Search and rescue dogs serve on the frontlines locating people missing after natural disasters, lost children, injured hikers and others, being ready at a moment’s notice to bravely endure the elements and save lives. Supreme Master Ching Hai, world renowned humanitarian, artist and spiritual teacher, speaks of her admiration and concern for these devoted canines.

And I saw many dogs, you know, they used for rescue mission. Oh, they just walk in like nothing, but I feel so bad about them.

The dogs walk in the sharp, broken glasses or anything like that, even chemical leaking or anything, or germs or danger.

And these are precious dogs. They have been trained for years. And they even lay down their life for anyone at command. You have to protect that dog.

To show Her loving support for search dogs and their human partners, Supreme Master Ching Hai has generously contributed over US$80,000 to search-and-rescue teams in 18 countries, including Australia, Belgium, Canada, Chile, China, the Czech Republic, Ecuador, France, Korea, Malaysia, Nepal, New Zealand, Panama, the Philippines, Slovenia, the Netherlands, the UK and the USA.

Today’s program features the second part of our two-part series on the courageous team members of Search and Rescue Dogs Australia (SARDA).

Based in Mornington Peninsula in the state of Victoria, Australia, the non-profit organization provides professionally trained search-and-rescue dogs that work together with human partners to locate lost and missing persons. The group’s services are provided free of charge to law enforcement agencies. On call 24-hours a day and 365 days a year, members are always ready to provide assistance.

In the aftermath of the Black Saturday bushfires that scorched the state of Victoria in February 2009, the worst natural catastrophe in Australia’s history, many caring individuals and groups were on the scene to aid the local people in re-establishing their lives. The devoted SARDA team helped discover 18 deceased victims following the wildfires, which bought comfort and finality to the disaster-stricken families.

River is my operation dog, he’s been internationally assessed and accredited the last four years. We used him and Gus In the bushfires that we had here in February of last year. We were deployed by the Metropolitan Fire Brigade to locate any remains in the houses that were left.

Some places that had already been searched and they couldn’t find them, and the boy here found them. So, it gave closure to the family. All the houses had collapsed, some of them were just ash. So it was a very heart-wrenching area to do.

It’s important for teammates to look out for each other at high risk disaster scenes, such as an area that has been devastated by a blaze.

In that situation, we had to be very mindful of their feet, because there was lots of hot stones still, and their eyes had to be constantly flushed because of all the smoke and ash. So, the wellbeing of the dog is the most important thing, so you’ve got to be careful that you don’t put the dog into a situation where he’s going to hurt himself.

You check their paws, that they’ve got no foreign material in them, glass or splinters or what have you, that can cause problems down the track.

Currently, the all-volunteer SARDA has 28 members, 20 active dog teams and 8 support members. The people involved come from diverse backgrounds, professions and skill areas, an advantage that greatly contributes to the success of the group’s activities. The selfless, life-saving deeds of the Search and Rescue Dogs Australia team have inspired many to join them in their noble missions. We got wiped out in the Black Saturday bushfires up in Kinglake, and the weeks following or the days following when we actually returned to our property, I saw a lot of people walking around with orange jackets on, and I read the back of the jacket, and they said SARDA (S-A-R-D-A). I looked up SARDA on the computer, and up came Search and Rescue Dogs Australia.

And it was obviously Julie (Cowan) and Gus that I’d seen that were searching for victims of the fires. And so I made a phone call to Julie. And at that time I didn’t have a dog, and so the very next day I went out and bought a German Shepherd and you are looking at her!

And she’s just been fantastic. She has been the whole family’s big, fluffy Band-aid, which has been great, and she is a terrific dog, and it has been fantastic and the people here have just been great.

When we return, we’ll meet more of the altruistic canines and humans of Search and Rescue Dogs Australia who work continuously to aid their fellow citizens. Please stay tuned to Supreme Master Television. Welcome back to Animal World: Our Co-Inhabitants featuring Search and Rescue Dogs Australia (SARDA), a non-profit organization that provides certified search-and-rescue, dog-and-human teams to help law enforcement agencies in various Australian states find lost and missing persons. Now let’s meet the elegant canine Kruze and his devoted human companion, a passionate former navy police dog trainer.

