K9 Explosive and Mine Detection: A Manual for Training and Operations

by Resi Gerritsen, Ruud Haak

Overview

A comprehensive guide to training and certifying K9 explosive detection teams.

Learn how to:

• Train your K9 to detect and safely alert for explosive substances.
• Conduct operational searches in buildings, vehicles, ships, and planes.
• Train your dog for the specialized work of mine detection.

In the high stakes realm of explosive detection, where even the smallest mistake can have fatal consequences, the margin of error is zero. Well trained dog-handler teams can play a key role in explosive detection, but only if their training is top notch.

Dr. Resi Gerritsen and Ruud Haak have worked with police departments around the world to help them establish and improve their K9 explosive detection training programs, and in this book they share their expertise with handlers and trainers looking to enhance their own performance.

They teach how to pick the right dog for explosive detection work, how to train the dog to detect explosives, and how to properly execute a variety of training and operational searches. They also provide some of the background knowledge you'll need about common explosives and the many factors that can influence a K9's work. Along with essential health and safety precautions for you and your dog, you'll also learn how to test and certify dogs and handlers to ensure excellent performance in the field.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781550596908
Publisher:	Brush Education
Publication date:	07/07/2017
Series:	K9 Professional Training Series
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Dr. Resi Gerritsen, a psychologist and jurist, is an international judge for the International Rescue Dog Organisation (IRO) and the Fédération Cynologique Internationale (FCI). Along with her late husband, Ruud Haak, and other colleagues in Austria, Resi developed a new method for training search-and-rescue dogs that revolutionized the field after producing stellar results in disaster zones around the world. She still trains her dogs for search and rescue, detection work, and Schutzhund.

Ruud Haak was the author of more than 30 dog books in Dutch, German, and English, and for over 40 years he was the editor-in-chief of the biggest Dutch dog magazine, Onze Hond (Our dog). Ruud travelled the world with his wife, Dr. Resi Gerritsen, teaching their unique methods to police departments, search-and-rescue organizations, and other dog trainers. He passed away in 2023.

Read an Excerpt

Introduction

In the 1970s and 1980s, terrorists operated in solid, organized groups using long-standing techniques. Their goals were generally clearly defined and political, such as the formation of an independent state. Organizations such as the Irish Republican Army (IRA) in Ireland, the Red Brigades in Italy, and Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA) in Spain usually focused their efforts on embassies and military targets as a way to get the attention of national governments. Some actions involved civilians (e.g., hijacking aircraft and setting off bombs in London), but the death and injury of civilians was considered a means to an end: putting pressure on states to accept the group's demands.

Since the 1990s, these traditional motives in terrorism have become clouded. Motives have become broader, with religious goals joining and sometimes superseding political ambitions. Members of terrorist groups are more diverse and distributed geographically, making them incredibly difficult to identify. Individuals and small cells may operate independently, with little or no contact with a movement's leadership. Directions for homemade weapons are easily available, and perpetrators even use themselves as weapons (e.g., suicide bombings). In addition, targets are not easy to identify; today anything and anyone can be the target of a terrorist attack. The hijacking of aircraft and ships is no longer just a tactic to exert political pressure, but is now also a way to acquire an offensive weapon for attacks. The best-known example of this, of course, was seen on September 11, 2001.

Dogs have been used to detect mines and other explosives for many years. Even before World War I, dogs were trained to detect the chemical signature of explosives and weapons. Since World War II, dog-handler teams have been used extensively by the military to locate mines. However, the first mine action programs, including those using dogs, were inefficient and unsafe, partly because the demining organizations still had to learn their craft, partly because they had few resources to work with, and also because they did not yet have safe, effective methods of searching for mines with dogs.

Most operational searches for explosives find nothing, which can be viewed as a success: where there is no bomb, none can explode. The work of explosive detection is very serious; mistakes can be catastrophic. This enormous responsibility must always be kept in mind while training explosive or mine detector dogs. Dogs play a critical role in ensuring accuracy. A well-trained explosive or mine detection dog has an investigative accuracy level of 95 percent, which is 40 percent higher than the performance a human has in the search for the same explosive.

