Taichung search and rescue dog team members, Yo-tzuen Lin and the search and rescue dog, 「Tuei-tuei」, are expected to attend the「World Championship for Rescue Dogs」conducted by the international search and rescue dog organization, IRO, on 18th September in Slovakia so Mayor Chia-lung Lin left for iNGO center located at Guangfu new village in Wufeng this morning (17th), he had the live broadcast on Facebook about how he and the people encouraged the search and rescue dog and awarded「Tuei-tuei」with the good luck charm and extra funds for food. He said, it’s the「Proud of Taiwan」.
Mayor Lin was accompanied by Director of Fire Bureau Huan-Chang Hsiao to be the 「Freshman of the dog handler」today to experience the daily dog training with 4 dog handlers. So he learned about how the search and rescue dogs work「on duty」every day. Mayor had very good collaboration with the search and rescue dog,「Tehshiung」, and simulated many different situations to complete the training successfully. All the trainings were lively broadcasted on Facebook and many people online were attracted to browse the live video.
「Tuei-tuei, good job, cheer up!」,「What a good weather with sunshine and breeze, the dogs are super great」, 「Wow!What a smart pet kid.」, all netizens cheered the search and rescue dogs up;some netizens recognized Taichung as a pet friendly city. All of the showed the passions and supports to the search and rescue dogs.
Mayor Lin said, Taichung is the only special (Executive-Yuan-governed) municipality in central Taiwan so we should take the full responsibility on fire fighting and rescuing. He expressed his respects to the dog handlers for their patience and dedication.「Tuei-tuei」will leave for the overseas competition next month so he prepared the good luck charm from Wanhe temple and the extra funds for food to it for awards.
Director of Fire Bureau Huan-Chang Hsiao said, Taichung search and rescue dog team has formed for 3 years only and there are only 4 dogs in the first group. However, all the 4 dogs have been well trained to obtain the certification of「international rescue dog organization; IRO」as the certified advanced rubble search and rescue dogs. In addition, there are only 9 United Nations certified rubble search and rescue dogs in Asia and 3 of them are from, Taichung, including Tuei-tuei, Tehshiung, Melody so Taichung now is the place with the most certified rescue dogs.
Every year, IRO(International Rescue Dog Organization) will conduct the certifications of rescue dogs in rubble, MRT search and rescue dog for international Mission Readiness Test, World Championship for Rescue Dogs etc. for the capability certification and competition of the search and rescue dogs. Therefore, it’s the highest honorable awards to win for the search and rescue dogs.
In 2017, Taichung search and rescue dog, Tuei-tuei, and the partnered dog handler, Yo-tzuen Lin, passed the test with such a high scores of 198 points (Full points are 200) and won the first place of advanced rubble search and rescue dogs to enter the World Championship for Rescue Dogs. They will leave for Slovakia to participate in the competition on 18th September. The search and rescue dog, Tehshiung, and its dog handler, Jun-sheng Lee have been granted with the official international middle class field search and rescue dog certification and become the first dual functioning search and rescue dog (rubble, field) of Taichung dog team.
The dog handler of「Tuei-tuei」, Yo-tzuen Lin mentioned, the dog needs to separate from the dog handler for near 10 hours on the airplane and needs some time to adapt to the strange environment in other country so he did worry about dog may feel sick while being nervous for himself at the same time. He appreciates the special good luck charm prepared by Mayor Lin to pray for Tuei-tuei for wellbeing and he hopes the trip and competition will run smoothly so they would get back to Taiwan with the triumph.