Training a rescue dog, teaching it to rescue, not just find a victim of a disaster, is easier said than done. These dogs are trained to do more than just race after a criminal and capture him, or sniff out an explosive charge, like police and mine-sniffing dogs. A rescue dog must learn to smell a human being or a dead body in the debris of collapsed buildings or in the aftermath of an avalanche. They must learn not to be distracted by other odors or noise.
Rescue dogs that save human lives are trained at the state enterprise Mobile Rescue Center of the Emergency Management Ministry (MNS) of Ukraine. There are only five dogs on payroll, and all of them have been on missions in a number of world hot spots and saved many people.
ACCOMPLISHABLE MISSION
Sharman the Doberman, who is also affectionately called Sharmulia, is only 16 months old. But early in Sharman’s rescue career her experienced trainer and handler Maryna Kalchenko started taking home medals from international competitions. Sharm is trained for several hours a day - not on specially equipped grounds but in a forest near the MNS unit.
The rescue unit used to be located on Chervonoarmiiska Street in Kyiv. Then it was transferred to a site vacated by a military unit not far from Vyshhorod. “This area is considerably larger, but mastering it will take some time. We are determined to get the bureaucrats to start financing us adequately,” sighs Ihor Belkun, first deputy director of the MNS Center. Inadequate funding is the reason why the rescue unit is manned by only 50 percent. “Our people want to work and their salaries are satisfactory, but the kind of funding we are getting is only enough for only half a staff,” he adds.
The rescue unit lacks auxiliary personnel; there are practically no cleaning women. Half a year after the unit was redeployed, a garage for special vehicles appeared in place of a barn, and several other structures were revamped by the team members. “Our men did the digging and mixed the concrete themselves,” says Belkun proudly.
New cages for rescue dogs will be completed soon. Most importantly, a modern-equipped training ground will become operational, complete with seven-meter-high ladders on which the dogs will be trained to climb up and down without fear. “Often rescue team members have to be raised by helicopter and carried over large distances,” explains Serhii Chorny, deputy commander of the search and rescue unit.
With construction underway, the K9 handlers train their canine partners with makeshift equipment. A couple of empty barrels, narrow boards, and steps are enough for the dogs to experience a full complement of training. Last year’s hurricane provided perfect drilling conditions. A man is hidden under a gnarled stump, covered with a length of tarpaulin, and then a rescue dog is ordered to find him. The dog starts moving in every- decreasing circles. Sharma finds the “victim,” sits nearby, and starts barking. “Good girl,” says Olena Alieksandrova, “she did everything the right way. She found the man and signaled her handler.” Barry the spaniel did the job even quicker. “He is more experienced and has more missions on his service record,” explains his handler, Volodymyr Frantsev.
ALL ASPECTS POSITIVE
Both rescue dogs barked happily when they heard their handlers’ praise and started running around them. But hearing the command “Stay!” they stopped dead in their tracks. “They must instantly obey the handler’s command and fear nothing,” says Belkun.
How can a dog be trained to do this? Every K9 trainer has his own technique. There are no official dog-training regulations in Ukraine and obtaining a cynologist’s education is no simple task. Such faculties are found at institutes of veterinary medicine, but their instruction has an altogether different orientation, complain the rescue team’s K9 members.
“We are using some of the emergency ministry’s experience, although it is not that useful for our specific tasks,” Belkun says. Positive factors are the key element in training rescue dogs. They are taught to love human beings at a very early age. Even a Doberman, with his awesome looks, is actually a very soft-hearted creature. After you pat him and treat him to a tasty morsel, you are not likely to hear his owner say something like, “Keep your hands off my dog, he is not a domestic Pekingese. Rescue dogs must first learn not to bark at passersby, not to chase cats. In a word, they must be trained on a totally positive basis,” Belkun says, revealing some of his dog-training secrets.
Training even in the most difficult conditions is one thing, but handling actual emergency situations is a different story. What makes the rescue team member’s profession so difficult is the fact that he must be prepared to help someone in distress at any moment. If an emergency call is received from Kyiv city or oblast, the rescue team has exactly five minutes to get ready and head out. Within this brief period the specially equipped rescue vehicle (well into its second decade of service life and far behind modern equipment standards) stops by the entrance, with motor running, ready to deliver the team to the emergency scene. Last year alone the MNS rescue center unit, including K9 handlers and their canine partners, went on 74 missions.
