Mine/UXO Clearance
Frequently Asked Questions
Demining With Dogs
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There is no single technological solution to all demining scenarios. Machinery can be helpful under certain circumstances but difficult terrain often severely limits or obviates its use. Moreover, manual methods and or mine-detecting dogs must follow machinery in order to attain humanitarian clearance standards. In these instances, humans can bear the brunt or be assisted by highly trained dogs with a proven olfactory capacity for finding explosives (dog smelling tissue is at least 1000 times greater than humans) as well as greater physical agility. In U.N, reports from Afghanistan, data show by square meters that dog teams clear mined areas three times faster than comparable numbers of deminers without dogs. Moreover, in a three day September 1995 U.S. Military field test of some 30 discrete demining technologies, held at Fort A.P. Hill in Virginia, the RONCO/Global dogs were described as: "At the top of the list, in terms of finding mines and trip wires, are dogs. They detected every trip wire set and discovered more mines than any other system." Moreover, mine-detecting dogs are highly environmentally friendly as compared to machinery and explosive charges such as Mine Clearance Line Charges. This can be a highly significant factor especially when clearing land for agricultural use. When dogs are employed in the United States for locating UXO, their use can be a significant factor in meeting EPA and other agency regulations.
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Single pieces of demining machinery can exceed many hundreds of thousands of dollars only for their purchase. Thus, the costs of capital intensive means of humanitarian demining are such that host countries often cannot afford to buy, operate and maintain the equipment on a sustainable basis. By comparison, a fully trained mine-detecting dog costs approximately $12,000 plus transportation, rations, kenneling and health care. At an amortized cost of~200 per month over an average six year working life, the addition of mine-detecting dogs adds a highly effective and efficient demining technology. Therefore, the combination of dogs and trained local handlers and deminers with appropriately tailored support equipment frequently offer the best combination of inputs to create an optimal demining "technology".
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| Dog and Handler. |
This allows low front-end investments and acceptable recurrent cost burdens on host countries once external financing has ended. Detector costs are normally less than dogs but owing to high plastic content, detectors have great difficulty locating many modem mines in use today. Moreover, detector use is slow relative to dogs. Dogs can work in about 90 percent of the terrain where humans operate whereas flails, rollers and sifters only work a fraction of that amount due to design and materials limitations.
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Each animal is trained to detect explosive odor signatures like TNT or the scent of monofilament line or metallic wire whether used on booby traps, mines or booby-trapped mines. (Wires also give acoustic signatures which are detectable by dogs.) They ignore other signatures and are rewarded each time they alert on an odor to which trained. The initial training lasts 8-10 weeks and is followed by another 8-10 week period of advanced or acclimation training in the operational country. After a mine-detecting dog has been initially certified and worked under live minefield conditions, regular refresher training is given to all RONCO/Global owned dogs. If long periods are experienced without finding mines, the handler may plant an explosive for the dog to find in order to keep the animal refreshed, interested and rewarded. This tactic can continue throughout the dog's working life.
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When a fully trained mine-detecting dog is deployed, it must initially work with the handler to whom it "bonded" during the training. A handler switch can be made later, but only after the dog is proven. If a change is made, at least two weeks of proficiency training are needed for the new handler and dog in order to create a new "bond."
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Dutch language commands are the only ones used with the Belgian Malinois and German Shepherds fielded by RONCO/Global. Whether in the United States or elsewhere, the handlers are taught the Dutch commands. This not only promotes maximum operational efficiency by avoiding unnecessary dog training but also increases dog inter-operability between countries with all handlers using the same Dutch commands. Words of praise or encouragement can be given in any language as, in these cases, the dogs respond to the sound of the handler's voice and not the specific language used.
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Dogs can be trained to detect the scent of any explosive filler and case material or container.
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| Demining Dogs can work where metal detectors can't. |
Thus, mine-detecting dogs add a critical safety factor to nearly any demining activity because they can detect the odor of nonmetallic or plastic encased mines as well as those found on steel bridges or railroad tracks where metal detectors are essentially useless. In addition, dogs are not foiled by iron bearing laterite soils, which cause detectors to ping incessantly. Professional deminers often remark that dogs work much faster than humans or machines and at much less cost. A Special Forces evaluation of RONCO's Rwanda program, issued in June 1998, found that "A good dog and handler can clear up to four times as much as a demining section [without dogs] using standard procedures in a full days work." Mine-detecting dogs have consistently proven that they find minimal metal mines more often than any locator used or tested in RONCO/Global operations.