As specialists in explosive detection, dogs do a serious job, although the dogs consider their job a game. With the reward of play, a favorite toy, or food each time they successfully find a target scent, dogs can be trained to signal when they smell explosives.

We wish to thank Claudia and Andre Boomaars of Dog Training Center Oosterhout (www.hondencentrum-claudia.nl) for the photos of our training methods and the information they contributed to this book. We also thank the much-too-early-deceased Sgt. 1. Ed Snoek, commander of the dog section of the Royal Dutch Airforce at Airbase Volkel, the Netherlands, and also Nico Ram, police dog training instructor of the regional police, Rotterdam-Rijnmond, for all the advice and information they gave us during the many years we were in contact, and for their help in training our dogs.

Table of Contents

Introduction
1. Dog and handler
2. Explosives, weapons, ammunition, and IEDs
3. Training odors
4. Influences on searching
5. Explosive detection training
6. Search actions
7. Examinations and performance assessment
8. Mine detection dogs
9. Stress in operational service
10. First aid
11. Explosives: Past and present

Reading Group Guide

Introduction

In the 1970s and 1980s, terrorists operated in solid, organized groups using long-standing techniques. Their goals were generally clearly defined and political, such as the formation of an independent state. Organizations such as the Irish Republican Army (IRA) in Ireland, the Red Brigades in Italy, and Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA) in Spain usually focused their efforts on embassies and military targets as a way to get the attention of national governments. Some actions involved civilians (e.g., hijacking aircraft and setting off bombs in London), but the death and injury of civilians was considered a means to an end: putting pressure on states to accept the group's demands.

Since the 1990s, these traditional motives in terrorism have become clouded. Motives have become broader, with religious goals joining and sometimes superseding political ambitions. Members of terrorist groups are more diverse and distributed geographically, making them incredibly difficult to identify. Individuals and small cells may operate independently, with little or no contact with a movement's leadership. Directions for homemade weapons are easily available, and perpetrators even use themselves as weapons (e.g., suicide bombings). In addition, targets are not easy to identify; today anything and anyone can be the target of a terrorist attack. The hijacking of aircraft and ships is no longer just a tactic to exert political pressure, but is now also a way to acquire an offensive weapon for attacks. The best-known example of this, of course, was seen on September 11, 2001.

Dogs have been used to detect mines and other explosives for many years. Even before World War I, dogs were trained to detect the chemical signature of explosives and weapons. Since World War II, dog-handler teams have been used extensively by the military to locate mines. However, the first mine action programs, including those using dogs, were inefficient and unsafe, partly because the demining organizations still had to learn their craft, partly because they had few resources to work with, and also because they did not yet have safe, effective methods of searching for mines with dogs.

Most operational searches for explosives find nothing, which can be viewed as a success: where there is no bomb, none can explode. The work of explosive detection is very serious; mistakes can be catastrophic. This enormous responsibility must always be kept in mind while training explosive or mine detector dogs. Dogs play a critical role in ensuring accuracy. A well-trained explosive or mine detection dog has an investigative accuracy level of 95 percent, which is 40 percent higher than the performance a human has in the search for the same explosive.

As specialists in explosive detection, dogs do a serious job, although the dogs consider their job a game. With the reward of play, a favorite toy, or food each time they successfully find a target scent, dogs can be trained to signal when they smell explosives.

We wish to thank Claudia and Andre Boomaars of Dog Training Center Oosterhout (www.hondencentrum-claudia.nl) for the photos of our training methods and the information they contributed to this book. We also thank the much-too-early-deceased Sgt. 1. Ed Snoek, commander of the dog section of the Royal Dutch Airforce at Airbase Volkel, the Netherlands, and also Nico Ram, police dog training instructor of the regional police, Rotterdam-Rijnmond, for all the advice and information they gave us during the many years we were in contact, and for their help in training our dogs.