In Search of the Missing Page 5

  I am ashamed to admit it, but I put my wife and family totally to one side. Unless they were training with me, they hardly saw me. Such neglect caused great difficulty at home, but I wasn’t willing to listen to reason. Time and time again, I promised that as soon as I had qualified one search-and-rescue dog, I would ease back a little. It never came to be. Now, I realise I was on a roller coaster, and I didn’t want to get off. To put it simply, it was an ego trip, a total obsession. I didn’t care. I just wanted to keep going.

  To make matters worse, doggy friends and fellow club members constantly doubted my ability to succeed. Often, they told me I would never qualify a dog for search-and-rescue work. Being as stubborn as I am, this was like showing a red rag to a bull. As friends who know me well will testify, if I am told I will not succeed, especially where dogs are concerned, I will go all out to prove that I can. In my mind, there was one, and only one, way to succeed, and that meant perfect practice. Once, I came across a book on schutzhund which stated, ‘Practice does not make perfect. It’s perfect practice that makes perfect.’ This became my mantra.

  All through this time, Don was with me. He was caught up in the training as much as I was, but, being a single man, it didn’t affect his home life as much as it did mine. As well as becoming dog trainers, we had to become members of a recognised mountain rescue team, obtain a current mountain-rescue first-aid certificate, be extremely proficient in compass work and reading a map, and be competent with a rope and harness. Knowing that we had a long, tough road ahead, we lined up everyone we knew to help.

  Our families came up trumps. We depended heavily on them, especially to act as ‘bodies’. Without bodies, or helpers, training is impossible, as several people are needed to train a dog. Normally, a body has to hide in the woods or mountains in all types of weather and wait until found by the search dog. This type of search-dog training is based on air scenting, which means that a dog will find all humans in a particular area, whether they are the missing persons or ‘innocent’ hillwalkers. When innocent walkers are ‘found’, the handler will explain the situation and ask them to leave the area of the search. Sometimes, these walkers may have seen or found evidence of the missing person, such as a backpack. If they are experienced hillwalkers, they may even help in the search.

  When found, the bodies must reward the dogs with food or play, using a ball or some other toy. The dogs then learn to associate the toys with the find, until eventually the dogs believe that in all searches they are, in fact, looking for their toys. For that reason, the toy must always be produced at the point of the find. The bodies can make or break the dogs. Their input in training is vital, especially their reaction on being found, how they play with the dogs, and how they build up a relationship with them. Our usual bodies included my wife Marie, my sister Celine, as well as Don’s brothers, Declan and Tom. And all of them often suffered absolute torture in an effort to help us train our dogs. While Don and I travelled comfortably around the country having a laugh in the front of the van, our helpers had to stay in the back with the dogs and endure lengthy journeys, such as trips down to Dingle and home again on the same day. They had no seating, and had to put up with being thrown from side to side on bumpy, winding roads, most of which were dotted with potholes. Much of the time, they were exposed to harsh weather conditions, and their clothing back then was totally inadequate for protecting them from the cold and rain, as we didn’t have the proper outdoor gear.

  Hiding out could last six hours, and I often found my wife crying with the cold while hiding under a rock up a mountain, having waited for hours to be located by the dog. Once, while she was acting as a body and waiting to be found in a cave in Carrauntoohil, two children out for a walk with their parents happened to look in. Marie was sitting at the back of the cave, and when she saw them, she just said, ‘Hi!’ They got the shock of their lives, and ran off screaming. They probably thought they had found the ‘mad woman’ of the mountains. Marie ended up screaming herself, on another training session, when a herd of goats descended upon her when she was halfway up the Devil’s Ladder. But she quickly hunted them by battering them with a fistful of stones.

  As well as roping in the adults, my children Shane, Michelle and Gemma were also called upon to act as bodies, especially when I trained near home. Most evenings, one of them would willingly hide in a nearby field and wait to be found. These short, simple, fun sessions lasted only fifteen to twenty minutes. The purpose of this type of consistent training was to condition the dogs into believing that locating the missing person was their only mission in life. After supper, I usually hopped on my bicycle and took the dogs for a four-to-six-mile run on the roads around Knockraha, or I left the bicycle behind and jogged along with the dogs. On return from these exercise sessions, I then cycled or drove to the local woods in Ballyrea or Moanbaun. Don would arrive with his ‘search’ dog Rizzo, and we’d train from around

  9 p.m. to midnight, often later.

