Today’s Animal World: Our Co-Inhabitants will be presented in Cantonese, with subtitles in Arabic, Aulacese (Vietnamese), Chinese, English, French, German, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Malay, Mongolian, Persian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Thai.

Search-and-rescue dogs serve on the frontlines locating people missing after natural disasters, lost children, injured hikers and others, being ready at a moment’s notice to bravely endure the elements and save lives. Supreme Master Ching Hai, world renowned humanitarian, artist and spiritual teacher, speaks of her admiration and concern for these devoted canines.

And I saw many dogs, they used for rescue mission. They just walk in like nothing, but I feel so bad about them.

The dogs walk in the sharp, broken glasses or anything like that, even chemical leaking or anything, or germs or danger.

And these are precious dogs. They have been trained for years. And they even lay down their life for anyone at command. You have to protect that dog.

To show her loving support for search dogs and their human partners, Supreme Master Ching Hai has generously contributed over than US$80,000 to search-and-rescue teams in 18 countries, including Australia, Belgium, Canada, Chile, China, the Czech Republic, Ecuador, France, Korea, Malaysia, Nepal, New Zealand, Panama, the Philippines, Slovenia, the Netherlands, the UK and the USA.

Everybody knows that dogs after training are highly obedient, and are friendly to humans. As compared with other animals, they can easily be trained to serve as rescue dogs.

We now present the conclusion of our two-part series on the Hong Kong Search and Rescue Dog Association or HKSARDA, the only formal, volunteer organization of its kind serving the Hong Kong community. The group’s dedicated volunteers and their devoted canine partners assist in search rescues such as in times of disaster or when hikers are lost in the wilderness.

Since during autumn and wintertime, there are many hiking activities around, during this time, we will assist those hiking groups and do rescue work. In the event of people getting lost while hiking, we will actively offer our help in rescue work.

In addition, the team works with search-and-rescue organizations from other countries to foster an exchange of ideas and create a supportive community.

In December 2009, a Formosan (Taiwanese) animal-rescue association visited us. We exchanged ideas about rescue dogs and rescue work. As Formosa (Taiwan) differs from Hong Kong in geographical location, weather and environment that requires different rescue tasks, as well as types of disasters, we shared our experience accordingly. In the gathering, we demonstrated simulated rescue work; our dogs’ performance in the mock rescue task was highly appreciated.

During search-and-rescue work, at times the dogs will have to traverse mountainous terrain, swim in water, dig through rubble and other physical activities. As such, the dogs need to be in their best form and fitness.

How do you train the search and rescue dogs for physical and psychological fitness, so as to enable a successful operation each time?

Due to the hot and humid weather conditions of Hong Kong, and it is mostly hilly with little flat land here, a search-and-rescue dog’s physical fitness is very crucial. Whenever there’s a drill, we will go to the mountains, a rocky beach, etc. that resembles an actual situation, and let the dogs familiarize with the environment and weather. As for psychological training, through games, he will be rewarded every time he locates the target person, with toys or verbal praise, to make him feel that the search job is a kind of game.

Let’s now meet some of these courageous canines and their human partners to hear about a few of their noble rescue missions.

“Kid Seven” is his name. His breed is Jack Russell, which is my son’s favorite breed, as he is lovely, energetic and a kind of small-sized dog. During training, we learned that he is fond of soft toys, such is the way to award him too.

Around October 2009, a friend from another dog unit called me for help, which was sort of a big, novel and special request. The mission was to help this friend search for his missing dog, who was only nine months old. During the process, we found that it is more difficult to locate a running dog than a missing, injured person.

I am Jofy, an instructor of search and rescue dogs in our organization. Here is my partner, BB. Sit. Sit. Good girl. Her breed is Springer Spaniel. She is Bingo’s sister. They are twins, actually. I have been with BB for five years. The first operation carried out by BB and me for search-and-rescue work was on August 20, 2008. The case was in Sai Kung where a hiker was missing. It was a joint venture with the local police, fire service, civil aid service, and national operational search-and-rescue team.

The temperature that day was hot and suffocating, reaching 30° C plus. The “very hot weather warning” was issued by the Hong Kong Observatory. But BB was so great, not the least affected by the hot weather, she did not disappoint us at all. Though we did not discover anything within the search zone, we did rule out the possibility of any missing persons present.

All in all, we carried out our mission safe and sound. I gained experience and good feelings from that mission, which helped me a lot in my subsequent work, that I could make appropriate improvements and amendments.