Fortunately, there haven’t been any serious emergency situations abroad this year. As a rule, MNS rescue teams are among the first to be dispatched to such disaster scenes. Their unit includes a mobile hospital, the only one of its kind in Ukraine that has an international certificate and is authorized to help emergency victims abroad.
A rescue team member’s profession is romantic and shrouded in valor. In reality, even in this line of work there are bureaucratic hurdles. It is hard to believe that even in the most serious emergency situations, in the aftermath of disasters that kill thousands of people, rescue teams are forced to waste a lot of time waiting for their visa paperwork to be completed. “Generally when traveling abroad, a rescue team has only eight hours to get ready. Then the team, food, and equipment are aboard a plane ready to take off. But sometimes getting visas, authorizations, and other documents can take several days,” says Belkun.
FLY IN THE OINTMENT
The level of Ukraine’s rescue training and management is on a rather high level compared to other countries. At any rate, we are not lagging behind, despite the meager funding and a generally contemptuous attitude to search and rescue teams. All they get is honorary diplomas and medals, which don’t amount to much, to put it mildly. People who risk their lives saving their fellow humans should be paid salaries that accord with the degree of their self-sacrifice. Some of those on the MNS payroll are paid less than cleaning women hired by private firms.
Does this mean that the entire search and rescue structure relies on sheer enthusiasm? Russia is developing its K9 services and in making every effort to update them is involving not just dog lovers but the authorities. After the terrorist attack on the US, the American authorities also adopted a different attitude to search and rescue teams and their canine partners. Rescue dogs played a major role in finding victims in the debris of the twin towers, but there were too few of them.
There are only a few K9 services in Ukraine; the largest ones are in Kyiv and Kharkiv. Yet these search and rescue teams are well known abroad. After the strong earthquake in Turkey in 1999, Ukrainian rescue dogs were among the first to arrive on the scene. “Frankly speaking, they were a bit disoriented at first, but they got used to the area within an hour,” says Alieksandrova.
The phrase “got used to it” is an understatement. There was a serious incident when the Ukrainian rescue dogs failed to sniff out a victim where rescue teams from other countries believed he actually was. The Ukrainian handlers were instantly wary, but trusted their dogs. How could they have failed after so many days of intensive training? In the end it transpired that the “victim” was a package of chicken drumsticks hidden in the rubble.
There was another case that impressed everyone. Haika the Doberman smelled a human being underneath a thick layer of laundry detergent. “Such chemical agents are strong obstacles that can prevent a rescue dog from sniffing out victims,” says Alieksandrova, “but Haika caught the smell and starting digging with her paws. Afterwards we had to treat her paws because of the sores caused by the detergent, but she came out the winner!”
While rescuing people, dogs often die or are seriously injured, especially in other countries. In Turkey our dogs had to endure difficult weather conditions: high temperatures, cold, and risk of epidemics. Inoculations, which according to health regulations must be done two weeks prior to a mission abroad, are done two hours before takeoff. According to Belkun, this is why the experts of the MNS Rescue Center are busy developing new technologies aimed at dispatching robots to the most dangerous disaster areas instead of rescue dogs. As usual, funding, or lack of it, to be precise, is the biggest problem.
What is the point of talking about robots, when K9 handlers have to buy their canine partners with their own money? Purebreds cost a lot. However, the directors of the MNS Rescue Center intend to increase the number of rescue dogs on payroll. Another possibility is that mine-sniffing dogs will also start being trained here.
Dobermans and spaniels are the best dogs for training. Alieksandrova recently acquired another potential rescuer — a Labrador puppy. He is the only puppy on the grounds and he lives in her house. Many rescue team members keep their canine partners at home. This is the most reliable method, because a rescue dog and its handler must be very close friends. When a rescue dog retires after 10 or 11 years of dedicated service (or is “written off,” in the rescue team’s parlance), the handler takes the animal home. A rescue dog has a shorter life span owing to its eventful youth.
