Photo: LandSAR
There are many ways to serve a community, and Ron Ealam, from Oxford in Canterbury has been doing it, for the last few decades at least, with trusty dogs at his side.
On Monday, Ealam was made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for his work with Land Search and Rescue over more than 50 years.
For half of that he has been working with rescue dogs - developing the official search dogs training programme and becoming a national trainer and assessor.
"I just quite enjoy being out there, and to actually train a dog up to achieve what we've achieved is just quite amazing," he told RNZ.
He brought with him Skyla, a border collie beardie cross - one of those he has trained over the years.
"They're actually a light, a very light dog that can work pretty good hours and just stop and have a rest and keep going again, and they're just full of energy."
Rescue dogs were trained to recognise human scent, Ealam said.
"We train them initially right from when they were a pup to indicate and follow human scent, which are skin follicles that fall off your body."
And not every dog has a nose for it, he said.
"It's just a matter of finding a dog that has got a good nose, and we developed that and enhance their natural ability… they're pretty amazing... once they pick up a scent, they lock onto it and they'll just stay on it."
One of his most memorable rescues was an early one at Lake Kaniere in the South Island.
"We got a call at 11 o'clock at night for a missing multi-sport runner at Methven, and we drove through the night and we got to Methven about six o'clock in the morning and they put us in a helicopter and took us up onto the tops.
"And we searched down for probably four to six hours, and then my dog indicated on the footprint that went down a creek, and we followed the scent down to the last party and she was there - she was very cold.
"And I can always remember my dog sort of cuddled up to her."
The woman was airlifted out by helicopter.
