A documentary focusing on three search dog teams in Kamloops is one of two local recipients of $55,000 in funding.

Sit. Stay. Search. is getting $50,000 from Telus STORYHIVE, and another $5,000 from Creative BC.

Jenn Stahn is part of the creative team and says the dogs that will be a part of the documentary are all at different stages of their careers.

“The first one is a brand new puppy (who is yet to be named) who’s going to be trying to figure out whether he has what it takes to even attempt to become a search dog,” she said.

“We’ve got a team that the dog has passed her puppy assessment (Ada) and is now working towards validation and we also have a dog team that is already validated (Ranger) and is looking to keep their validation.”

Stahn says most of the documentary will be shot in the Kamloops area ahead of the June 1, 2020 submission deadline.

“When the announcement came out, I was actually in Calgary with the handler of the brand new puppy, picking up her puppy,” Stahn added. “So I got a little bit of footage of their first meeting, but for the most part we’re expecting in the next month or so to really get started with it.”

Stahn also told NL that KSAR currently has two validated search dogs on the team, with about 15 validated teams across the province.

“There’s a great misunderstanding as to what search dogs can and can’t do and what kind of training goes into having a search dogs,” she said. “So we really wanted to show how much work, how much time and money goes into having these dogs get to the point where they are ready to go out there and save somebody’s life.”

In total, 30 projects across B.C. and Alberta were chosen out of around 380. Sit. Stay. Search. will be produced by the creative team of Jennifer Stahn, Anthony Stahn, and Vesta Giles.