In Search of the Missing

by Mick McCarthy

  We searched until 8 p.m. before calling a halt, as the gardaí were expecting the arrival of 150 local volunteers to carry out a line search. Neil advised the gardaí that the locals should begin their search down at the point where we had finished. I suggested that they start high because the man would have been trying to go over the mountain. Just one hour later, the missing farmer was found on the top of the mountain, only a hundred yards from where Dex and I had stopped searching. He was lying on his back in an open plateau of ground with his hands crossed on his chest, laid out perfectly, almost as if he knew his end was near. As little dots of blood were found on his body, the detectives were called in to check him before the removal of his remains.

  The volunteers came back down from the mountain, while a garda made his way up to stay with the body until the detectives arrived. The handlers climbed up to the scene with their dogs, with the Civil Defence following close behind with a stretcher. When we reached the top, the dogs indicated. But only the two German shepherds, Rizzo and Dex, dared go near the body. Dogs react differently to the scent of a dead body. Eiger, my retriever-collie-cross, was also with our group. When he entered the scent cone, he jumped back suddenly as if he had been hit by an electric fence.

  We said a prayer over the deceased and remained with him, waiting for the arrival of the detectives. On examination of the body, they quickly ruled out foul play as they found that the spots of blood had been caused simply by exposure to the wilderness. The man had died of a heart attack.

  Dex and Rizzo had taken part in their first search operation since qualifying in Cumbria.

  Rizzo

  In May 1991 a man was reported missing on Mount Brandon. Don and I got the shout. We quickly gathered our gear and headed to Kerry with the dogs. When we arrived, the search was already well underway, with members of the Kerry Mountain Rescue Team scattered on the mountain, combing their way through, as Air Corps helicopters circled overhead. The day was clear and visibility was excellent.

  At the briefing, we learned that the missing man was an English tourist who was staying in a local guest house. The previous day, he had told the owner of the house that he was going off to climb Mount Brandon, and said he would return later to collect his belongings. When he failed to turn up, the landlady reported him missing.

  Having decided on our starting points, we set off. Don and Rizzo climbed up towards the top of the mountain to begin a downward search, while Dex and I started upwards from the bottom. We combed Mount Brandon for several hours. Don, Rizzo and Con Moriarty were scouring the area along the top and down the sides of Faha Ridge when Rizzo began to search on some very steep ground. He came to a deep gully, leaped across it without hesitation or fear, and landed on the other side on a tiny ledge of jet-black rock. Because of the constant water fall, the rock was as smooth as ice. Rizzo slipped and fell awkwardly on his side. If he wanted to come back, he would have to turn around. But could he do it? It was almost impossible. He had no space to manoeuvre and the rock was too slippery, too treacherous. As he tried to get up, he found himself facing the gully. He was now in a very dangerous position, with no room to make even the slightest movement. He lost his footing and in the blink of an eye plunged down several hundred feet to his death.

  Don contacted me on the radio. I listened in disbelief. My heart went out to Don: he had lost his best friend. We were all in shock, not only at the suddenness of Rizzo’s death but also at our own vulnerability to the dangers lurking around us. The accident heightened our awareness of how the same fate could be met by any one of the human rescuers who place their lives on the line every time they take part in a search. But when dogs work ahead of their handlers they are always putting themselves at risk, testing the ground, protecting us humans from injury or fatality, minimising the dangers to searchers. At the end of the day, they’re the guinea pigs. Apart from being a great working dog, Rizzo had been a brilliant show dog, with a beautiful temperament. Dex had lost a partner, too. All the endless days and nights of training flashed before me, as well as the trials and excitement of Cumbria. What had it all been for?

  The helicopter crew had seen Rizzo fall. They winched a man down for his body, wrenched him up, airlifted him and took him back to Seán O’Dowd’s pub in Cloghane, a pretty Gaeltacht village situated on the northern tip of the Dingle Peninsula and overlooking Brandon Bay.

  Rizzo’s death was a major setback. But there was no time for mourning – that would come later. A man was missing on the mountain. We immediately continued the search, deeply concerned for the safety of the tourist, fully intent on rescuing him. After two days of intensive searching, all our efforts proved fruitless. We never found the Englishman.

  Seán O’Dowd – who had Cork connections and had taught for many years in the North Monastery before retiring from teaching – very kindly offered us a burial ground for Rizzo in the rear garden of his pub. Knowing how upset we were at Rizzo’s death, Seán suggested Don and I should head back to Cork, and said he would bury him. We drove back in silence, still numbed that Rizzo was no longer with us, unable to voice our pain, our loss. Dex sat in the back of the van, alone, his partner and constant companion now gone forever.

  Some time later, the missing tourist turned up at a guest house in Galway. It seems he had never set foot on Mount Brandon at all, but had invented the lie about going there to avoid paying for his stay. He had done a runner. Eventually, the scoundrel was arrested in England when he tried again to flee a guest house without paying the bill. All of us had paid a price in searching for him. As well as losing Rizzo, most of the searchers, including myself, had lost two days in wages. Knowing that Rizzo had died needlessly made his death even harder to accept.

