Vice was on a LandSAR training course at Hanmer Springs in 2006, when he pierced an artery on a tree branch.
Initially, it was feared the leg would have to be amputated, but even though a Christchurch vet managed to save it, Vice's days as a search and rescue dog seemed over.
But after a lengthy recuperation, Vice was used by police for searches, and it was during a six-day search in the Fernhill area for a missing man last year that Queenstown woman Heidi Hoffman fell in love with the dog.
Ms Hoffman had been involved with LandSAR for two years, carrying on a tradition started by her father and uncle.
"I was put alongside him tracking - I was petrified of big dogs," she said.
After the search, Ms Hoffman stayed in touch with Vice's handler, who then offered her the dog with a view to retiring him on a sheep station.
But once she had made sure Vice would fit in with her children, Eva (8) and Will (6), she adopted the dog with a view to getting him working as a search dog again.
"I thought there wasn't much wrong with him."
She started working with Vice last October and took him to a LandSAR training camp in March, where she realised the dog was both a tracking dog and air-scent dog.
"Most dogs can do one; he's both."
She also taught Vice to switch from a male command voice to a female one.
"It took a wee bit for him to listen to me, to adapt to a female voice . . . but he's amazing."
Vice's fast progress saw Ms Hoffman try him at a LandSAR assessment course after just five months training and he re-qualified as a wilderness tracking dog.
She intends to sit the air-scent assessment next year.
Ms Hoffman, now one of just five female wilderness tracking dog handlers in New Zealand, and Vice could be used for any land-based searches.
"I got fit . . . running along behind the dog - he doesn't have a go-slow button," she said.
