Meet The Team

Adele is Co Founder and Lead Instructor at SDS. K9 Boof is an extremely difficult dog to trick, no matter where the person/s are hiding, he will find you. A pound dog that no one wanted because of his destructiveness and high drive for a ball, this trait is what attracted me to him for a career in Search and Rescue.
He quickly showed his potential for finding people and in March 2017 he was certified, by international assessors, as Basic Operational in USAR Operations.
With a background is in horse breeding and training, Adele started training dogs in the early 2000’s and started Search and Rescue training over 7 years ago.She has travelled extensively to bring best Practice methods of Canine Search and Rescue here to NSW.

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Meet Chris. Chris is a founding member and President of SDS. His partner, K9 Rufus specialise in HRD to assist families to have closure. Rufus is a 2.5 year old Mal X, a boy with high personality and drive to please his handler. When Rufus is on a scent, nothing will stop him until he has that elusive find. As an Instructor in Lost Persons Behaviour, as well as a range of other SAR and USAR disciplines, the team are always pushed by the challenges he sets.

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My name is Amanda, Jazz’s owner/handler. I joined Search Dogs Sydney in September 2016 as a search technician as I didn’t have a dog of my own at the time. I caught the bug of canine SAR and acquired rescue dog Jazz in March 2017.
During the day I am a dog walker and I have my own dog walking business, I am also a volunteer member of the local NSW State Emergency Service.
I am certified in LandSAR, USAR Category 1 and am an Instructor for Robert Koester’s Lost Persons Behaviour course.
Jazz is a Kelpie x. She started her search and rescue training when she was 10 months old. Jazz is my first dog so we have been learning a lot from each other along the way. She has a mischievous streak, but fortunately for me she is a quick learner and is very forgiving if I don’t get something quite right. Jazz thinks that searching for and finding people is the best game EVER!!

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Adele is co founder and Lead Instructor with SDS. Chilli is her second SAR dog in training as her USAR and area search companion. Chilli is a extremely high drive pure breed Belgium Malinois that is showing great potential in such a short time frame. Chillies happy personality and a willingness to please is complementary to her role as a air scenting canine, giving the team the heads up on which way our Person of Interest has gone

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Hi I’m Mal – I am a Search Technician and I am also very honoured to be our Vice President. I joined Search Dogs Sydney in late 2016. My interest in SAR has developed over the last 5 years through my volunteer work with the NSW State Emergency Service – through which I have participated in a number of missing person searches as well as other operational and training activities. I have an interest in emergency management and lost person behaviour, and my SAR goal is to continue building SDS to be the number one response option for canine SAR within NSW.
I am a qualified skills trainer in the NSW SES and I enjoy passing on my knowledge by training our search technicians/handlers in appropriate LandSAR and USAR techniques – I am also a certified trainer of Robert Koester’s ‘Lost Persons Behaviour’ course.

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I started with SDS when I was asked to help with the construction of equipment that would be used to help train the dogs. From there I enjoyed what I was doing so much I became commenced training as a Search Tech, due to not owning a dog.
When we are at the training area my job is to look after the grounds as much as possible by mowing and whipper snipping, helping with constructing of new hides and other equipment that will help with the training for the dogs and handlers, plus any repairs that are needed.
My other position is Base Command. When we go and do a search, I am responsible for making sure that when we get to the search site that the teams are registered in. Each team is supplied with a radio, the teams leave and return at the times allocated. During the search I keep radio contact with the teams and monitor their safety.
My time so far with SDS, has been a great learning process watching the dogs progress with their training, and now having a greater respect for the dogs and what they are capable of doing when properly trained, and the friendships I have made while being with SDS.

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