  Some evenings after work, I drove to The Vee in Lismore, usually with Don – or whoever I could persuade to come along – to train the dogs for a few hours. Other times, we headed for Gougane Barra, Glengarriff or the Hag’s Glen. Under the instruction of Tom O’Neill from Midleton, I mastered the skills of reading a map and compass. Tom was well known for teaching navigation and survival skills to the Reserve Defence Forces. Very quickly, I realised that while learning the skills of map and compass reading was one thing, finding the time to practise them was quite another. I studied first-aid from beginner to mountain-rescue level. Once I acquired the knowledge, I practised it over and over again. Then I tackled abseiling and climbing techniques. I familiarised myself with ropes, harnesses, figures of eight and karabiners, which are large, steel spring clips used for hooking a person to another attachment for safety purposes.

  As soon as I had gathered a collection of climbing gear, I began to carry it everywhere. I was constantly on the lookout for areas to practise abseiling. Whenever I saw a suitable spot, even at the side of the road, I set up a rope. Mike O’Shea from the Kerry Mountain Rescue Team often travelled up from Killarney and spent endless hours abseiling with Don and myself off the viaduct on the Cork to Bandon road. Now and again, I slotted an indoor climb into the week’s training programme by practising at a climbing wall in Dromcollogher in north Cork.

  At one point, I became obsessed with running as part of the training routine. When George Mallory, the famous mountaineer, was asked why he wanted to climb Mount Everest, he replied, ‘Because it is there.’ I know exactly what he meant. It’s easy to become obsessed, with anything. When you get to a point where you realise you are good at something, that’s when the adrenaline rush kicks in and you just don’t want to give up. You’re hooked. It’s like driving down a one-way street – there’s no turning back. Most days, at lunch time, I went for a sixty-minute run. Other days, I spent my lunch hour in the local gym. I never had the time for lunch, but, somehow, I never seemed to feel hungry. I lost a lot of weight during this period. On the way home, I’d run another four miles, starting from the Silver Springs Hotel. Sometimes, in the evenings, my son Shane would cycle alongside me as I jogged so as to help me increase my speed. I was always pushing myself, trying to go that extra mile. The better I became, the more I wanted to do. Then I started taking part in road races, from five miles up to half-marathons. I was happy if I finished in the top twenty per cent of any race. But then it all came to a sudden halt when I injured my ankle. That put an end to the running part of the training.

  Most hillwalking clubs don’t allow dogs on regular walks. When it came to choosing a hillwalking club to join, Don and I opted for the Killarney Mountaineering Club (KMC) because we knew our dogs would be welcomed there with open arms. The KMC began in 1981, and many of its walks took place around the local Macgillycuddy Reeks, the highest mountain range in Ireland. Our first walk with the KMC was one of the worst days of my life. Before setting out for Killarney, I visited my local army-surplus store and stock
ed up on some gear I thought would be ideal for hillwalking, including a framed backpack. I stuffed the backpack with mini Mars bars, a flask of soup, sandwiches, minerals, dog food, an aluminium dog bowl and, believe it or not, a two-litre container of water for the dog. I packed a compass and map, neither of which I could read at the time as I hadn’t yet taken instruction on these skills from Tom O’Neill, but I thought that having them would greatly impress the other walkers in the group! I brought along my first search dog, a German shepherd named Dex. He came from a show line and was a grandson of double world sieger, or world champion, Uran Vom Wildsteiger Land and a son of German import Aro Vom Wiesenborn, son of Sieger Uran. Dex was an excellent show dog and had many show-ring wins to his credit. From the start, I was committed to using dogs with a show-line background. I wanted to prove that they were equally as good as working dogs, which are normally smaller, leaner and fitter. Accompanying Don was Rizzo, another descendant from a first-rate show line, and himself a brilliant show dog well advanced in schutzhund training. He was a son of a German import, the champion Alf Vom Quengelbach.

  When we arrived in Killarney, members of the club – all strangers to us – began piling into our van. We quickly learned that using as few vehicles as possible was the norm as this saved parking space later at the starting point for the walk. Once everyone had squeezed themselves into some vehicle or other, we set off in convoy, following the lead car, which was barely hitting the road. Boy, was I scared! Jesus, I thought to myself, these people are going to kill me even before I set foot on a mountain. We raced on. Although they were all experienced hillwalkers and mountaineers, they acted like a pack of excited children, unable to contain their enthusiasm to begin the mountain climb.

