Eight female dog handlers and 16 mine-sniffing dogs will work on demining in Kharkiv Oblast. Prior to that, the dog handlers underwent three months of training in Cambodia, where they worked in the fields with the dogs. This was reported by the Ministry of Economy, UNN reports.
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The Ministry of Economy, together with the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), MAG and ARORO, has reportedly begun work on reforming the area of demining with the use of dogs.
This initiative has already trained 8 female dog handlers and 16 mine-sniffing dogs who will be working in the fields of Kharkiv region for the next 7 months.
The project participants are graduates of the Sumy Agrarian National University with a degree in dog training. They additionally underwent three months of training in Cambodia, where they worked in the fields with the dogs.
According to the agency, the dogs can work at temperatures above 5°C, which allows them to be involved in demining even in late autumn or in warm winter. And in summer, they can withstand temperatures up to 35°C.
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The Ministry of Economy said that as part of this project, one dog handler works with two dogs in shifts: while one dog is surveying the territory, the other is resting.
The use of teams with mine-sniffing dogs will speed up the demining process in Ukraine: a fully trained service dog can survey an area of 1,500 square meters per day, while a human sapper can survey 20-50 square meters per day. Dogs ignore scrap metal and detect only the smell of explosives, which means that they find mines and tripwires in the fields where they are laid faster than sappers with metal detectors.
MAG, an international mine action operator, and APOPO, a non-profit organization working with trained animals in demining, will reportedly engage teams with mine-sniffing dogs to clear 180 hectares in Kharkiv region. Later, dog handlers will also work in Kherson and Mykolaiv regions.
On the basis of the project, international partners, with the involvement of experts from the Ministry of Economy, the Ministry of Defense and the State Emergency Service, are working on the first version of the national standard for demining with dogs. Its adoption will make it possible to scale up the training program and increase the number of mine-search groups with dogs and, accordingly, speed up the demining process.