"We can judge a man's heart by the way he treats animals"(Emmanuel Kant).
On the road that leads us to the camp where the canine units of the fire brigade train, I am curious how the national instructor Oronzo Passabì talks about his dog: as a "work colleague". The Dog Nuclei that I am going to visit are those of Puglia and Abruzzo. A few weeks earlier I met the head of the Puglia dog group, the team leader Giampiero Pepe by telephone. He told me about the training activities and how they would take place. On social media - and for him it is a source of pride - he is known by relatives and friends as "Tommy Lycia Margot". It almost seems like a puzzle. I understand the meaning only when the instructor tells me about the birth of the Puglia dog group ...
Team leader Pepe serves at the provincial command of Lecce, loves dogs and wishes to own one. One commander has a Yorkshire named Ashley. The foreman never misses the opportunity, when he can, to spend time with the animal. Encouraged by the commander himself, who suggests becoming a dog lover, for a succession of events and coincidences, he receives a Labrador puppy. His name is Tommy and he is 11 years old. It is the same year in which little Tommaso Onofri disappears and is murdered. For the research, divers from the fire brigade are used. The sense of helplessness and the regret for that story marks the beginning of the path that the foreman faces with his Tommy. As a self-taught person, he learns techniques and information of various kinds in a dog training center of the Civil Protection. Train Tommy. They pass the selection and receive the eligibility from the Dog School of the Fire Brigade of Volpiano (TO).
Tommy "works" for the first time on the ruins of the L'Aquila earthquake. The instructor recalls that during the return, the foreman is called by a colleague VVF of Barletta. Two more Labrador puppies are available: Lycia and Margot. From that moment on, the foreman Pepe and the skilled Passabì coordinator do their best to give birth to the nucleus.
The dog unit is a team of two, consisting of the fireman (handler) and the dog, owned by the same. A symbiotic relationship that in rescue operations brings out both human and animal abilities to guarantee the discovery of a missing person in earthquakes, floods, collapses, explosions, woods, parks. The handler - for the dog - is the pack leader.
The breeds appointed to be part of the VVF canine unit are German Shepherds, Retrievers such as Golden and Labradors: more trainable and manageable by nature, temperament, agility and physical endurance. They also possess particular olfactory abilities.
Hearing and smell are the two most developed senses in a dog. The ears allow the dog to understand the direction of the sound. The dog's sense of smell is superior to that of humans: it corresponds to our sight. The outside world for the dog is a world of smells. Its nasal mucosa has about 220 million olfactory cells compared to 5 million in humans. Very low odor levels are enough for the dog to perceive them. After smelling a smell, it keeps the memory. During the research work the dog uses only one tool: his nose. With its olfactory power and olfactory discrimination capacity, it is able to locate the missing person.
Firefighters' dogs are trained just with the olfactory discrimination method (or of the smell of smell) not to be confused with that of the "olfactory trace or smell witness". The method used is based on the research ofgeneric human smellIn fact, training is mainly aimed at finding live people. For this reason their action is concentrated and is fundamental in the first 24 - 36 hours from happening. In case of presence of corpses the dog signals them, but with a different behavior.
Everything that our sense of smell escapes, for the dog is a sign of the presence of a person. Man through exhaled air, skin secretions and skin peeling is a source of organic smell, easily perceptible by the dog. The odorous flow in the form of small particles (effluvium) spreads in the air or escapes from the mass of the debris even in the presence of minimal vital functions. The dog detects the human odor inside a cone-shaped ray in the air. It can be influenced by climatic conditions, the orography of the ground and the wind that tends to transport it in a precise direction, giving the effluvium the shape of a cone.
The handler leaves his dog free both during training and in an emergency and real rescue scenario. Locate it with a little bell attached to the neck.
At the research site, the dog proceeds sniffing the air and not on the ground. It must perceive the human smell following the trail formed in the air. The dispersed is a source of odor. Just wait for the conductor to send it to the place to be inspected. They don't need your directions. It covers the entire research area until it enters the cone of the missing person. It doesn't stop until it goes back to the source of that smell. Once the retrieval has been made, the dog assumes a specific behavior, moves its tail faster, stops and proceeds to the repeated signaling bark, to warn the handler to reach it and carry out the recovery. Dig with your paws if you think the person is buried or if the handler is far away, go back to him to bring him back to the place where he was found.
