We usually train on a Saturday morning and we vary our training sites from Beaudesert to the Gold Coast. You don't have to have a dog to get involved with our group. There are lots of ways to participate with us. We are always looking for new training sites (buildings, rubble piles, car yards, warehouses, construction yard, etc.), we need agility equipment and we ALWAYS need people to hide for the dogs. If you are interested in joining the our team please contact Melody Callahan.

Recent Queensland Events

Happy Holiday Wishes
On behalf of the Queensland SARDA Team, we want to wish everyone a safe and happy holiday season. It's been an incredibly full year for us all it seems and we hope everyone has a relaxing time away from the worries of the year. We also want to wish everyone a wonderful new year. Here's to continued success in training and seeing a few more of us pass assessments. Bring on 2011!!

Thank You Tallebudgera State School. We want to thank Tallebudgera State School Principal Ms. Toni Robinson for so graciously agreeing to let us use the school grounds for training. She was very impressed with the work SARDA is doing and was only to willing to help. We have been given the use of any of the school grounds as long as it's not in school hours. We are going to set up a demonstration day for her and any other interested school staff in the new year. We had our first training there just before breaking up for the year and it was a great day for the dogs with all the new smells and areas to investigate. Can't wait to go back and do some long directed searches there. Thanks again Tallebudgera!!

October, 2010: National Training Weekend in Melbourne: 3 of the Queensland teams (Simon/Alpha, Emily/Bravo, Melody/Hershey) went to Melbourne for a 4 day training weekend. It was a very full weekend covering agility, obedience and of course searches. This was a big trip of us, including being the first plane trip for Alpha and Bravo. Not only were we able to train under Julie and Andrew Cowan, but were able to train with Brenda Woolley from the Search Dog Association of New Zealand. Additionally, Cassie Fishbourne from ASSDA was along and provided great assistance.

We wish to express our thanks to Julie and Andrew for such a great training weekend (and wonderful accommodations!). Thank you to Brenda for coming over and sharing her amazing knowledge about USAR and dogs. Thanks to the Victoria SARDA Members for such a warm welcome. Thanks to Dr Lucy for the impromtu vet talk. Thanks to the folks at the Mornington station and SETG for great meals and access to rubble and of course the Temple of Doom. And last but not least, thanks to Pat for keeping us organised during training and providing amazing cookies!!

Not only did we work hard and learn heaps but there were lots of laughs along the way. We came home totally exhausted but with a new desire to continue our training and become operational. We are incorporating things learned during the weekend into our trainings here in Queensland as we continue to strive for assessment readiness.

Sept 11, 2010: Julie Cowan visits: The Queensland team thanks Julie Cowan for coming up and working with us! It was a full day of training and we all learned something new. Between running the dogs on the rubble pile, we dicussed things like search strategy, dog/handler team dynamics, agility, and direction work and enjoyed Emily's chocolate slice. The dogs worked hard, Julie put up with all our questions and everyone went home tired at the end of the day. All-in-all, another successful training day!