New Zealand Land Search & Rescue Dogs

NZ Land SAR is the volunteer organisation that provides land search and rescue services to the Police and as a specialist group under Land SAR, we are the official search dog group in New Zealand. LandSAR Search Dogs has over 80 members and provides the SAR sector with 9 operational avalanche dogs and 8 operational wilderness search dogs.

Our members volunteer over 16,000 training hours per year. 1000 hours are given up for administration and the operational teams average over 1000 hours (combined total) on searches per year.

Land SAR Dogs have a set of operational standards for dog teams and all dogs are assessed annually. To become operational the dogs undergo a rigorous assessment process and have to achieve the standards set by NZLandSAR and the NZ Police Dog Section.

Avalanche dogs use airborne scent to locate people under the snow and Wilderness dogs are trained in tracking (following ground scent where people have walked) and / or area search where the dog uses the airborne scent of a lost person.