoying fell-walking, and appreciating the dedication of our wonderful Mountain Rescue volunteers, it’s lovely to be able to help in a very small way. I also get to spend time in our beautiful fells, meet wonderful dogs, and meet lovely folk to boot!! It’s a huge privilege”.

Well it’s been a huge privilege having Babs on the team and she will be very much missed. Our thoughts are with her family and friends at this sad time.

Our dogsbodies are the lifeblood of our training and we cannot thank them enough.

25/10/2026

It's a double celebration today; Trainee Search Dog Dash's birthday and it's Mountain Rescue Awareness Day. The latter is very topical because Mountain Rescue Teams have been extremely busy dealing with call outs during this weekend's storms.

This little video celebrates Dash's wonderful warm, friendly personality and his drive to help others, ably guided by his handler Elly. And, it features team photographs because Mountain Rescue is very much a team effort.

If you would like to donate a birthday treat to Dash then please follow this link:
https://www.justgiving.com/charity/sardalakes

23/10/2026

Well done to our friends at Keswick Mountain Rescue Team for a successful outcome to rescue No. 148. Search dog Broch and handler Rob were out there to help. It's a timely reminder of why we train our search dog teams to work in challenging conditions and in the dark.

This weekend is going to be particularly challenging as the Met Office forecast for tomorrow at 10:30 shows. 10:30 is peak time for being out and about so, before setting off, please consider taking a look at https://www.adventuresmart.co.uk/

Wishing everyone a happy and safe weekend.

If you would like to help us in our work then please donate here: https://www.justgiving.com/charity/sardalakes

22/10/2026

Sorry that it's been a while since our last post so here's an update featuring 1) Training weekend based at Haweswater with friends from Mountain Rescue Search Dogs England (Our thanks to Juno and Chris & Neve and Emily). 2) Saturday training at Red Screes working with some of the aspiring puppies. 3) Evening training near Kendal.
The common features were: Working in the rain. Working in gales and horizontal rain. Working in the dark and the rain.

With huge thanks to WCF Pet & Equestrian, who sponsor our work, the new puppies are growing fast!

28/09/2026

Regularly going into the mountains may incur injuries even if it's a blister or two, but sometimes it's worse. Not least the case for mountain rescue where we “push the envelope” in order to help others. But we never do it lightly, we train for the terrain on a weekly basis and never without a full and continuous risk assessment.

That holds true for our much-loved animal friends and team mates. Like us, they are insured so that they receive the best possible care if needed.

Roxy ruptured her cranial cruciate ligament (CCL) in her left hind leg back in 2023. After surgery and physiotherapy, it healed and she returned to active duty. Once one CCL has gone, there is a 66% probability of the other CCL rupturing around 2 years later. Roxy had been reading the manual according to her vet! She presented with limping only 1 week off her 2-year anniversary.

She was diagnosed with a second CCL rupture in early January 2026 and went for surgery at Oakhill Veterinary Group in Windermere ( www.oakhillvetgroup.co.uk ). After surgery, she recovered well with physiotherapy and hydrotherapy in Oakhill's Animal Rehabilitation Centre.

We send, a heartfelt “thank you” to the wonderful team at Oakhill.

First and foremost, our search dogs are much loved pets so their happiness and welfare is an absolute priority. But, it’s great to report that, after a full reassessment, she returned to active duty recently.
Welcome back Roxy!

If you would like to send a "well done" treat to Roxy then please donate here: https://www.justgiving.com/sardalakes/donate/

Roxy's recovery was also helped by who kindly sponsor of our Search Dog’s food. Thank you so much :-)

21/09/2026

We have had the privilege of being invited to a attend a regional weekend search dog training course by the Norwegian Search Association Norske Redningshunder . We've shared learning from both organisations on dog training as well as bodying techniques. It was a fantastic opportunity to share ideas with international partners and build networks which will support future development of both associations. We want to extend a massive thank you to our Norwegian colleagues who made us feel so welcome and we look forward to working together in the future.

14/09/2026

Horizontal rain, gales, sunshine and a preview of two new search dog puppies; T'was a wonderful variety found during a training weekend held on the fells above Kirkby Stephen and in the Howgills. It was lovely to see our friends from Mountain Rescue Search Dogs England who joined us to share their experience and ideas......and to experience the vile weather on Saturday! Many thanks to everyone who helped to make the weekend a success.

More detail on the puppies will follow soon. They're growing fast! with the kind help from WCF Pet & Equestrian who sponsor our dog food so a huge "thank you".

https://www.justgiving.com/sardalakes/donate/

07/09/2026

Many thanks to our friends at who kindly invited trainee search dog Dash for a trip to the Yorkshire Dales at the weekend. Dash and handler Elly were able to work on different terrain to that in the Lakes and worked together with different search dog teams. Thank you for a fantastic time! 🙂🐾🐾
https://www.facebook.com/MRSearchDogsEng

05/09/2026

It was a pleasure to meet the first of two winners to "be a dog's body for a day" on Thursday. This was made possible by the effort of our friends at The Old Dungeon Ghyll Hotel ( www.odg.co.uk ) and the talented musicians of The ODG Acoustic Music Festival ( https://www.odg.co.uk/projects-7 ). Thank you so much.

The winning bid was made by Phil Soulsby for his wife Sally-Ann. It was lovely to meet them both and to thank them for their donation. We attempted to "lose" Sally-Ann somewhere on the fellside but, as the video shows, search dogs Roxy and Broch made epic long range strikes onto our missing persons.
The weather was typical Lake District horizontal rain and low cloud but that didn't dampen our spirits and laughter.

28/08/2026

August 28, 1948 – A milestone in mountain rescue history

Address

Aviemore

Website

http://www.lakes-searchdogs.org/, https://www.lakescollection.co.uk/dog/dog-food

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