HRDSN, news

Introducing the new HRDSN junior SAR dog teams

Thanks to American dog trainer Lynn Martin from the Dog Obedience Academy in Oregon, who came all the way from the USA in October, 2009, with her sister, Kathleen Reick, we were able to start with newly recruited Nepalese youngsters to form the first squad of six new dogs and handlers after many years of stagnation due to the Maoist People's War.
Along with Lynn and Kathleen came the two German short hair pointer puppies, Hunter & Maggie, as a gift to the Himalaya Rescue Dog Squad.

Between the last week of December, 2009, and the first week of January, 2010, this clicker training introduction was followed up by German SAR dog trainers, Dr. Renate Schaal, and her friend, Katrin Kolbe, both very experienced with man-trailing and air-scenting dogs. They classified our six new adult dogs into these two SAR dog specialties.
Renate and Katrin witnessed the first birth of a litter of seven, healthy Springer puppies at Old Years Eve in our Dog Squad after many years of stagnation due to the bad political situation in Nepal--a new beginning and a good omen for the year 2010.

During a previous visit to Nepal in November, 2008, German SAR Dog leader and trainer Daniela Neika had brought the first four new dogs to Nepal to restart the training and eventually the breeding of new working dogs: Springer Spaniel puppy, Helga; Springer-Setter mix, Dunston; and German Shepherd pup, Aldo, along with an adult Malinois-German Shepherd mix female with the colorful name Laxmi, donated by our SAR Dog trainer friend, Lydia van Wyngaerden in the Netherlands. Mixed breeds are becoming more and more common in the international SAR dog community.

On January 15, 2010, Daniela again came to Nepal together with her friend, Axel Borrmann, to follow up Renate's and Katrin's training sessions and, being a vet, to train the Juniors in medical dog care and how to vaccinate them against all common canine diseases. She also injected I.D. chips into the newborn puppies and showed the squad members how to do this themselves.

Daniela expanded the training sessions into the wider area around the base and trained the leaders and dogs successfully in more difficult subjects, such as how to read dogs signals, how to avoid ghost trails, and the different ways dogs tell their leaders when a "victim" is found.

We would like to thank our trainers from abroad for their generous contribution and hope they will all visit us again soon. The training now needs to be deepened and expanded all over Nepal in order to let the dogs get used to any situation and climate condition, etc..

Sponsor a Nepalese SAR dog junior & his dog for training!

1. Dambar Bahadur Magar and his man trailer Maggie

2. Nagendra Magar and his air scenting dog Laxmi

3. Chitra Magar and his man trailer Hunter

4. Laxmon Chauthary with German Shepherd Aldo , air scenting dog par excellence

5. Ambar Magar with Dunston, a mixed breed of Springer and Setter who is an excellent recalling dog

6. Dilip Magar , puppy-master, care taker of Springer Spaniel Helga who is at the moment busy with her newly born litter of 7

HRDSN Book Project

In May, 2010, Deb Lauman, a Search and Rescue volunteer and writer from Arizona, U.S.A., will travel to Nepal for the first time, to spend three months with the HRDSN. The purpose of her trip is to learn about the members of the squad, their stories, and about the many lives they have touched, so she can return home at the end of July and write a book about them. Half the proceeds from the book will go to the HRDSN.

You can find out more about the Himalaya Rescue Dog Squad Nepal Book Project and pledge in exchange for gifts, including a signed copy of the book once it's published, on Deb's Kickstarter page. And you can read about her own Search and Rescue activities on her blog.

HRDSN seeks private and corporate donors

Priority number one is training!

During The People's War in Nepal from 1996 until 2006, HRDSN could not continue its training of new disaster relief workers to increase her present Nepalese senior staff. Now only 18 staff members and 9 Nepalese volunteers are left to work with. Our aim is to have a minimum of 100 Nepalese disaster relief workers on standby in our mobile HRDSN Disaster Relief & Medical Aid Unit.

Some of HRDSN ex-school pupils are still in college classes 11 and 12. They study various bachelors degrees. These higher qualified youngsters will complete their studies very soon. A few of them made it to university for Masters Degree study in science, medicine, education, economics, and engineering. The others are studying colleges in law, charter accountancy, pedagogic primary- and secondary school education, hotel management, staff nurse, health worker and agriculture engineering.

All of them are still fully sponsored by HRDSN's own resources with the generous help and aid of personal donors and god parents in Germany, Denmark and the USA. Most god parents have known a student since childhood. Nine of these youngsters have finished their studies recently and seek jobs with HRDSN management, health posts, boarding school and logistics. Yet still they have to follow full disaster aid workers training. All of them will have double jobs in HRDSN as per our tradition since the very beginning in 1989!

Their two years in HRDSN's special training program of HRDSN is a no-income period, and HRDSN simply cannot cover for them due to a very tight budget. All trainees need food, lodging, travel money, training equipment, special working clothes and gear, etc..
During training, they have to do all household jobs themselves in a sort of rotation system, like cooking meals for all, washing clothes, keep everything neat and tidy etc.. No extra personnel needs to be hired from their funding.

These young Nepalese people are very valuable to us and have come a long way together with HRDSN. They know the issue of serving in a Disaster Unit or Search and Rescue Dog Squad from firsthand observation. Their parents have been employees of HRDSN for more than a decade.
Amongst them are also a few disaster orphans who were adopted by HRDSN's staff many years ago during our first encounter with flood victims. Naturally, in a country with a chronic shortage of employment opportunities, these young people dream of a job in our organization.

The entire sponsor request program:

Our aim is to have 100 junior rescue workers within the next two years!

Those who want to give an one-time larger or smaller fund for construction of quarters, and infrastructure at Disaster Unit Base Bijayapur/Pokhara Valley.

Helping to finance the vehicles for HRDSN's hospital on wheels.

Building construction of HRDSN boarding school for disaster orphans.

Those who want to adopt a Nepalese junior(m/f) for the time of the training period of two years:
Estimated training costs for the whole period of 24 months per one trainee(m/f) are EURO 3,500.- and should be paid in one single amount in advance if possible, or at least in four terms of 6 monthly advances of EURO 875.- respectively. A photograph of the junior disaster relief and rescue worker and his/her curriculum will be send on request.

Sponsors for our Rescue Dog Squad's needs so far:

Dr. Thomas Martin, USA
Renato Simonelli, business man, Switzerland
Arbeiter-Samariter-Bund e.V. (ASB) Germany
Niki Taxidis, photographer, Australia
Fleckies, das Forum der Springer Spaniel Freunde.