Training

Training a mine dog takes about 24 months before dog and handler are ready to work together in an operational field. Training takes place near to the dog school in local fields. The terrain where the dogs are trained is varied to ensure the dogs gain experience of working in different environments including grassy, wet, dry and sandy ground.

The training process starts at birth when the puppies commence a socialisation programme and continues through various developmental phases until they are ready for deployment to a live operation when the dogs are about two years old.

It is important to begin the training process from as early as two weeks old with the socialising process. Socialising is an effective form of developing the puppy to become better able to cope with the stress arising from noise, travel, a change in surroundings and people they work with. Socialising continues until the puppy is about 12 months old when it begins its formal demining programme.

The school has a specially designed obstacle course to encourage puppies to become aware of different surroundings. The puppies are introduced to the obstacle course at 3-6 weeks old and spend most of their time playing there when they are young.

It is crucial that a close relationship is formed between the dog and handler from an early age. MineTech will train the dog handler alongside the dog, which will enable a relationship to develop between handler and dog during the formal mine dog training. This will ensure that the mine dogs are more effective.

It can take up to 3-4 months for a dog to adapt to a new handler. Handlers are given two dogs to work with during their training. They get to know the dogs through grooming, feeding, walking and providing general care and attention.

The Socialisation Process - 0-6 months

Negative experiences during the socialising period will have an effect on the mutual trust between the animal and other animals or humans. Young dogs that have a variety of positive influences during this time are better equipped than animals that grow up in a closed environment. A lack of socialisation may lead to behavioural problems such as aggression or fear.

During the neo-natal period the puppies are mildly stressed, which enables them to cope better with stress in the future, to be more outgoing, to learn faster and, it is believed, to increase their brain size. The stress is applied very gently and is used to ensure that when the puppies are working in suspected mine fields they are not exposed to additional risk such as jumping or being distracted by loud noises.

6 months old

By the time the puppies are six months old they have a high ball drive and will search for their ball or 'kong' in long and short grass using a guided straight-line method for more than 30 minutes. At this age the puppies are not gun-shy, they bond with humans easily, are keen on travelling in vehicles, are becoming used to different environments and have a broad spectrum of agility.

8-9 months old

The dogs start obedience training at eight months old and begin their formal demining course.

By the time they are nine months old, they are able to search for various explosives and sit and stay. They have developed a correlation between sitting near an explosive and being rewarded with their kong.

The explosives used for training purposes are very small and do not represent a real-life scenario. When a mine has been in the ground for a long period of time, the explosive smell will have seeped to the top of the ground and cover a large area surrounding the mine.

12 months old

The dogs are now able to search an area spanning 100 square metres before needing a short break. They can focus on their work despite the distraction of humans, vehicles and low level noises and can focus their searching attention for more than 60 minutes.

14-24 months old

Training begins with dedicated mine dog handlers, bringing the dogs up to a level whereby they are ready for deployment to a live operation.