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The benefit of home grown SAR Dogs in disaster prone countries
By Daniela Neika from Germany, Chairwoman of Rettungshunde fuer Nepal ®··········
While highly developed nations like Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Spain and the USA enjoy extensive supply of regional and communal non profit volunteer SAR Dog Organizations, the developing parts of our world are as good as void of them.
The reason for this is not that there is no need for Search and Rescue Dogs over there. The people who inhabit all these poverty stricken regions on our planet that have a history of regular occurring natural disasters can simply not afford it to keep citizens volunteer organizations on their own. The people need all their energy and time to keep afloat their families and communities from their meager incomes simply to stay alive. Such mostly sub-tropical or tropical regions with often hostile and unfavorable environment make maintenance of a sound infrastructure extremely difficult for the authorities who are in charge.
Poverty is directly linked to disaster prone areas where at regular intervals natural calamities such as earthquakes, monsoon rains, landslides, mudslides and volcanic outbursts occur. There is thus a reason why wealthy and favorable climate conditions lead to rich and well fed societies like ours.
No doubt that a many of these have gained highly professional knowledge and skills and have become efficient enough for sending them to far away places for assistance in times of need by official assigned international disaster response networks.
Yet we should sincerely ask ourselves what would be more efficient; a timely knowledge transfer and infrastructural aid to locals who know their problems and people better than any foreign volunteer, or time and again wasting larger amounts of funds for bringing SAR Dogs and handlers to the rescue of disaster victims in faraway places.
Can any costly air lift of SAR Dog units to areas where they face time consuming adaptation problems compete with standby local SAR Dog Squads? Think about fighting jet-lag, time zone difference, hot and humid climate conditions, lousy transport facilities, unfamiliar native languages and failing co-ordination with confused and under high pressure standing local authorities, that have no time to spare for foreign “guest volunteers”!
As long as there are no or not enough·native grown SAR Dog units in these disaster·prone countries, we still·need international SAR Dog and Disaster Response Units. Yet the goal of international disaster aid should be to help to prepare these countries and to level them up to international standards of disaster mitigation. THIS would safe more lifes than any other kind of foreign help.
Statistically there is a time window of only 72 hours to find for example earthquake victims inside collapsed structures alive with the help of SAR Dogs and rescue them out off the rubbles.
Under (sub) tropical conditions the time window is often even smaller due to faster growth of lethal infectious disease, contaminated water and malnutrition amongst the victims that lowers their resistance when they are hurt.
International SAR teams that are specialized in Urban Search and Rescue need usually too much time to reach the location of an earthquake to start their relief activities in a timely manner due·to·long distances between their own base and the often far away destination.
This is a fact that can not be changed. This is the reason why often their enthusiastic and hard work proves to be inefficient.
We can not make shorter the distances between our home·base and the country that has been hit by a disaster.
To rescue a higher number of surviving people under collapsed buildings, it is of utmost importance to start the rescue work as fast as possible, just at the beginning of this 72 hours window. Conclusion·: build SAR Dog Units that are specialized in Urban Search & Rescue in regions and places where disasters use do happen!
In my opinion International Disaster Aid Organizations and also our own private native SAR Dog Organizations should at least allocate half of their professional or voluntary training time and a significant part of their fund raising efforts for knowledge transfer to the regions and countries that need their own disaster mitigation structures. That applies especially for SAR Dogs. A SAR Dog that is born and adapted to local conditions makes much more sense to me. This would safe far more valuable lives and resources.
Nothing is worse than short sight when faced with an increase of world wide natural disasters due to the present climate changes. We have to wake up to the fact that we alone can not save the rest of the world. We have to share knowledge and resources now! There is no more time to waste!
That is why my friends and me founded "Rettungshunde fuerNepal e.V."
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Please support SARDOGS NEPAL
Thank you !
Daniela Neika
Send us related articles, photographs, ideas, proposals and stuff from your own news and activities from the
USA, Germany, Austria ore elsewhere.We will post it here.Thank you !
Yours Suk Bahadur (Gaine),Bhim Bahadur,Nagin (Nagendra), Ambar (Sindhuli),Ubaraj (standing),Ash Bahadur (Aite),Gau Prasad,Laxmon,Amrit & Dilip
SAR Dogs: ·· Hunter,·········Tina,············ Laxmi·············· Dunston········· Tendy·········· Tur·········· Wicky (see below)····· · · · Aldo· ···· Uttam · Tulsi·
Photos: © Daniela Neika (from my recent visit when I delivered German Short Hair puppy Wicky to Gau Prasad)
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Gau Prasad with his new SAR dog Wicky
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