Indian dogs trained to detect explosives in Chhattisgarh ~ CookingFood.Org

The Malinois or Belgian Shepherd is much in the news nowadays, after one of this breed was reported to have participated in the recent successful strike on Osama Bin Laden.

Far less in the public eye is the ever-underrated Indy, though its performance has been excellent in the Counter-Terrorism and Jungle Warfare College in Chhattisgarh. Let's pardon the College and the writer of the article below for using the words "mongrel" and "street dog" for canines who are possibly neither of the above. At least somebody has finally recognized the value of our native dogs, whatever they choose to call them.

This is an earlier post on this project. Incidentally, like all tribals and rural Indians, Maoists are well aware of the alert nature of Indies. That's why they ordered villagers in Jhargram to kill their own dogs; to prevent them from alerting the police to Maoist presence. Read about it here.

Sorry this post looks so messy. I've just copy-pasted the whole article here.

Online edition of India's National Newspaper

Saturday, Apr 30, 2011

ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version

Other States

Other States - Chattisgarh

Street dogs to detect explosives in Naxal hotbed

Photo: PTI

A new batch:Street dogs being trained for anti-Naxal operations at the Counter Terrorism and Jungle Warfare College in Kanker in Chhattisgarh.

Kanker (Chhattisgarh): The Chhattisgarh Police is planning to train a new batch of street dogs for anti-Naxal operations after the canines delivered good results by detecting over 350 IEDs and landmines in the past two years.

The mongrels, being trained at the Counter Terrorism and Jungle Warfare (CTJW) College here, have helped save the lives of a number of policemen by detecting the explosives.

The street dogs, being trained for anti-Naxal police duties, have better utility value when compared to high-breed canines like Labrador and German Shepherd.

“The local street dogs have an edge over the pedigreed dogs as they do not get tired in the hot weather and rough terrain in the dense jungles and Naxal hotbeds of the State. They have a better adaptability to the environment and have produced excellent results in police and security duties,” CTJW director Brigadier (Retd.) B. K. Ponwar said.

“Presently, we are training four such dogs Teja, Sally, Heena and Rolly after we found that our experiment with such dogs bore excellent results. More such dogs with a good built and who display positive orientation for police duties will be trained,” said Ponwar, who has been designated as Inspector General (IG) of Chhattisgarh police for running the CTJW.

Ponwar helped set up the unique college here six years ago after he was asked by the State government to train its policemen for special operations in view of the Naxal problem.

Excellent results

Ponwar said while the college is also training pedigreed dogs, the results with street dogs has been excellent and more than what was expected of them.

“They require less pampering, less investment of resources and less care. They have a high stamina when it comes to working in these areas. They are good learners,” Ponwar said.

Central security forces like CRPF, ITBP and BSF deployed for anti-Naxal operations in the State are also being assisted by a specialised breed of imported Belgian shepherd dogs for ‘infantry patrols' and to provide pre-ambush warning to the troops.

“A police dog is an essential component of any security force squad. This part was missing in anti-Naxal operations. As the local dogs are best suited for this terrain, they are now being deployed to assist the forces. They can avert major casualties and ambushes by giving early signals to their masters,” a senior police officer said on the condition of anonymity.

The high-breed dogs have been used with success by NATO troops in Afghanistan and Israeli troops in Gaza. - PTI