A mercy team inspired by a famous mountaineer’s visit to the Swiss Alps in the 1960s has celebrated its 50th birthday.
People from all over the UK gathered in Lochaber to mark the Search and Rescue Dogs Association’s milestone.
About 100 handlers and volunteers who have been involved with the organisation since 1965 were at a special dinner-dance at Fort William.
The Search and Rescue Dogs Association (Sarda), which is called on by police and mountain rescue teams, was formed by Hamish MacInnes, who was leader of Glencoe Mountain Rescue at the time and one of Scotland’s foremost mountaineers and mountain rescue experts.
Mr MacInnes paid a visit to an avalanche dog training course in Switzerland in the early 1960’s and immediately recognised the possibilities in Scotland.
The charity trains dogs and their handlers to search for missing persons. It covers all of Scotland, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
Tom Gilchrist, a dog handler from Fort William, paid tribute to the contribution Mr MacInnes and other founding members have made to mountain rescue across the country.
Mr MacInnes said: “It was a fantastic night, everybody enjoyed it. Everybody said it was probably the best meal they had ever had.
“It was great catching up with old friends, some of whom I hadn’t seen for many years. They all seemed to enjoy themselves.
“The work of Sarda is very important. You can see the number of people there and the dedication that they have to searching and helping people. It is quite remarkable the dedication that they have.
“It was a terrific night. I would like to thank everybody for their support, it was tremendous.”
The dogs are trained to use their acute sense of smell to detect human scent in the air. A person loses 20,000-30,000 dead skin cells every minute and this helps the animals home-in on them.
Together, the dog and its handler form a highly efficient team.
Dogs can work in all weathers, day or night, without loss of speed, and they can cover huge areas quickly.