Nelson fish and chip shop owner Don Schwass provides expert tracking services all over the world, and is well known for his dog-tracking skills. He tells Wilderness about his experiences.

Don Schwass was 16 and already a hunter when he joined Land Search and Rescue 35 years ago. After going on some tracking courses run by ex-policeman Ross Gordon, he was hooked and hungry for more. “I knew how to track, and I wanted to see how another country applied it and learn as much as I could,” he says. He went to the United States in the early 2000s to learn how tracking was done there.

On his return to New Zealand he had the chance to practise his skills, searching for someone who had been missing for 18 days with no leads. “The senior constable on the case said, ‘Let’s see how good you are, because he’s got 18 days head start on us and we don’t know where he is’,” says Schwass. 

Schwass located the area the man was in after just two and a half hours, and the ground team found the man a short time later. That search started his career, tracking missing people for Land Search and Rescue and the police. 

Schwass spent the next 15 years tracking people – until someone asked him to track a dog that had been missing for five days. “I told her she’d have the dog back within three to four hours,” he says. “Sure enough, we got the labrador back in about four.”

Word of mouth and social media has enhanced Schwass’s profile as a specialist dog tracker, and he’s now in demand across New Zealand and overseas.

The most reported dog track Schwass has done is of Ace, a dog who went missing after a Lewis Pass road accident in 2023. “Ace was the most high profile but not the hardest track. In fact, he was probably one of the easiest,” says Schwass. 

Schwass visited the area twice. The first time he got right behind the dog but assessed that Ace wasn’t ready. “He was too wound up, so we gave him another three days.” On the second visit, Schwass got behind him again and could tell he’d had time to calm down and was ready to come home. “People think you can catch a dog because it’s run away,” says Schwass. “But dogs have four legs and we’ve only got two. So the best way is to make the dog come to you.”

There are no trade secrets to tracking, says Schwass, just hard graft and a bit of natural ability. You need plenty of situational awareness and to know how to think, work and operate in environments that aren’t that friendly. 

When Schwass is out tracking, he looks for ‘conclusive signs’: things like toilet stops, eating and movement. “I don’t see it as tracking; I see it as hunting, and you have to understand the game you’re hunting.”

Schwass doesn’t think like a human when he’s tracking a dog. He thinks about how the dog thinks and moves and when it moves and when it doesn’t. “I describe it as a game of chess and hide and seek all in one,” he says. “The dog is usually in flight mode playing an A game, and you’ve got to bring an A+ game to beat the dog and get ahead of it.”

He says success is about having as many available tools as possible and knowing when to use them. His own tracking dog, Piper, is one of many tools. Others include a thermal drone, his tracking ability and other things he’s been taught. “The more tools I have, the more chance of finding something.”

Schwass works on a voluntary basis. “I just happen to be good at a particular thing and have a skill set that no one else has,” he says. The majority of his time dog tracking is spent on phone consultations, and he has helped hundreds of families reunite with their pets.

Schwass isn’t interested in any limelight. His passion is tracking and keeping families together, whether it’s reuniting a dog, child or family member. It’s why he’s been a part of Land Search and Rescue for so long. “At the moment I still have the passion and the drive to want to do it. It’s like a game of chess and I want to win the game.”