This is Kruze. We’ve had him for about 15 months now, and he is a Red Merle Australian Shepherd.

He has been here at Search and Rescue just about all his life, since he was eight weeks old. I’ve got a three year plan for him. So we’re, going to take the three years to get him so he’s strong in body, physically ready to go, and he’s had plenty of training. So he’s got about 15 more, 16 more months to go before we really want to get him out there working.

This was sort of a natural progression for me. And plus I love watching them work, when dogs work naturally, they are amazing, so I really enjoy watching them do what they do naturally.

He enjoys a tug-of-war game, and he’s only a puppy, really, so it’s all just good fun for him.

This is Scout. Scout is about 15 months old; she is a Golden Retriever.

The potential of training a dog that can save lives was very appealing for me, and we haven’t looked back from there, it’s been fantastic.

So how long did it take you to train her?

She is still in training now. It was probably about three to four months before we were on the right track anyway. Up until then it was a lot of, I mean it’s still play fun now, but in the early stages it was really more about confidence building. You’ve seen the dogs over the agility course today, for a very young pup it’s very important just to make it fun for them.

She is very, very soft natured, and a lot of the obstacles she may have fallen off early and took six months to get over that sort of thing. The early days were probably the most, most precious, especially with a dog like Scout. We’re heading down the right track, and probably in the last three to four months, she has really been getting into the search work really well.

And so you give her a treat when she works around the agility track?

Around the agility track, yes. She gets the treat, not so much after each obstacle, we like to keep her focused on each obstacle, but every so often she gets a treat. With the search work, the treat if you like, is the find, they get their toys, and then once they’re back in the work truck, then they get a treat. So, it’s a bit of a process, but it works really well.

Thanks to these benevolent, intelligent canines, search-and-rescue work is much more effective and efficient.

In an area search, if you’ve got one search dog, it’s equal to 40 human searchers. So if you could imagine a line search in a bush area, well you can have a look at the bush behind us. You couldn’t get a lot of people, two, three people at once going through the bush as quick as a dog can drive through that bush, it would be impossible. But one dog can easily and comfortably go through that bush and it’s a quarter of the time for a fully operational search dog who is looking for that person that’s lost and injured.

For all the wonderful rescue work of the SARDA team members, and for their deep commitment to helping society, particularly their unwavering efforts following the Black Saturday bushfires, Supreme Master Ching Hai has contributed US$1000 to help further the group’s noble work and to care for the much deserving canine heroes and heroines.

Along with the donation, Master lovingly provided bags of vegan dog food for the beautiful, hardworking canine team members as well as a lovely selection of her books, DVDs and CDs to share and enjoy!

Thank you very much. For once in my life, I am stuck for words. This has been so generous of Master Ching Hai for actually coming down here and filming our work. We are all volunteers and we’re just out there trying to help; if someone’s lost or trapped, we just want to help them. And training the dogs to do that work is just a joy for us and to see the dogs actually find somebody, and be able to locate is just amazing. So, thank you so much.

On behalf of SARDA, I’d like to thank Master Ching Hai for the generous contribution of the check, and for the books and the DVDs. We are just overwhelmed, because we are all volunteers, and we all use our own money to supply the accredited dogs for the emergency services. And this will go a long way to helping out with everything that we try to do. The dog food especially and the books, and the money, I can’t thank you enough.

In further recognition of their life-saving deeds, Supreme Master Ching Hai is providing an additional US$1,000 to Search and Rescue Dogs Australia for dog shoes and other protective gear. She is also gifting them with extra bags of vegan dog food and delicious vegan cakes and cookies. She has a special message for the group: “I love your dedicated work. This is just a token of thanks. Words are not enough. Heaven bless you & your Hero dogs.”

Our deepest thanks, Search and Rescue Dog Australia for your devotion to serving the people of Australia and rescuing those in need. Your gallantry and steadfastness are an example to us all.

For more details on Search and Rescue Dogs Australia, please visit

Thank you for joining us on Animal World: Our Co-Inhabitants. Coming up next is Enlightening Entertainment after Noteworthy News here on Supreme Master Television. May we always have the protection of the Providence.