  At the starting point, everyone hopped out and chattered noisily as they sorted out their gear. Don and I looked on open-mouthed, like two little boys on their first day at school. They checked their backpacks for food, water, map, compass and rain gear. Apparently, Gore-tex jackets were the order of the day. Then they laced their boots firmly, put on gaiters, and secured their gloves and headgear in the backpack. And then it came to us. Here we were, the search-dog handlers from Cork with our very inadequate gear and, as was quickly spotted, a very dangerous design of backpack. Donie Sullivan – a member of both the KMC and the Kerry Mountain Rescue Team – took me aside and said that if the frame of my rucksack got caught on an outcrop of rock along a narrow ledge, it could knock me off the mountain as the frame protruded above my head. Even though I didn’t leave it behind, as it was the only one I had, I learned from my mistake.

  With all the checking of gear complete, we set off on our first hillwalk. Don was much younger than me, still only a teenager, and extremely fit. Foolishly, I believed I was equally as fit and would have no difficulty whatsoever with the walk. Earlier that week, I had read a book on hillwalking that advised that it was better to eat little but often when on a hillwalk. Taking this recommendation to the extreme, I began eating and drinking from the time I started the walk. All of a sudden, the pace became much faster than I’d expected. Climbing through heather and bogland was tough. I began to feel severe pain in my calves and thighs. After only an hour, I was sweating profusely. My head ached, my stomach churned. Eventually, I had to tell Don because I was convinced I was going to die! Don laughed and encouraged me to keep going or our so-called search-dog careers would be over before they’d begun. I looked around me. The group consisted of people of all ages; a woman in her sixties was sauntering along as though out for a Sunday stroll in the park.

  Two hours later, struggling up steep ground, knee-deep in heather, I noticed Don had begun to lag behind. I waited for him to catch up. His knee was giving trouble and he couldn’t walk any further. Some of the walkers who were also members of the rescue team came back to us. They manipulated and bandaged Don’s knee. After a short rest, he was fine again and fit to continue.

  During the walk different members walked alongside us and explained about hillwalking. At every rest point, they took out a map and showed us exactly where we were in relation to the starting point. Everybody was helpful, encouraging, non-judgemental and more than willing to teach us everything they knew about hillwalking.

  Since we began the walk, the day had been wet and damp, with little streams of water flowing everywhere. Even so – and to everyone’s amusement – I regularly took out Dex’s bowl and poured some water from my container. After I had filled his bowl a few times, one of the group was brave enough to tell me there was no need to carry a container of water around as there was water everywhere.

  That first, memorable, torturous hillwalk lasted six hours. Afterwards, as was customary, we all went to a local pub to have a mineral or two before setting out on the journey home. Some of the group joked that Don and I were a lazy pair as our dogs had pulled us up the hill. We’d kept the dogs on the leads all the way because we were afraid they’d chase sheep. We couldn’t deny it, they’d helped us along. While the banter continued, I purchased minerals one after the other as my body was craving liquid. Later, my head began to throb and I started to throw up. On the two-hour journey home, we had to stop every few minutes as I was still getting sick. I felt under big pressure as I had to be back by 9 p.m. to do a gig. When we finally made it home, I jumped straight into my car and headed to work; time for a shower and a shave was out of the question. And I certainly didn’t want any food.

  Surprisingly, the following day I didn’t have a pain or an ache. I felt totally rejuvenated and on a high. Instead of being depressed about my obvious lack of fitness and knowledge of hillwalking, I felt more determined than ever to become fit and to learn everything there was to know about hillwalking and mountaineering. From then on, Don and I became dedicated members of the KMC, and walked with the club every second Sunday.