The training is based on the "game" and on the technique of positive reinforcement (gratification - conditioning) or rewards the dog every time he correctly executes a command. The dog is taught to associate the human smell with a prize (game, nibbles, cuddles etc.) and for the dog the search, in a real scenario as during a training, becomes a game. With the difference that during the rescue activities the dog, even finding the missing, does not receive rewards for his efforts. The conductor will provide training to reward the work of the four-legged colleague.
The dog must be strongly motivated in research and must not be distracted by other odors or by the presence of other animals. The determination is motivated by the gratification of his conductor when he succeeds in the enterprise.
In order to have a good search and rescue dog, you need a thorough training. The essential qualities for these dogs are absolute obedience, the physical and mental ability to intervene in different situations.
The training of the dog unit enhances the senses of the dog and allows the conductor to guide him in the best search, so as to be able to properly decipher the signals he receives.
The training camp in which the training is carried out is multi-functional. It is a disused quarry. Revalued with a project designed by the national instructor Passabì, funded by the European Community and implemented by the company appointed by the Municipality of Ugento. While waiting for the bureaucratic procedure to be completed, the field will be acquired by the Fire Department and will become a national training center for Italian VVFs.
It is divided into several areas under construction. There is an area for the training of the SAF (Speleo Alpino Fluviale), an area for the training USAR (Urban Search And Rescue) for the search and rescue in an urban environment, an unprepared terrain path (necessary to enable the VVF driving off-road vehicles). The area that is currently most used is the "rubble field", made up of rubble coming from another quarry and reclaimed as per regulations. It will be necessary to diversify the type of material that covers the entire field.
Next to the rubble field, an obstacle course is being planned, a prerequisite for puppies.
In the camp there are accommodations for VVF personnel who will follow the training paths and 12 parking box for dogs.
The so-called "rubble field" is so called because from a pentagon-shaped reinforced concrete base, five tunnels branched off with letters, consisting of circular blocks of reinforced concrete at man's height, branch off.
The various branches are connected to each other with other lateral branches. The tunnels externally are almost completely covered with rubble. The field can be modulated by moving the various wells that are closed during the training. They are opened only in case the instructor wants to facilitate the search. The internal compartmentalization makes the search for dogs even more difficult, due to the discharge of effluvium to the outside, rather low.
How does the dog want to find a person he has never seen? The animal learns during training that the person to find has with him his favorite game or food. The desire to get it, pushes the dog to find the missing because he knows that only in this way he will have it. Intermediate levels of training, based on the game, make the dog come to understand that research is a game: the aid of the figure in a field of research on rubble, which acts as a dispersed is essential. He is responsible for creating the desire for research in the dog, also teaching him the method of signaling with bark. When the dog finds him, he receives his game or his favorite food. Then from the helper moves to his conductor from which he will get a second gratification.
The difficulty in this field is that the dog does not see in which compartment the helper is hiding, because he accesses the tunnel from the main branch and not from the external wells. In reality, the search beat of a VVF dog starts right away without smelling the missing. He is trained to not need a specific track or a precise starting point. Explore the area carefully and return to the route taken to ascertain the area where the most intense odorous trail originates.
On the base in the form of a pentagon stands a turret from which the instructor will evaluate each dog unit: and in particular the role of the conductor who must obtain a positive result from the research. The handler must be able to correctly interpret the signals that the dog provides him. On an intervention, as in training, he must know how to evaluate the odor propagation based on the wind direction and speed and on the terrain. The dog can indicate an "olfactory trace" and not the "smell cone".
The speed of intervention, the intense hours of training and the commitment required of the canine units find satisfaction in the stories of the discovery of people missing during the seismic events in Central Italy that the conductors of the dog groups of Puglia and Abruzzo told with the eyes bright with emotion.
Also read: "Fire Brigade, Ancient History"
Also read: "Fire Brigade: selection, means, organization and training"
