It is the middle of the night in Queens Park, and Murray Milne-Maresca is perched on the limb of a tree.

He can hear the dog, rustling around on the ground, as it does a wide circle of his hiding spot. The circle becomes narrower and narrower. The dog stops and looks around.

Then he looks up.

Milne-Maresca has been spotted.

The dog races back to his owner and erupts in a fit of barking.

Rusty's training to be one of Southland's first Land Search and Rescue (SAR) search dogs is paying off.

This weekend Rusty, a boarder collie, is off to training camp at Kelvin Heights in Queenstown, with two German Shepherds, Pipi and Boss.

The dogs are not yet operational, but Pipi and Boss's owner, Milne-Maresca, hopes in three to six months they will be ready.

Intense training is critical for the dogs to become effective search and rescuers.

They train with their owner at least five times a week, day and night, to make sure they have the correct discipline required.

"They need to sit and stay, and not be subjected to other animals. They have to be calm and focused on the trainer, and know when it is work time and when it is play time," Milne-Maresca said.

Training begins with basic discipline and increases to being able to search.

But search and rescues are not like the movies, Milne-Maresca said.

The dogs will not sniff an item of clothing and shoot off to find the missing person. Rather, they will pick up on the trail of their scent and sniff them out.

Wind and rain does not affect the the smell of a trail though, and the dogs can continue on the hunt for days.

In cases of missing persons, SAR usually get search dogs from Dunedin, but Milne-Maresca thinks it takes too long to get them to Fiordland.

"Time is of the essence. It's quicker [to have them here]. Hypothermia can set it. We have to think about the patient."

There are two types of search dogs: Rusty and Pipi are re-finders, who find items like backpacks, cellphones and lolly wrappers; Boss is a tracker, who will take his owner directly to the person.

Search dogs differ largely from police dogs. They are more family-oriented and are often around children to teach them to be loving and gentle.

After their training this weekend, the three dogs should be well on their way to becoming Southlands first SAR dogs.

 - The Southland Times