DOGS OF RESCUE

The rescue dogs are used whenever they enroll important incidents. Thanks to their numerous and effective interventions, they are counted to the hundreds the freed survivors and saved by the rescue dogs.

The rescue dogs were used for the first time in Grã-Britain, during to Second World War. They were entrusted of locating the people buried by debris of the buildings. His/her effectiveness was so big that in the fifties, they began to be created schools for formation of rescue dogs, not only in England, as well as in the United States, Germany and Switzerland.

The operations of help in that the dogs intervene are numerous, because every year a million earth tremors are registered all over the world and to the earthquakes the collapses are increased, incêncios, explosions, accidents in construction works, mines or buildings.

Detectors of odors of four paws

For his/her mobility and sense of smell, the dog for the search and victims' rescue complements the work of the electronic detection apparels, and a lot of times, it overcomes them.

According to studies accomplished in Germany there are some years, they were necessary 20 men working during one hour to locate a person buried in great depth. The use of the apparels geófonos of the type Capson reduced that period considerably. However, the apparels just capture and they amplify the calls, wailings or beating of the conscious victims' heart, while the dog, thanks to his/her sense of smell priveligiado, it can locate people dead or alive amid the smoke or to the collapsed and even in the more it completes darkness.

The reactions of the dog also indicate if they owe or not to be activated the helps. In the reality, in the trained dog, the reactions will be more alive if he discovers a survivor whose corporal odor got to capture. In this case, it begins to bark with enthusiasm. According to the training that he receives, the dog should not begin to shuffle the debris for not to hurt or to hurt the victim unless it is ordered that should proceed like this. To the opposite, the odors of people died' they frighten' the dog that then is limited to indicate the place in that if encotra the body. A lot of times it is taught to howl other the simply to point the place without moving.

To accomplish the rescue tasks the dogs they have little time. A complex operation can take at the most 12 days. Then of that period he/she is considered that no human being could have chances of surviving. In the earthquake that affected Mexico, so that the dogs maintained his/her aproveitamente always in maximum levels, they were put to work in different places for 4 hours daily rates, in shifts of half hour.

Any dog - except the heavy molossos and the small ones - it can become a rescue dog. The race a little matters, the one that counts is the effectiveness. However, in spite of that, the race more used for the rescue is, still, the German shepherd, although more and more other races are adopted, as the Belgian Shepherd, Boxer, Dobermann, Labrador, Rottweiler among so much other. The main desirable characteristic in a rescue dog is that they are trained with the largest possible rigidity and that you/they really LIKE people.

The first steps for that training are made, usually, in formation centers and training specialized. The intensive training happens at abandoned quarries or old mines properly prepared for this I aim at. In these places they are reproduced the situations that the dogs will face in the future so that they can get used to and to know as he/she moves around in safety.

No situation is left of side: unstable beams, cutting obstacles, rolling material or with springs, collapse of mud, set on fire houses.

In the training it tries to consider all of the difficult situations and that can disturb the habits of the dogs and that his/her dificultrem search capacity, including noisy apparels, sirens, great movement of people, screams, smoke, gases and, besides, night exercises. In these exercises, the volunteers hide underneath of the most several materials, or enter hills of tubes. More difficult it is still, for the dog, the exercise in that he/she has to exhume buried victims, because the earth layer or mud stops the victim's odor and it hinders the action of the dog. Another exercise modality involves the use of replete refrigerators of meat to prove the reactions of the dog that it should not give in to the temptation, because his/her function is the one of' to save' people and not to promote' drafts.'

Other very hard exercises, so much for the dog as for the man, they are the descent in rappel for a high wall and the passage of a wall for other. The so much dog can go in the owner's shoulders as arrested by a harness to facilitate the transport. The helicopter becomes necessary, sometimes, to take the rescue teams or to recover them after a search in inaccessible places. In this case, man and dog they are transported suspended in the apparel by a steel cable.

So that the dog is motivated for the search, the owner should always encourage him and to congratulate him/it after the concluded work and in any circinstância. Usually the couples are formed by a dog and a driver and they should not be undone, because the dog won't work with the same efficiency with an ignored person. Because, no matter how trained the dog is, the decisive factor for his/her good acting is, as always, the will of pleasing the owner.

The dogs are workout progressively and they are going acquiring efficiency certificates for searches in specific places. Initially the dogs receive the permission from participating in search missions and rescue of lost people in forests, passing for training in victims' rescue in avalanches, it looks for urban and, finally, aquatic. Each one of those certificates still has 2 levels of difficulty.

Source: Our Coleção Amigos, the Dogs
Extracted of the site www.dogtimes.com.br, 
kindly given in by Mariana Saliola.