  Soon after the death of Rizzo, Don was invited to London by a major dog-food company to be presented with an award in recognition of the fact that Rizzo had died in the service of mankind. Don was lucky to have another dog in training at the time – Ben, a collie, drawing close to the qualification stage – and that helped keep him occupied, though it did not take away the pain of losing Rizzo.

  The begrudgers – some members of the German Shepherd Association among them – were still implying that qualifying Dex and Rizzo had been a mere fluke. We heard the comments, and because of the serious nature of search-and-rescue work, we didn’t want anyone doubting our dogs’ abilities. We needed everyone, especially the gardaí, to have full confidence in the dogs, as in many search-and-rescue operations people’s lives can be at stake. So to reassure everyone, we had already set out to qualify a second pair of dogs. This time, we moved away from German shepherds to collies.

  Progress was good. We were more experienced now, and training was easier than the first time round, partly because we had been able to train the younger pair of dogs with the two qualified dogs. We were on familiar ground, knew all the pitfalls, and felt certain we would have the dogs qualified in a much shorter time than Dex and Rizzo. My trainee dog was Eiger, a young, black retriever-collie-cross. I had bought him from a farmer and named him after a mountain in Switzerland.

  Don and I had committed ourselves fully to another gruelling two years of training Ben and Eiger, a chaotic time for my family. Even if my children were sick, I still went off with the dogs. If I wasn’t out training, I was on a call-out – always out, never at home. It was a time of pure and utter selfishness. Bottom line: I was still obsessed.

  Dex was now the only qualified mountain-rescue dog in the Republic of Ireland, and I nearly lost my day job because of the frequency of call-outs. But if somebody was missing, it was hard to refuse to help. Sometimes, it felt almost like emotional blackmail.

  Dog Talk

  Dogs tend to be blamed for everything they do wrong, whereas ninety-nine per cent of doggy problems are, in fact, created by the owners’ lack of knowledge. Humans cause the problems because people keep applying human thinking and psychology to dogs. We’re supposed to be the superior race, but to deal with dogs properly we must think like dogs.


  A dog’s behavioural problems should be corrected in the first six to eight weeks, because when only eleven weeks old, the temperament and character of a dog are already almost fully set. At that stage, a dog’s learning capacity has reached its peak. Scientific research carried out in countries such as Sweden, Russia, Holland and the US shows that the most advanced dog in the world has a level of intelligence equal to that of a two-year-old child, and that a dog will never progress beyond that point – not even a trained dog. From the age of two years onwards, certain things can be explained to children, and they can begin to work things out for themselves, thereby increasing their level of intelligence. The same does not hold true for dogs. A dog possesses an innate understanding and will react instinctively to something, just as it would in the wild with other dogs. But a dog’s overall understanding of our human world is limited. Dogs have no sense of language but can understand a tone of voice. When I was a child, my father told me not to talk too much to the dogs. His advice was spot on and has stood the test of time. Shouting as a means of correction is pointless. It causes the dog to link punishment and anger with the owner. Dogs should never know that their owners are angry with them, but should be able to look on their owners as their best friends, masters, mistresses or pack leaders. The key to training dogs is to let them learn by an association of ideas; for example, if a child touches a hot cooker, the child will connect the pain with the cooker. Likewise, if a dog goes beyond the garden boundaries set by the owner, the dog must connect the punishment with the boundary itself – such as an electric fence – rather than with the owner. The wrong deed the dog is committing must cause the hurt.

  One night, a guy came to me with a problematic, fourteen-month-old German shepherd. The dog was uncontrolled and had no manners. He was being reared in a family home of four children and had never been disciplined. The owner was becoming worried. Every time he took the dog for a walk, he lunged at other dogs and people without warning. If the owner went to walk one way, the dog would pull in the opposite direction. I took the dog outside for ten minutes and sorted out this problem simply by walking him on the lead and getting him to the point where he walked ahead without distraction and followed my direction instead of pulling in the opposite way. Once he had done it for me, he did it for the owner, but the owner needs to continue the routine to ensure the dog does not revert to his old ways.

  Another guy arrived with a troublesome terrier. He said that every time he left the dog out of his garden run, he headed straight for his neighbour’s garden. He was so fed up with the dog’s behaviour that he was thinking of getting rid of him the following week. When I pointed out that he already knew the solution to the problem himself, which was simply to keep the dog in the run, he answered, ‘That’s cruel!’ He told me the measurements of the run, and I assured him that it was big enough for six dogs. I advised him to take the dog for walks, let him loose in the garden only when supervised, and keep him in the run at all other times as a terrier will always ramble.

  Another owner had a problem with his seven-year-old cross-bred poodle lunging at other dogs and people. He came to me convinced he would have to put the dog to sleep. The dog was wearing a muzzle, and when I examined it, I found that it was too small – so tight, in fact, that he could barely breathe. His eyes were covered in hair, which meant he couldn’t see. Naturally, he was always tensed up as he couldn’t even open his mouth, and everything around him posed a threat because he couldn’t see what was happening. A bigger muzzle and a haircut would solve the dog’s problems.

