L to R - Search and Rescue Dog Association of Alberta

Hill 1998-2010 by Mary Ann Warren
I don’t think anyone would begrudge me in saying that Hill was a huge part of SARDAA.
Not long after his arrival, the SARDAA team lost many members and Hill was at times the only
active dog in many of the profiles. Hill aided us with the rebuilding of the team.
Many people wondered about his name Hill. I would have to explain that his name was 'he’ll' as
‘he’ll search’, ‘he’ll come’ but since it looked too close to.... well you know I just changed the ‘e’
to ‘i’ and the rest is history.
Hill attended many searches and was successful in many incidents, from his first water search to
the Limestone mountain, he managed to give a few family’s closure.
Hill was one of the only civilian disaster dogs who took part in Canadian Task force II team multi
agency events. He was impressive to watch by others as well as me when searching in his
methodical way on rubble.
Hill was a very confident dog. Confident in knowing what to do and at times, confident in
knowing when to challenge me. Many people who have seen him but didn’t know him in the
younger years didn’t know that he actually was quite defiant at times.
Hill was very good with kids and puppies. We called him the nanny dog as he would tolerate what
most youngsters dished out or he would just walk away. He took particular exception to these
duties when it came to his roommate Gotta. Until the end he was very protective and watchful of
his young ward and got worried when Gotta was out of sight.
As with some working dogs, Hill sustained many injuries - he had a back injury, broke a toe, hurt
an ankle, got scratched by a feral cat, and later on got 'skunked'. But the worst was when we
almost lost him due to torsion. But Hill came back and it didn’t take him long to get back to work
and he worked for another couple of years.
When you bring up a working dog from a puppy, the work never ends for them actually. On Hill’s
last walk, he was still working and retrieved an old kid’s shoe he located in some tall grass and
proudly brought it to me and nudged my treat pocket. Hill always knew where the treat pocket
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