Raffle raises £3000 for search and rescue dogs

Guests at the 2019 Scottish Rural Awards guests raised £3,000 for Search and Rescue Dog Association Scotland at the gala dinner.

SARDA Scotland is a national charity who train dogs and their handlers to search for missing persons, they’re an entirely volunteer-based organisation and cover all of Scotland, 24 hours a day, 365 days of the year.

Their search dogs are used by the Police, Coastguard, and Mountain Rescue teams to help locate missing people whether they are lost or injured in the mountains or low ground and urban areas.

SARDA Scotland’s handlers are experienced mountain rescuers trained in casualty care. On average, over the past three years, SARDA Scotland has had 67 call outs each year averaging at just over one per week.

They depend on the generosity of the public for part of their funding and the specialist equipment and ongoing costs of training a dog and their handler is expensive.

The Scottish Rural Awards held their whisky raffle throughout the meal on the awards night. Guests were be encouraged to donate into a small envelope found at their table place.

From there each table had their names put into a hat and one person on each table won a bottle of Tomintoul 12yo Single Malt whisky. This year’s raffle generated just over £3,000 for the charity of choice.

Any donation, however small, made to SARDA Scotland goes directly towards training and equipment.

To find out more about Search & Rescue Dog Association Scotland go to www.sarda-scotland.org or search SARDA Scotland on Facebook @SearchRescueDogAssociationScotland