  On one such Sunday, the rain came teeming down as we arrived to climb Carrauntoohil. Having gone to the usual meeting place, we soon realised that the cute Kerry people had stayed in bed because of the bad weather, while us twits from Cork had turned up expecting the usual crowd. We waited to see if anyone else would come along. A woman arrived, all kitted out in new gear for the mountain. She asked if we were going climbing, told us she was a schoolteacher, and said this would be her very first climb. Her pupils were all looking forward to hearing about her day on Carrauntoohil, and she didn’t want to go home without taking part in the climb. We told her that as we had driven all the way down to Killarney, we were going to go for a ‘bit of a doddle’ up the Hag’s Glen and that she was more than welcome to join us. She accepted, and off we went. The Hag’s Glen was flooded, with water pouring off the mountainside. After about an hour, the woman started to complain about her legs. I suggested we turn back, but she was having none of it, and was determined to continue regardless of cost or conditions. At the top of the Devil’s Ladder, I tried once again to persuade her to call a halt, but she refused and we soldiered on. By now, she was limping badly and almost crying with pain. Every few hundred yards, she was stopping to sit down and rest. But she was insistent on carrying on with or without us. Going it alone was ridiculous, especially as visibility was down to a few yards, she didn’t know the route to the top, and she had no map or compass. Even if she had, she probably wouldn’t have been able to read them. Eventually, we made it to the cross at the top of Carrauntoohil. Having achieved her goal, she collapsed on the spot and told us she couldn’t walk another step. After an hour of coaxing her, we finally managed to get her standing. We had to physically carry her down the mountain and back to the car park. Normally, this climb and descent would have taken us about five hours to complete; that day, it took nine hours. Doddle, how are you?

  One of the more serious aspects of training with the KMC was to stock-proof our dogs, which meant teaching them to ignore farm livestock. We achieved this with the help of Joe Cronin, whose farmyard lies in the shadow of Carrauntoohil and at the start of the Hag’s Glen. Before we’d set off on a climb, Joe would pen some of hi
s sheep into a small paddock near his house, where we would practise some obedience and control work with our dogs around the sheep. This was very helpful as it was vital that our dogs did not chase sheep on the hill.

  All of the Cronin family were good friends to search-and-rescue people. They allowed us to use their yard for parking and as a base for rescues on Carrauntoohil. After a climb, Mrs Cronin always had tea and sandwiches ready for us. She looked after non-members, too, and quickly notified the rescue team if any walkers failed to return to the yard by nightfall to collect their cars. Her son Gerard regularly acted as a body for us on the mountain. John, another son, owned an excellent golden retriever called Sandy, a dog well on the way to becoming a search-and-rescue dog. Even our dogs appeared to recognise the kindness of the Cronins, as I discovered after one particular training session on Carrauntoohil. On that day, dog handlers, including Neil, had travelled from all over Ireland to take part in the training. We based ourselves in Cronins’ yard, and returned there after the session for a debriefing. As normal, our dogs ran loose around the yard. As I packed up our gear to set off for home, I couldn’t find any trace of Dex. When Mrs Cronin heard me calling his name, she appeared at the door with a big smile on her face and beckoned me to come inside. There was Dex lying in front of a roaring fire having scavenged everything he could off the table.

  While walking with the KMC, our dogs were regularly fed sandwiches by all and sundry. As a result, whenever we came across walkers eating, we shouted at them, ‘Mind your sandwiches!’ On one particular walk known as the Reeks Walk, the dogs made sure to get their fill. The Reeks Walk is a traditional, annual, nine-hour walk around the Macgillycuddy Reeks, in which people from all over the country take part. Usually, the Kerry Mountain Rescue Team, together with other volunteers, staff way stations along the route to provide rescue cover for any walkers who might get into difficulty. On our first year of hillwalking, Don and I decided to join in this long-established walk. As we arrived late, we agreed to link up with the walk on the Devil’s Ladder. The mountain was covered in fog and mist, visibility was very poor, and the dogs began ranging ahead of us. Within minutes, they had disappeared up the Devil’s Ladder and high into the mist. As they were both stock-proofed and knew the area well, we took little notice. It didn’t bother us at all that they were no longer in view. About ten minutes later, we heard screams and then peals of laughter coming out of the mist. The dogs ran back down to us and indicated a find by barking. We climbed until we finally reached the top of the Ladder – a small plateau of grass and mud around ten foot square – only to find ourselves in the centre of about fifteen women. The women explained that they were participants in the Reeks Walk and had decided to stop for a rest and some food. Laughing, they recalled their terror at seeing the two ‘wolves’ emerge from the mist, and running wildly from person to person and grabbing all their sandwiches. Luckily, their fears quickly vanished as one of the group was a regular climber of Carrauntoohil and recognised the dogs.