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In Search of the Missing: Working with Search and Rescue Dogs
In Search of the Missing paints a vivid picture of the people and dogs behind search and rescue operations, the painstaking demands of training and qualification, and the highs and lows of a job where minutes can be the difference between saving someone’s life or finding only their body.
289 pages, Kindle Edition
First published July 19, 2011
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June 10, 2025
Search & Rescue dog books are one of my favorite types of dog books. I have read quite a few and while I enjoyed this book, it is not one of my favorites of its type. I still learned things about SAR in it but sometimes question Mick’s thoughts on dog training. For those reasons I am giving the book four stars but still would recommend this book for those who are fans of SAR dog books. As for most of my reviews, I will include quotes from the book so you can get a feel for it and for any discussion.
In some ways the book is like ‘Search Dogs and Me: One Man and his Life-Saving Dogs’ by Neil Powell, and Mick McCarthy’s stories even crosses paths with Neill in his book.
The book starts with telling us all about the author including how he obsessed over music, then over schutzhund, and then over Search & Rescue. It is hard on families when a person obsesses over something much more than the family.
‘From the time SARDA Ireland was founded, search training took up every spare minute of my time. Just as I had been obsessed with music and schutzhund training, | now became obsessed with training a dog for search-and-rescue work. Every hour outside of work was spent with the dogs. I trained seven days a week, including every Christmas day and all holidays’
‘Hiding out could last six hours, and l 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.’
I thought it was interesting how German Shepherds are not favored for SAR work there in the UK. Wonder if that is still the case?
‘When we opened the door of the dog trailer, one of the assessors immediately said, ‘Oh, bloody mutton eaters!’ The other made a comment about the fun they usually have when 'Alsatians’ get in amongst the sheep.’
I love hearing of the work and training the dogs have to do so I will provide some quotes describing that:
‘Neil told us that tracking dogs are of little use in real-life searches, whereas air-scenting dogs can work solely by air scent and rapidly get on the trail of a missing person. They can pick up a scent 120 feet under water, and cover as much ground in one hour as ten people can in four hours. Air-scenting dogs work with their heads up all the time. But tracking dogs work with their noses down, which is much harder and more tiring for a dog.’
‘At this stage, after almost two years of continual training, search dogs should be capable of ranging up to a half-mile from their handlers. They should be trusted to continue searching on their own and to return occasionally to within earshot or sight of the handlers. To determine if a dog has reached this level of training, engaging an observer who will use both binoculars and a two-way radio is essential. While the dog and handler work on one side of a valley, the observer stays on the opposite hill and watches the dog closely, especially when the dog is out of sight of the handler. The observer keeps the handler informed on what the dog is doing. For example, is the dog chasing sheep? Is the dog continuing to work? Everything must be reported as it happens, if the dog continues to work when out of sight, the handler can develop confidence in the dog. This is important, as one of the biggest problems in search-dog training is handler confidence. The handlers must always ask, Do I trust the dogs to do the job for which they have been trained?’
‘To bring a dog to the qualification stage takes a lot of repetition of the same exercises, over and over again, hundreds of times. A minimum of two thousand hours must be put in, and that excludes travelling. Training sessions should be built up to sixty miles a week. Dogs must be super fit to survive and pass an assessment as they will be required to cover eighteen to twenty miles every hour they work, and this will continue for many hours each day over a period of three to four days. A properly trained, fit dog will fly through the assessment and show no signs of tiredness.’
‘Training or undergoing assessments with foreign search teams can be challenging, especially if their priorities differ from ours, In one particular qualification test 1 had taken with Dex in Wales, the assessors were obsessed with the fact that dogs should have a coat on their backs during searches. They were convinced that putting coats on dogs signaled that a search was underway, excited the dogs, and put them in a working frame of mind. Not in my book!’
I also enjoyed hearing of and real-world experiences showing the difference between air-scenting dogs and ground scenting dogs. Here is a bit of the discussion:
‘On average, air-scenting dogs can cover an area of 120 miles during any eight-to-ten hour working day, and they would be expected to cover this each day for the duration of the search. Trailing dogs, like our bloodhounds, cover eight to ten miles each hour, and more if allowed; this can continue, as with air-scenting dogs, for many days. Provided they have a definite starting point and an uncontaminated scent article, bloodhounds can locate missing persons much faster and more efficiently than air-scenting dogs. But working with bloodhounds can be exhausting for the handlers as they have to walk every step of the way and hold the dogs on lead, which can be very hard on the hands because of the speed at which bloodhounds move and the strength of the pull. Bloodhound handlers usually wear gloves, but they sometimes become so tired and sore that they have to hand the dog over to another handler. In some respects, working with air-scenting dogs is easier.’
