Dogs were first used in Humanitarian Demining by RONCO in Afghanistan in the late 1980s, and by HALO Trust in Cambodia at around the same time. Since then, Mine Detecting Dogs (MDDs) or Explosive Detecting Dogs (EDDs) have been used in many countries. In the late 1990s, the use of large cane-rats in Africa started. And in 2008, the robot controlled use of the mongoose in Sri Lanka began to be promoted. Since then, the irresponsible use of single dogs in undergrowth and rats tied to a stick have been promoted but they do not deserve to be taken seriously because the people promoting them will not do anything to prove that these approaches are reliable (because they cannot be).
Many animals have a very sensitive sense of smell and can detect tiny traces of High Explosive that leak from mines and munitions as the High Explosive fill dries out. In some cases, ERW appears to be hermetically sealed and yet the animal may still signal its presence. They may be detecting the odour 'bouquet' presented by the disturbed ground and the mine's case. They may even be detecting the faint residue of the person who placed the device...
While it is not always clear what they do detect, it is widely accepted that they have sometimes missed the same sort of thing that they found an hour ago, or yesterday. The accident record proves this inconsistency in performance, and it is not really surprising.
In the early days, almost anyone with a dog could set themselves up as an expert, train in their own way and claim 100% success - until the accidents started to happen. Dogs trained for airport and customs search were diverted into demining. Dogs trained on another continent were flown in and used to search for devices they had never encountered in entirely unfamiliar vegetation and terrain. While the dog was usually able to search much more land than a deminer in a day, the costs could be astronomical. Purchase price, training, handler fees and veterinary backup often made their use a false economy - especially because there was often no confidence that the area the dog had searched was safe. In many cases, even the dog-handlers did not dare to walk on the land that their dogs had supposedly searched.
In some cases, the reason for dogs missing explosive hazards was obvious. The devices were unfamiliar, their training was erratic or the animal was sick. In the case of short-legged rats, the animal cannot traverse uneven ground easily and cannot actually be trained to search at all. All search animals need any undergrowth that is present to be cut low and must be trained to search so that every centimetre of ground is interrogated. The short length of a rats legs means that even when the undergrowth is cut very low, they cannot traverse the stubble in straight lines and so must be dragged back and forth across the area by a handler. They cannot be let off the harness because they cannot be trained to actually search, and because running away always looks like a good idea to an animal that may have been tamed but which wants freedom.
The picture shows a rat failing to search in Mozambique.
Animals can be cute and catch the donors' attention because they suppose that their use is safer and faster than the use of manual demining methods. However, the rats are a scam. Their use as a demining search tool raises money from credulous donors but does not leave any land safe to use. See APOPO rat assessment.
Conversely, dogs can be readily trained to perform repetitive tasks with concentration. Even so, their training has to be completed in the context where they will work and searching for the same kind of explosive hazard that they are expected to find. They have to be deployed in a rigidly disciplined routine that ensures full ground coverage while concentrating on the task in hand. The training of the handler is at least as important as the training of the dog. The dogs' veterinary care, kennels, logistics support and transportation are all expensive. And at the end of the day, they are best used for finding where the explosive hazards are NOT, rather than finding individual items with pinpoint accuracy. Pinpointing can happen, but is unreliable even with the best EDD Sets.
Finding where the explosive hazards are NOT can be immensely valuable - saving huge sums of money by reducing the areas that need to be manually searched and cleared.
If any undergrowth present is cut without disturbing the ground, dogs can search wide areas fairly quickly and without manual preparation of 'boxes' for them to work in. This is ideal, but does often require the use of mine-protected assets to safely cut the undergrowth in advance of the dogs. Some argue that the explosive molecules are concentrated in the plant growth, so cutting it makes the dog's task easier by releasing molecules. Of course, the cuttings may be some distance from the source of the molecules so the area searched manually after a dog signals may have to be bigger.