  People themselves are too uptight when it comes to dealing with their dogs, and fail to invest time in finding a way to iron out problems. Training and correction proves most successful when owners are relaxed and take time out to deal with any troublesome doggy behaviour. Most of the time, it boils down to using some common sense, nothing else.

  People assume dogs can read their owners’ minds. No they can’t. But they can read body language. A person’s face alone gives off a certain aura and the eyes tell much. When owners give commands, they usually give a flick of the hand or they might raise an eyebrow. Dogs can pick up on these actions.

  Usually, dogs sniff around strangers when they appear. Owners should never pull their dogs away as doing so causes the dogs to become wary of the stranger and builds up mistrust. Sniffing comes naturally. When dogs smell each other, they are looking for information. When a male and female dog meet, the female starts flirting, whereas when two male dogs come together, each will go off and do a dribble to mark their territory. They’ll make eye contact, give a flick of the tail, and bare their teeth to signal an impending attack.

  Never let a dog know that you’re afraid. This is hard, especially if you are afraid, as you will give off an odour of fear that the dog will pick up. While you may not be able to prevent that, you can disguise the extent of your fear simply by controlling your body language, mainly by not staring at or watching the dog. When someone who has a fear of dogs arrives at our training ground at Hop Island, I usually walk straight over and give them a dog to hold.

  In my eyes, every dog I meet is a potential threat until I know otherwise. But there is no point in becoming paranoid. Common sense tells us that owners are unlikely to walk their dogs in the street if the dogs are potentially dangerous. Unbelievably, ninety-nine per cent of dog bites are down to human stupidity. Don’t ever make the first move to befriend a strange dog. Don’t ever bend down to pat a strange dog. Let the dog approach and smell you. Avoid eye contact as, in an animal’s world, eye contact is a challenge. Avoid smiling at a strange dog as, in a dog’s world, the sight of bared teeth signals an impending attack. Children tend to be bitten by dogs more than adults as a child usually approaches dogs all wide-eyed and smiling, with their face almost level with the dog’s head, which is an approach that dogs totally mistrust. That said, dogs that have been well socialised with humans and other animals from a very young age will totally accept stares and smiles without reacting negatively. When petting or rubbing a dog, it’s important to know how dogs lick each other. They use short, gentle touches, not the long, heavy-handed rubs that we humans inflict on them.

  After a total of only one hour of proper training, a seven or eight-week-old puppy should have learned everything it needs to know. Training sessions should always be short – only two or three minutes at a time, and just a few sessions daily. Exercise is not the most important factor with young puppies or young dogs; what it boils down to is the quality of training and not the quantity. It all comes back to the same old mantra – perfect practice makes perfect.

  During the initial training of a dog, the owner should not give verbal praise. This should be withheld for a few weeks, and will come naturally at that stage. Owners should only play with their dogs during training time. Dogs find it easier to learn through play rather than being forced to train. Get right down on the floor to play with the dog. It’s a good way of bonding. While training lasts, dogs should be constantly rewarded with play and food. Trainers’ attitudes to rewarding dogs with food have come full circle. In the 1970s rewarding dogs with food was frowned upon, and went out of practice for about fifteen years; today, it’s highly recommended. After training, take away all the toys. If toys are left around, the dog will become possessive of them, and may even bite a child to get hold of them.

  Ignore bad behaviour and reward good. If a pup piddles on the floor, wipe it up but don’t give out. Usually, the owner is at fault for not letting the pup out often enough. A pup has no bladder control until the age of five months. In the first two weeks, a pup should be let out every thirty to sixty minutes, and every two or three hours after that. But don’t walk the pup out. Instead, pick up the pup, place it down outside, and stay there for two or three minutes. Don’t say a word, and even when the business is done, don’t give any praise. Pick up the pup again, let the pup loose inside, and reward it with a game of ball.

  Dogs should only be left to wander inside the house whe
n it suits the owners. A house is for humans, not for dogs, and dogs in a house should be kept in a crate lined with newspaper. The crate comes in especially handy when going out. Dogs can be taken anywhere simply by popping the crate in the car – just like a baby carrier or car seat.

  In the garden, dogs should be placed in a long, narrow holding pen measuring a minimum of four feet by twelve feet. They should never be loose in a garden, not only because they might destroy it but also because they may come to regard it as their own territory. Leaving a dog loose in a garden increases the risk of a child being bitten by a dog. If the owner wants to leave the dog loose outside, the child should be brought in. Never let male dogs in particular and young children play together unsupervised. When male dogs become sexually mature – usually between nine months and two and a half years, depending on the breed – they become easily excited. Once they start to be assertive, they look on themselves as being part of a pack. Dogs do not see young babies as a threat, but once babies become more forward in their actions – such as hitting the dog or throwing toys – a dog may view the child’s actions as a challenge, and might growl. The owners might then punish the dog for growling. If a dog knocks down an eighteen-month-old child in nappies, the child might squeal and may sound like an injured rabbit to the dog. The dog does not see the child as a human and it becomes prey to the dog, and the dog might drag the child around or attack, even to the point of fatality.