There is also a discussion if SAR and cadaver dogs should be taught to the same dog. His justification is that ‘On average, in nine out of ten searches, only one person is found alive. If anything, the figures justify the necessity for cross-training all dogs.’
Running into searches that have sad endings is tough on those who do the searching:
‘As searchers, we often try to ignore the impact search and-rescue operations can have on us. There are times when we feel we've escaped, come out without a scratch, immune to all the pain around the situation. But the memory always lingers; often, it lies hidden beneath the surface, watching and waiting to catch us off guard.’
I like books written in the UK because of differences between there and here in the US. For example, I didn’t know about the muzzle law. I can see the good and bad in it. So, his dog is doing great things to help out, but has to be muzzled. Here is a bit about the law:
‘In June 1991 Padraig Flynn, the minister for the environment introduced regulations that required Certain breeds of dogs to wear a muzzle in public. The regulations applied to the American pit bull terrier, bulldog, bull mastiff Doberman pinscher, English bull terrier, Japanese Akita, Japanese Tosa, Rhodesian ridgeback, Rottweiler, Staffordshire e bull terrier and German shepherd.’
As I mentioned earlier, I am not sure about some of his dog-training advice like what he says in the beginning of this next excerpt. Maybe one of dog trainer friends can weigh in with an opinion:
‘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.’
Other than learning about the work the dogs do, the main reason for reading SAR dog books is for the payoff, when the dog saves the day. There are not as many of those endings in the book as I would like, but that is the nature of the work. The important thing to vigorously applaud is that people take the time and dedicate themselves to being available and ready for those rescue moments.
‘The boy was unconscious and suffering badly trop hypothermia. We gave him some of our clothes, a little piece of a Mars bar and a few sips of water. Having notified base that we had found the boy, we began to carry him down the Side of the mountain through knee-deep heather and bogland.’
(Did you wonder what I did? Are Mars bars standard equipment? Is that the best candy bar to have on hand for this situation? 😊 )
And one last quote to help us learn to stay safe. He offers it after having made a poor climbing decision that could have easily cost him his life. From other books I have learned how many people go missing, so we need to do things to help stay safe and let people know where we are:
‘But our memorable day on Hungry Hill taught me some very valuable lessons. No matter how experienced you are in climbing, never be arrogant about your abilities to find your way out of trouble on the hills. Use and trust your map and compass. Always take sufficient gear and food regardless of how short your walk may be, and leave a route map on your windscreen. Today, there should be no excuse for anyone getting lost on a mountain, especially now that we have the use of the Global Positioning System — a neat device the size of a pack of cards that can show a climber’s exact position.’
So enjoyed the book. If you like books on SAR dogs, this is one of them.
In some ways the book is like ‘Search Dogs and Me: One Man and his Life-Saving Dogs’ by Neil Powell, and Mick McCarthy’s stories even crosses paths with Neill in his book.
The book starts with telling us all about the author including how he obsessed over music, then over schutzhund, and then over Search & Rescue. It is hard on families when a person obsesses over something much more than the family.
‘From the time SARDA Ireland was founded, search training took up every spare minute of my time. Just as I had been obsessed with music and schutzhund training, | now became obsessed with training a dog for search-and-rescue work. Every hour outside of work was spent with the dogs. I trained seven days a week, including every Christmas day and all holidays’
‘Hiding out could last six hours, and l 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.’
I thought it was interesting how German Shepherds are not favored for SAR work there in the UK. Wonder if that is still the case?
‘When we opened the door of the dog trailer, one of the assessors immediately said, ‘Oh, bloody mutton eaters!’ The other made a comment about the fun they usually have when 'Alsatians’ get in amongst the sheep.’
I love hearing of the work and training the dogs have to do so I will provide some quotes describing that:
‘Neil told us that tracking dogs are of little use in real-life searches, whereas air-scenting dogs can work solely by air scent and rapidly get on the trail of a missing person. They can pick up a scent 120 feet under water, and cover as much ground in one hour as ten people can in four hours. Air-scenting dogs work with their heads up all the time. But tracking dogs work with their noses down, which is much harder and more tiring for a dog.’
