These doggies are great! The search and rescue dogs, Leggy, Melody, and Iron Xiong, of Taichung Fire Department earned the intermediate certificates for search and rescue dog in wilderness and advanced certificates for search and rescue dog for pile and rubble by IRO. Earlier this year, they had passed the “2017 The IRO MRT-T Asia Search and Rescue Certification.” In the future, they will join major search and rescue missions both at home and aboard upon the summon of the United Nation. It promotes not only international visibility of Taiwan’s search and rescue dogs but also the international renown of Taiwan.

In the rubble and pile item, 16 dogs participated in it. A 3-year-old yellow Labrador retriever, “Iron Xiong”t that represented Taichung to join the contest exceled in it. When it was 1 year and 3 months old, it was transferred from the Custom Administration as a sniffer dog. High in mobility “Iron Xiong”, used its strong sniffing ability to over difficulties to run among rubble piles to found out the victims to be rescued in the shortest time.

Its teammate “Melody”, was a 3 years old female Labrador retriever. Being highly durable, it could fulfill rescue tasks twice as long as other search and rescue dogs – about 30 minutes. Its major merit was that it never gives up. Like to have coquetry play with people, this black, 4-year-old male Labrador retriever “Leggy” was quite a detective. It never gave up any hint and could conduct carpet search.

“2017 The IRO MRT-T Asia Search and Rescue Certification” was held in Zhushan, Nantou at the Fire the Training Center of the National Fire Agency in Zhushan, Nantou on the 23rd for 2 days. Search and rescue dogs of the Fire Departments and private training institutions from Taichung, Kaohsiung, New Taipei City, and more performed various rescue tasks upon the commands of their trainers. The search and rescue dogs that passed the certification will participate in international search and rescue missions. Establishing the communication of training techniques, it will promote the abilities of search and rescue dogs in the global arena.