Until a breeding program
and a puppy program is implemented, candidate dogs would
be purchases. The Head Instructor shall be responsible
for the purchase of all dogs. Various tests would be
conducted at this point, and it is predicted that 75% of
all dogs looked at will be rejected.
The most effective
program would be to implement a breeding program coupled
with a puppy program, along with a donor system. A
decision as to what type of dog would have to be made.
The German Shepherd or the Belgium Malinois are the most
popular breeds with the demining communities, owing to
the fact that most of these organizations elect to
channel the dogs to security or alternative purposes if
they are no longer to be used for MDD purposes.
The Market
There is considerable
demand for dogs to support demining operations. The
challenge is to have MDDs available on an “as needed”
basis, as few demining companies or government
organizations keep trained MDDs in inventory. Therefore,
if ground reduction or Quality Assurance MDD support is
required by a demining operation, it will be very
difficult to source MDDs. The dogs will need to be
identified, trained and matched to a handler, which is
nearly a two year process. Organizations are reticent to
initiate long term commitments where their own project
funding envelopes are often no more than six months in
duration.
This having been said,
deminers collectively agree that an MDD component to a
well organized and equipped demining team can increase
efficiency by four to 10 times.
Benefits
Mine Detection Dogs are
considered by the demining community as state of the art
and have been successfully used since 1949. The benefits
of a Canadian based MDD program are:
Canada would be able to
provide a rapid deployment capability to any
international demining requirement, whether it was a
Canadian funded operation or not.
Canada would establish a
niche which would be highly visible and recognizably
Canadian at a very low cost.