‘At this stage, after almost two years of continual training, search dogs should be capable of ranging up to a half-mile from their handlers. They should be trusted to continue searching on their own and to return occasionally to within earshot or sight of the handlers. To determine if a dog has reached this level of training, engaging an observer who will use both binoculars and a two-way radio is essential. While the dog and handler work on one side of a valley, the observer stays on the opposite hill and watches the dog closely, especially when the dog is out of sight of the handler. The observer keeps the handler informed on what the dog is doing. For example, is the dog chasing sheep? Is the dog continuing to work? Everything must be reported as it happens, if the dog continues to work when out of sight, the handler can develop confidence in the dog. This is important, as one of the biggest problems in search-dog training is handler confidence. The handlers must always ask, Do I trust the dogs to do the job for which they have been trained?’
‘To bring a dog to the qualification stage takes a lot of repetition of the same exercises, over and over again, hundreds of times. A minimum of two thousand hours must be put in, and that excludes travelling. Training sessions should be built up to sixty miles a week. Dogs must be super fit to survive and pass an assessment as they will be required to cover eighteen to twenty miles every hour they work, and this will continue for many hours each day over a period of three to four days. A properly trained, fit dog will fly through the assessment and show no signs of tiredness.’
‘Training or undergoing assessments with foreign search teams can be challenging, especially if their priorities differ from ours, In one particular qualification test 1 had taken with Dex in Wales, the assessors were obsessed with the fact that dogs should have a coat on their backs during searches. They were convinced that putting coats on dogs signaled that a search was underway, excited the dogs, and put them in a working frame of mind. Not in my book!’
I also enjoyed hearing of and real-world experiences showing the difference between air-scenting dogs and ground scenting dogs. Here is a bit of the discussion:
‘On average, air-scenting dogs can cover an area of 120 miles during any eight-to-ten hour working day, and they would be expected to cover this each day for the duration of the search. Trailing dogs, like our bloodhounds, cover eight to ten miles each hour, and more if allowed; this can continue, as with air-scenting dogs, for many days. Provided they have a definite starting point and an uncontaminated scent article, bloodhounds can locate missing persons much faster and more efficiently than air-scenting dogs. But working with bloodhounds can be exhausting for the handlers as they have to walk every step of the way and hold the dogs on lead, which can be very hard on the hands because of the speed at which bloodhounds move and the strength of the pull. Bloodhound handlers usually wear gloves, but they sometimes become so tired and sore that they have to hand the dog over to another handler. In some respects, working with air-scenting dogs is easier.’
There is also a discussion if SAR and cadaver dogs should be taught to the same dog. His justification is that ‘On average, in nine out of ten searches, only one person is found alive. If anything, the figures justify the necessity for cross-training all dogs.’
Running into searches that have sad endings is tough on those who do the searching:
‘As searchers, we often try to ignore the impact search and-rescue operations can have on us. There are times when we feel we've escaped, come out without a scratch, immune to all the pain around the situation. But the memory always lingers; often, it lies hidden beneath the surface, watching and waiting to catch us off guard.’
I like books written in the UK because of differences between there and here in the US. For example, I didn’t know about the muzzle law. I can see the good and bad in it. So, his dog is doing great things to help out, but has to be muzzled. Here is a bit about the law:
‘In June 1991 Padraig Flynn, the minister for the environment introduced regulations that required Certain breeds of dogs to wear a muzzle in public. The regulations applied to the American pit bull terrier, bulldog, bull mastiff Doberman pinscher, English bull terrier, Japanese Akita, Japanese Tosa, Rhodesian ridgeback, Rottweiler, Staffordshire e bull terrier and German shepherd.’
As I mentioned earlier, I am not sure about some of his dog-training advice like what he says in the beginning of this next excerpt. Maybe one of dog trainer friends can weigh in with an opinion:
‘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.’
Other than learning about the work the dogs do, the main reason for reading SAR dog books is for the payoff, when the dog saves the day. There are not as many of those endings in the book as I would like, but that is the nature of the work. The important thing to vigorously applaud is that people take the time and dedicate themselves to being available and ready for those rescue moments.
‘The boy was unconscious and suffering badly trop hypothermia. We gave him some of our clothes, a little piece of a Mars bar and a few sips of water. Having notified base that we had found the boy, we began to carry him down the Side of the mountain through knee-deep heather and bogland.’
