Search resumes for police dog Thames

HOPEFUL: Senior Constable Tony Matheson, Wairarapa Police Search and Rescue, left, and Constable Mike Wakefield, the handler of missing police dog Thames.PHOTO/LYNDA FERINGA

Constable Mike Wakefield has shed tears and gone to sleep exhausted since his police dog Thames vanished in the Tararua Ranges six days ago but support from across New Zealand has helped steel his resolve to keep searching.

Mr Wakefield, a police dog handler and volunteer firefighter, became separated from his 4-year-old sable German shepherd near the High Ridge to Totara Creek area at Mt Holdsworth near Masterton, as he and his dog were returning from a routine search and rescue exercise with a small group on Sunday morning.

"There was a bit of panic and a bit of fear. It's a horrible feeling. You don't know what to do. When he still wasn't back after about half an hour I became concerned and as more time went by I became more and more concerned."

He and the group had begun scouring the area, and during the next two days more than 20 volunteers, fellow handlers, and off-duty officers tracked through the rugged terrain and patrolled nearby roads in case Thames had made his way out of the forest park.

He said Thames, who had helped track down a lost woman, was an operational frontline police dog and member of his family since the pair started working together about three years ago.

"He's a pretty good dog and he has his own quirks - he loves running in circles and chasing his own tail. We'd developed a pretty good bond. We've been a team for the last three years - we work together, we eat together, we play together - so yeah, we're pretty close. He's part of the family."

Mr Wakefield said Wairarapa Land Search and Rescue team members, police colleagues, and the public response had been overwhelming and "heartwarming" in the wake of Thames' disappearance.

Well-wishers had included someone with an offer of a helicopter, "a little girl in Taupo who drew me a beautiful picture", and people from Auckland to Nelson volunteering to search.

His wife and two sons, like himself, "miss Thames desperately" and the monumental support from New Zealanders "was the sort of stuff that gets me up in the morning and gets me back up those hills".

"I was up there [Thursday] but due to the weather I wasn't up there long. The creeks were all swollen, the rivers were all swollen - I don't want to put more lives at risk by getting lost myself.

"But he's a dog. He's made for that environment. I definitely haven't given up hope yet. We're only a week into it.

"He'll find someone before someone finds him. If he's in the bush he'll pick up on someone being in the vicinity and he'll be looking for human contact. He'll probably want a pat behind the ear and his belly rubbed."

Senior Constable Tony Matheson, head of Wairarapa LandSAR, said a half dozen searchers, including Mr Wakefield, would today mount a dawn-to-dusk search of an area above where Thames was last sighted.

He said recovering the frontline police dog, which cost from $40,000 to $60,000 to train, was vital to Wairarapa policing and was in essence like searching for any "member of staff".

Searchers would be calling out, whistling and trying their best to leave "sign" that included scent to which Thames would be attracted.

Mr Matheson said the area where the animal disappeared was at an altitude of about 500m and searchers had circled the location during the first two days after his disappearance.

"We don't believe he has come down low. He certainly hasn't followed any of the signs left by the search team that would lead him out to a place he could be found.

"At this stage we think he is perhaps still up high somewhere, disoriented, so we'll go back up high and investigate and have another damn good look for him."