02/02/2026
Well fancy that - turns out you can teach an old dog new tricks 🪄✨
Echo is a labrador-spaniel cross who has found 11 people, and assisted in 30 searches with Land Search & Rescue New Zealand (LandSAR) ⛑️
Steve Signal - chairman of Tūrangi LandSAR - successfully applied for a Taupō District Council community grant to help meeting the costs associated with training specialist rescue dogs like Echo.
Steve decided to train his own rescue dog after being involved in LandSAR for about seven years. He chose Echo as a puppy based on aptitude and breed characteristics.
🐾 “I looked specifically for a labrador-spaniel cross. I’d spent time with one in my years working on farms, and he was a great dog. You get the benefits of a labrador without the bulk.
🐾 "LandSAR New Zealand is a national volunteer organisation that provides search and rescue help to lost, missing, and injured people. It’s an important job that can mean the difference between life and death. Crews personally fund their equipment with some community support – including purchasing and training dogs if they want to specialise in rescue dogs."
Steve's grant has gone towards ongoing training and travel costs for himself and his four-legged partner, Echo. Vetora Taupo are also sponsors of the duo, and Blackhawk are the official Search and Rescue dog food sponsors in New Zealand.
🐾 "Search and rescue dogs learn skills in three areas – tracking, where they follow scent trails where someone has walked, area search where they roam an area and try to capture a scent on the breeze, and lastly article search where they find things humans have dropped like a muesli bar wrapper, gun shells, or clothing."
🐾 There are only a handful of trained rescue dogs in the country. As dogs (and their handlers) retire there aren’t always replacements coming up through training. This can mean quite a bit of travel for Steve and Echo, which the community grant will help with.
Echo and Steve also attend training camps each year as well as being annually reassessed by both New Zealand LandSAR rescue dog assessors and NZ Police Dog assessors. The council community grant will allow Steve to cover training camp costs.
When he’s not searching in the bush, Echo is a cruisy family dog.
🐾 "He does everything with me and hangs out around the farm,” Steve says. “He’s pretty laid back but if I get out his harness and put my jacket on, he’s all noise. He knows it’s time to get to work.” 🐕 💖