(Did you wonder what I did? Are Mars bars standard equipment? Is that the best candy bar to have on hand for this situation? 😊 )
And one last quote to help us learn to stay safe. He offers it after having made a poor climbing decision that could have easily cost him his life. From other books I have learned how many people go missing, so we need to do things to help stay safe and let people know where we are:
‘But our memorable day on Hungry Hill taught me some very valuable lessons. No matter how experienced you are in climbing, never be arrogant about your abilities to find your way out of trouble on the hills. Use and trust your map and compass. Always take sufficient gear and food regardless of how short your walk may be, and leave a route map on your windscreen. Today, there should be no excuse for anyone getting lost on a mountain, especially now that we have the use of the Global Positioning System — a neat device the size of a pack of cards that can show a climber’s exact position.’
So enjoyed the book. If you like books on SAR dogs, this is one of them.
March 5, 2018
Good but not great book. It is more about the people who work with the dogs then it about the dogs. It is like reading snippets of the dogs training, work life, and long draw out stories about the people. I did find parts very interesting but I just wanted more. Lots of short stories about rescues and the things that went right and wrong but not put together very well, plus some stories did not have closure.
October 29, 2013
Interesting to compare this with another book by an Irishman, Search Dogs And Me. In this book Mick learns how to train dogs to find people lost on the mountainsides and even trains one to find a submerged body from scent. He was involved in helping with many missing person cases and one turned out to be a crime. The dogs as always are the stars but at times Mick is quite introspective and comes across as leading a lonely life.
November 22, 2021
Had its moments, but neither enough direction/organisation nor enough story for my preferences. McCarthy clearly has an excellent level of training—and track record—with canine search-and-rescue, but at time the book felt more like a lecture on how to train a dog (and what laws surrounding dogs should be) than a memoir of the actual work. Certainly McCarthy's love for dogs comes through, but I don't get a sense from this of what it feels like to be working for hours on end with those dogs, out on land or on water, or what it feels like to be a 'body' in a training exercise, or what any of the bigger stories of the people they rescued or recovered might have been.
The writing's a bit hit or miss—generally fine, but every so often you'll see something like this: ...and, of course, our three-year-old son Jack... (162) and it'll throw you for a loop, because there's no 'of course' about a character who hasn't been mentioned before and is only mentioned once again after that (lots of mentions of Jack the dog, though to be fair this is a book about working with dogs). Nothing wrong with limiting the amount of personal info in a memoir, if that's what one chooses to do, but it feels a bit as though the personal info was all loaded up front (regarding McCarthy's younger life), and then all but dropped as the book continues.
I quite wanted to enjoy this (I do like a good search-and-rescue memoir, can't say why), but ultimately the focus wasn't quite there for me. Presumably has some good insights for those who do work with dogs.
The writing's a bit hit or miss—generally fine, but every so often you'll see something like this: ...and, of course, our three-year-old son Jack... (162) and it'll throw you for a loop, because there's no 'of course' about a character who hasn't been mentioned before and is only mentioned once again after that (lots of mentions of Jack the dog, though to be fair this is a book about working with dogs). Nothing wrong with limiting the amount of personal info in a memoir, if that's what one chooses to do, but it feels a bit as though the personal info was all loaded up front (regarding McCarthy's younger life), and then all but dropped as the book continues.
I quite wanted to enjoy this (I do like a good search-and-rescue memoir, can't say why), but ultimately the focus wasn't quite there for me. Presumably has some good insights for those who do work with dogs.
May 29, 2012
Very disjointed. I found it interesting because I'm really interested in Search & Rescue Dogs. This was from the Irish perspective, so it had a lot of new ideas for me. The writing was not great. I was disappointed that the photos that were included did not show most of the dogs mentioned in the text.
February 12, 2014
Has its charm, sort of rambling-old-man vibe to it, and the stories of the experiences are useful to see the variety and to underline the point that you should TRUST YOUR DOG. Over all, maybe a little too much rambling for what I was looking for, but charming, nonetheless.
June 18, 2012
Informative, but not particularly well-organized or written. Would have benefited from a narrative thread.
September 29, 2015
A very thorough book.
The author took a lot of time describing in great detail the process of becoming certified in Search and Rescue.
Interesting, but it had dry spots.
Felt bad for his family.
The author took a lot of time describing in great detail the process of becoming certified in Search and Rescue.
Interesting, but it had dry spots.
Felt bad for his family.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews