Missing dog search in Okehampton

Okehampton sits right against the northern edge of Dartmoor, with Yes Tor and High Willhays rising almost immediately south of the town. A dog that slips a lead here does not have far to go before it is on open access land, and that is both the good news and the bad news: the ground is exactly the kind a drone covers fastest, but it is also big, featureless from ground level, and easy for a person on foot to search the wrong stretch of.

The East and West Okement rivers meet close to the town, and both valleys give a dog an obvious, low-effort route to follow away from wherever it started. A search pattern here usually starts along the river lines before opening out onto the moor proper, because a frightened animal tends to follow the easiest ground rather than strike out across open country.

Granite outcrops, gorse and bracken cover a lot of this ground, and none of it is any trouble for a thermal camera the way it would be for a person trying to scan the same hillside with binoculars from a car park.

This is really one of the wettest, windiest towns in the whole network's coverage area, because Dartmoor forces Atlantic air straight up as soon as it reaches the high ground. That matters for a search more than almost anywhere else on this list: high wind grounds the aircraft here more often than it does on lower, more sheltered ground, and that gets said plainly on the day rather than promising a flight that will not be safe.

The upside is what that same weather does for thermal contrast. Wet, cold moorland loses heat fast, so a dog's body temperature stands out clearly against it, especially in the hour either side of dawn or dusk when the ground has had the longest to cool.

The parishes around Okehampton carry scattered moorland farms and longhouses, and a search that crosses working farmland needs the landowner's agreement before the aircraft goes up, not least because livestock and a loose dog is its own separate problem worth mentioning on the phone. Getting that permission sorted early is usually what actually decides how quickly a search can start here, more than the flying itself.

Meldon Viaduct and the old railway line give a dog a clear, walkable route away from the built-up part of town, and it is one of the first lines checked when a search starts from the western side of Okehampton.