They can truly be called heroes. Sniffer dog Tesla and her handler Fleur Willems from Valkenswaard are ready 24 hours a day to track down missing people. And all of that voluntarily. A tough job, because they sometimes find people for whom help comes too late.
They are there together on every deployment, day or night. Fleur and the Malinois Shepherd Tesla belong to the SAR MTL foundation, a team with specially trained sniffer and search dogs. “Our dogs can make a difference within 48 hours. They can literally save lives,” says Fleur.
In addition to being a deployment coordinator, she is also chairman of the Valkenswaard foundation. “Every missing person can be compared to a complex puzzle. As a team, we always try to put together a piece of that puzzle, so that the victim can ultimately be located, by us or by other parties involved.”
“That powerlessness you see in family, of course it affects you.”
Where the work of the police ends, it often begins for detective Tesla and supervisor Fleur. But they are also increasingly being called by family of missing people. And they encounter everything: from runaway elderly people with dementia to suicidal people and lost children. But also cold case-business.
“Our dogs work on the specific scent of the missing person. Sometimes after a disappearance it is not even known whether someone turned left or right after departure. Our dogs immediately know which way a person went. That can mean a lot for the search area. We must pick up that specific scent within the first 48 hours, which are the critical hours.”
What is the SAR MTL foundation?
The SAR (Search Assist Recover) MTL foundation was founded in 2014 and helps in the search for missing people. The foundation has seven sniffer and search dogs and their handlers. Last year they were called in seventeen times to locate missing persons. This year the count is at ten people.
Partly thanks to the help of sniffer dog Tesla and the other search dogs, they have already tracked down several people in recent years. For example, Fleur remembers a man who fell in the Dommel in 2023. “We tracked him down and got him out. Unfortunately, he had passed away.”
Yet they were able to offer the family something, says Fleur. “Luckily he had not yet been taken away by the current. We were able to bring him home and the family were able to say goodbye to him. That meant a lot to them.”
“Because there are many situations in which the family simply cannot say goodbye anymore. That is also inconvenient in a practical sense because you cannot close it.” The gratitude is then great according to Fleur. “Sometimes even more than when you bring someone home alive.”
She also remembers a confused woman who had run away from an institution. “After days of searching, we were able to bring her home in relatively good health. The woman’s family was very grateful to us. Without our efforts she would not have come home.”
“The family is extremely grateful when you were able to bring someone home, living or dead.”
Fleur has a day job doing detective work. She volunteers full time, in addition to running her own dog training business. “I have a passion for dogs and I just want to give something back to society.”
Fleur always carries the emergency phone with her. Also tonight when she goes to bed. “Suppose you have lost your way, or a family member has gone missing. Personally, it just seems terrible to me if you are told: ‘We can’t find him and it ends here.’ That seems to me to be one of the worst things that could happen. That powerlessness you see in family, of course it affects you.”
Every time they deploy, Fleur and her team take the worst into account. “You are prepared for what you may encounter. Of course that doesn’t make it any less terrible, but the family is extremely grateful when you were able to bring someone home, living or dead.”
The story of
Would you like to share your story with us? That’s possible! Editors from Omroep Brabant were in the Market Pavilion in Valkenswaard this week.
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