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This is where "bonding" operates. The handler learns to recognize whether or not a response is credible in a specific dog by knowing the behavioral characteristics of that animal. Continuous training removes false alerts.
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In Mozambique, RONCO/Global mine-detecting dogs found thousands of UXO items; they find booby-trap wires easily. However, depending on soil conditions, there are limits beyond which effectiveness can diminish. For example, there may be soil or other adverse conditions, such as impacted salt flats or swamps, where dogs cannot perform well or at all. In general, the dogs are fully effective at finding explosives up to 10 centimeters below the surface, and often deeper depending on certain variables (see 12 below). By way of comparison, neither dogs nor detectors can easily find mines under 30 centimeters of heavy clay soil. In any event, a second separate dog always checks the work of the first animal to work a specific mine field. For many mines to remain effective, they must be embedded above 30 centimeters. Erosion and other variables caused by nature or humans sometimes alter the original emplacement and complicate location and removal; yet, both anti-personnel and anti-tank mines have been found at levels below the surface where they have become essentially harmless. To be sure, the limits of mine-detecting dogs are yet to be determined. Yet, there are no reported cases of mines or booby traps found after RONCO/Global has cleared an area.
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Dogs are equally effective at finding both mines and UXO. For example, during one working period in Bosnia, RONCO/Global mine-detecting dogs working with mine detecting teams found 1,625 mines and 1,523 UXO while clearing approximately 800,000 square meters. These numbers are a function of what was there and not a measure of the dog's ability to find one type of ordnance more readily than another. Again, the dogs are trained to alert to the scent of specific explosives and/or their containers. They do not distinguish between mines and UXO.
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They enter the training program only at 18 months of age and after basic obedience training and socialization with humans. After rigorous training, dogs are culled which do not meet and maintain rigorous selection standards established from ten years of experience. Both male and spayed female animals are used and have an average working life of six years. After retirement, demining dogs become pets; they are not destroyed.
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Explosive and/or container scents are placed on trails or in bushes; first in the open and later hidden or buried.
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| Demining Dogs in training. |
The animals are trained on the specific mines they are expected to locate or a very close proxy thereof. Similar to the military dictum that soldiers train as they fight, demining dogs train as they work in live mine fields. Defused mines and actual explosives are used for training.
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Several factors are monitored carefully by dog handlers: wind direction and force; elapsed time after rainfall; intensity, duration and volume of the rain event; degree of soil saturation after rainfall; presence or absence of spilled explosives; and, soot, ashes and/or charcoal from a recent fire.
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Over a ten-year period, RONCO successfully implemented demining programs in Afghanistan, Mozambique, Angola, Rwanda, Bosnia and Croatia. Indigenous deminers and dog handlers were trained and successfully used in each case. While the training problems were different in each country, all responded to adaptive management solutions.
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In theory yes, but rarely in practice. Accurate mine location maps are rarely available and must be considered suspect in any event. If they are available, they must be complimented by highly experienced deminers with full knowledge of the mines in that specific area. Moreover, the deminers must be completely familiar with seasonal and vegetative patterns, terrain and soil characteristics, climate and other operational factors that enhance or impede the operational capacity of humans, animals and machinery alike. Otherwise, there is no specific knowledge base, combinations of data sets or technology that will allow preparation of a demining plan that can be implemented successfully against generally accepted safety protocols. For example, the same terrain may appear quite different across seasons of a given operational year. This can create scenarios where different demining specialists sent to the same area during different seasons to survey the same problem produce highly differentiated recommendations. RONCO has learned from over ten years of experience, which are the best working periods during each season and for various terrain types. This experience is applied through rigorous standard operating procedures. Normally, lack of data is overcome by supervisory personnel who talk to residents and "read" a former confrontation line to determine possible mine locations. Careful area reduction always goes into developing workable plans.
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