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Search, rescue days over for Gemma

Libby Wilson libby.wilson@stuff.co.nz Dog Squad

She was formidable in a search – tramping through jungle-like conditions in the dark and notching up 19 missing person finds – but Gemma the dog recently reached the end of her days.

Even after her retirement, when she was a family pet in Hamilton, she still wanted to chase scents, trainer Graeme Hill said.

‘‘She just wanted to use her nose and do what she was training to do since she was a ... little puppy.’’

Hill and Gemma had been a team since he took her on as a seven-and-a-half-week-old puppy, and they beat their way through thick native bush on dozens of occasions through her operational career, from 2011 to 2018. She was 12-and-a-half when she died – on the day a Covid alert level 3 lockdown for much of the Waikato was announced.

In the years of search missions, Gemma found 19 lost or missing people – one of them a hunter she led teams to under the watchful lens of the camera crew.

She also found a family with two young children who had been lost in the Kaimai Ranges, and her people-loving nature came to the fore, Hill said.

‘‘She was in there playing with the girls and just sort of curled up next to the little kids, just waiting for more search people to come and help take us out.’’ Having a dog around was particularly important for people in distress, Hill said.

‘‘[Gemma] gave them a huge amount of comfort – as opposed to a couple of guys coming through the bush.’’

In their years searching together – done on a volunteer basis – they covered sites ranging from Hamilton city and its gulleys to the Pureora Forest, the Coromandel Ranges, and Karioi and Pirongia.

Gemma rubbed paws with Prince Harry and went through crowd-funded surgery on her left hind leg in 2015 to keep working, and had also been training for river searches before her retirement.

Gemma and Hill were ‘‘very formidable’’ in a search according to one of the people who deployed them, Sergeant Sean Keeley. He’s now the officer in charge of Waikato Police Search and Rescue, and spent many years on the squad, working with the duo.

‘‘They’re invaluable really. Very, very well regarded search team,’’ he said.

Often they were ‘‘the pointy end, the tip of the spear’’ – because they were so effective, coordinators often held back other searchers until they arrived, to avoid muddying scents for Gemma. They got results on some jobs where a missing person probably wouldn’t have been found by human searchers alone, Keeley said.

‘‘The passing of animals is never nice but particularly one that’s contributed so much makes it all the more tough.’’

As well as being a powerful search tool, Gemma was a muchloved family pet, described by Hill as having a massive personality.

Hill hopes to get some of the Search and Rescue crew together to have a drink in her memory once alert levels allow.

Hill also had a second search dog, Odin, who he got after Gemma, and who died in October 2020.

Hill is now a national dog trainer assessor, passing on his knowledge to new search teams.

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2021-10-27T07:00:00.0000000Z

2021-10-27T07:00:00.0000000Z

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