Dogs are also used in following up mechanical ground processing. Typically, the machine may process a wide area, removing undergrowth and breaking up the soil as it goes. Because machines are never able to detonate many of the UXO hazards that may be present, and do not reliably initiate pressure mines, even when a machine has processed an area with no detonations, the area must be searched afterwards. When there is no reason to believe that there are any explosive hazards present, professionally deployed dogs can provide a rapid confirmation that there is no explosive in the area. If there are devices present, a ground engaging machine will have moved or broken up the concentration of explosive molecules above the device so that the dog will become confused because there are many signals, so should be withdrawn and other search procedures used. Any land processed by the machine must be left for long enough for vapour concentrations to gather - and people argue over whether 'long enough' is a month or longer. If the land is soft and sandy, devices may have been repositioned and pushed deeper so a dog may be unable to find them at all. Generally, using EDD sets for effective search on land processed by machines is only any use when there is nothing there for them to find, so of no real value at all.
Scraping off the top of dry ground using a blade (dozer or grader) is reported to work well at exposing the more moist soil in which the explosive vapour above a mine will have gathered. As that soil dries, the water carries explosive molecules into the air for the dog to find. Mines scraped off into the berms left behind by the blade may be more difficult to find.
There are a number of rules emerging about the use of dogs to search for areas contaminated with explosives. In essence, you have to programme the dog to work as mechanistically as possible, so making its performance as reliable as possible. The rules have been pioneered by the commercial training company 'Karenswood' in the UK and by NPA's GDC in Bosnia Herzegovina. Independent variations are used by MgM in Angola. My understanding of the common rules is summarised below. Check with those running EDD successfully to find out whether they agree.
1) Start with dogs that are intelligent and healthy. Males are generally preferred.
2) Dog training can start elsewhere but the final phase must be conducted in-country (usually over several months) and involve the handler they will actually have. The handler and trainer is a 'Set'. A handler may have two or three dogs, but each must be trained with him/her.
3) Final training must involve real targets that accurately reflect what they will search for. This may be whole devices or bits of explosive. The targets must be clean - with no human scent on them.
4) Depending on the ground, the training minefield must be in place for at least a month (preferably three or more) before it is used.
5) Train with the method that will actually be used - use the same marking, PPE, everything. Training may be divided into 'scent recognition' and 'working', with the former conducted indoors using games that allow the dog to be rewarded immediately for its successes.
6) Use a method that guarantees full ground coverage. Running the dog forward and back in a one metre wide lane can achieve this, but so can other methods. The dog should have its nose to the ground and search with enthusiasm.
7) Always use a second dog to search the same area using a different search approach (so that it does not simply follow the first dog). The second dog is QA checking the work of the first dog.
8) Show your confidence by ensuring that the method involves a handler walking over every metre of the searched land. The picture below shows a second pass in a fenced minefield. The first dog searched out and back away from the start line (rope). The second dog searches along the start-line, then moves forward to slice a metre forward into the area with its handler alongside. The start line is moved forward at the end of each lateral search, and the handler only walks on land searched by two dogs.
8) When you can, help to release the odour by cutting the undergrowth or in dry and dusty conditions, thoroughly wetting the ground the day before.
9) Don't work in unusual weather conditions - conditions must be similar to those prevalent during training.
10) Don't use a dog that performs at less than 100% success in training. Retrain it and, if necessary, be prepared to reject it. Dogs vary and some simply cannot be made reliable.
11) Do not allow the dog to work when tired or sick. Keep the dog motivated by keeping it BORED when not working.
12) Don't expect a dog to work in areas with strong smells (diesel fuel, faeces, etc) or where the undergrowth is sharp and may damage their paws and nose. And do not allow the dogs to rest next to the explosive store or collected mines!
Dogs are intelligent and want to please. They do not want to find mines, just to please their handler. The system used should ensure that dogs are not rewarded prematurely with praise or play. Restricting rewards to training (which is daily) seems to work and avoids rewarding a dog when it has false-alarmed. It also avoids disappointing a dog that has signaled correctly on an explosive trace that a manual deminer cannot find.
The full cost of using EDD Sets to search is unlikely to be cheaper than the use of manual demining assets. It can be much more expensive. They cannot be used everywhere and for every task, and their use must be fully integrated with other demining procedures and processes. Used in the right context and in the right way, EDDs can accelerate the release of land and be a very valuable Mine Action asset. Deployed carelessly, they can be a liability.
Generally, it is only worth establishing a national EDD capacity when the explosive hazard contamination in a country is very extensive. Planning should allow the setup and training costs to be amortised over at least five years.
For details about the responsible use of EDD/MDD, see Chapter 9 Mine Detection Dogs in the GLOBAL SOPs.