Rescue dogs train in simulated environments so as to enhance their adaptability to all types of situations when they are called to duty. Kid Seven and BB will now demonstrate wilderness rescue work in mock searches to first locate a lost child and then a hiker.

First, they need to familiarize themselves with the lost person’s scent by sniffing the clothing left behind in the field. By following the scent left through the person’s footsteps or airborne particles, they will find their missing person in the search zone. After locating the person, the dog observes what kind of condition the person is in and gives appropriate signals to their human partner.

Next is Bingo and BB will demonstrate the air-scenting method to locate a missing person.

Here is my partner, Bingo, who goes through fire and water with me. Today in this reservoir area we are practicing “air scenting” used in disaster rescue. The purpose of this drill is that we hope we can offer immediate help to victims when natural disasters or extraordinary calamities occur, as we are the only amateur rescue dog team in Hong Kong.

Through the drillings, these ordinary household dogs can also provide amateur rescue service to the Hong Kong people. As Bingo has undergone rigorous disaster rescue training, he has the agility to move about upon stony sand, utilizing his flexible body to search for the injured person.

In addition, dogs have a far more acute sense of smell than humans, so that he can scent through the rocks to locate the missing victim. Show me, good dog, excellent, good dog, show me, good dog, good dog, good boy. Victim, are you okay?

Okay.

Okay, thank you, thank you, Bingo. Thank you, victim.

Besides doing hillside rescue work, she is under training for disaster rescue, with the hope that in large-scale disasters such as the collapse of buildings and rock fall, BB could utilize her special traits to help save our citizens. Our instructor would watch, from a safe distance, for any changes in the environment and the performance of his dog, trying to locate the victim as soon as possible. When BB discovers the victim, the instructor would slowly remove the debris, and bring out the victim as soon as possible.

As you can see, though BB is just going through training, she takes it seriously too, because she knows that in each operation one or more lives could be saved, so she always tries her best in her job.

While working, HKSARDA canines wear bright, orange safety vests and bells to ensure their identification as working dogs. During rescue operations, the dogs encounter many dangerous elements. From sharp rocks in nature to cracked glass and rubble in disaster areas, these selfless canines forge on with their life-saving work. In order to protect their precious paws, HKSARDA members put on for their canine partners protective shoes.

Here are the protective shoes to be put on a search-and-rescue dog when he is wounded. You can see the sole is made of soft, tire rubber that can protect his paws from injuries again. And this sock is like a wool sock with great elasticity, and it’s long enough that it will not restrain his movement.

Therefore, when necessary, the search-and-rescue dog can continue an operation after putting on the protective socks. Of course, if the dog is injured, we handlers would rather remove him from the site, and quickly take him to the vet.

In case of injury during rescue work, are they aware of their own injuries, and do you think that they possess the noble quality of sacrificing for others?

Right, it is highly possible for them to get hurt during each search-and-rescue operation, because their fleshy feet are just like ours, so if they walk on broken glass or sharp objects, their feet can possibly get hurt. Since these search-and-rescue dogs are very loyal and devoted to their job, once the SAR operation commences, I believe they will continue to complete the mission unless they have collapsed or their bodies could not move. He would not settle down by himself but continue running and jumping until he is completely exhausted, so he is absolutely our dearest and most loyal friend.

To provide extra care and protective gear for the courageous canines and further the organization’s work for fellow citizens in distress, Supreme Master Ching Hai contributed US$1000 to the Hong Kong Search and Rescue Dog Association.

On behalf of our association, I thank Supreme Master Ching Hai for donating money to us and we also thank Supreme Master TV and the staff for producing programs that spread the positive message to all viewers. We will use the donation to purchase equipment for our search-and-rescue dogs and to update and consolidate our equipment for the rescue work.

We hope that Supreme Master TV continues to make more programs to honor good people, good works, so that there will be more and more good people doing good deeds in our world.

We thank all human and canine members of the Hong Kong Search and Rescue Dog Association for your selfless spirit of service. May you be blessed with safety and health as you continue in dedicated efforts to provide help in your community.

For more details on the Hong Kong Search and Rescue Dog Association, please visit

Gracious viewers, thank you for your company for today’s episode of Animal World: Our Co-Inhabitants. Coming up next is Enlightening Entertainment after Noteworthy News here on Supreme Master Television. Let us all strive for lofty ideals and dignified goals that better our world.