India to assist Bangladesh in training dogs for security duties

Bangladesh wants to have dog squads to carryout security duties and has requested India to help them to set up a training centre for dogs. The proposal was mooted by the Border Security Force's counterpart, the Border Guards Bangladesh (BGB), when an Indian delegation led by BSF director general made a visit to Bangladesh last week.
The proposal is that Indian trainers from the National Training Centre for Dogs (NTCD) in Tekanpur, Gwalior, will train dogs and handlers at the proposed canine facility in Bangladesh.
In the past the NTCD has imparted training to canines and handlers for police in Nepal and Mauritius.
This has been reported in telegraphindia.com dated 27 February 2017.

The NTCD is run by the BSF and it trains canines of various breeds for all the police forces in the country and, in 2015, BSF-trained dogs had been inducted in the BGB for the first time. Some of these dogs were also inducted in security forces in Bangladesh for VIP duty. At that time the NTCD had trained 20 dogs and a similar number of handlers for the BGB and last year it was 18 pups.
Each of the German Shepherds are procured for Rs 30,000 and were trained for six months along with the handlers before being handed over to the BGB.
This breed of dogs are effective in tracking criminals and patrolling and, especially, for VIP security because they are good at detecting hidden explosives.


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This has been reported in timesofindia.indiatimes.com dated 26 September 2016.

CCTV cameras have been installed at airports because these are targets of terrorists and the CCTV camera footage have been critical in identifying and going after the perpetrators. However, the seven unserviceable CCTV cameras positioned at the parking lot, the parking bay outside the arrival and departure gates and also some inside, near the check-in counters is a matter of major security lapse.
A businessman and frequent flier has said that fliers are experience heightened airport security. While taking a flight he was told to remove his shoes for scanning and there were sniffer dogs checking out the baggage. Obviously, CCTV cameras that do not function is a cause for alarm, especially since the airport is a Defence establishment.


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This has been reported in thestatesman.com dated 25 June 2016.

The US-owned company had been providing services to Kuwait National Petroleum Company (KNPC) and, as per the Kuwait Animal Rescue Unit, the security firm had killed 24 of its sniffer dogs after losing a contract with the oil company, which was apparently paid $9,900 monthly for each dog.
The security company continues to maintain that it humanely euthanized the dogs because they were old and sick and also suffering from conditions such as tumors and hip dysplasia while some others were just too aggressive. The dogs had been diagnosed with those issues two years ago and should have been eliminated at the time. It seems the company had tried to put the dogs up for adoption but did not succeed.


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This has been reported in zeenews.india.com dated 29 July 2015.

It appears that Maoist posters have been found at some railway stations of Eastern Railway like Ratanpur and Kajra railway stations in Jamalpur-Kiul section of Malda Division and, security has accordingly been strengthened at these locations.
Moreover, in view of the terror strike at Gurudaspur in Punjab, extra security measures have been adopted because, the railways have become an area of soft target.
Some of the measures are sniffer dogs for checking at important stations, passenger areas as well as mail, express, passenger and EMU trains. In addition, special watch was also being kept at crowded places like computerized reservation counters, cloak rooms, waiting halls, toilets and especially concourse areas.
Notwithstanding the above, Quick Reaction Teams have been formed. All the divisions of Eastern Railway like Howrah, Sealdah, Asansol and Malda have been alerted to gear up their security machinery to handle any sabotage or terrorist activities.
However, given the lack of equipment like CCTV, metal detectors and the gaping holes in the fencing of railway stations, providing full security coverage would be a major challenge.
(Image courtesy wikimediacommons.org)

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#snifferdogs #explosives #poachers #africanelephants South Africa is breaking new ground by training elephants to take over jobs of sniffer dogs by making use of their super-strength sense of smell to sniff out explosives and poachers as reported in dailymail.co.uk dated 25 February 2015.
The project is supported by the U.S. Army Research Office who have been inspired after watching elephants in Angola using their trunks to help avoid areas full of land mines that had been left over from decades of civil war.
As explained by Sean Hensman, operator of Adventures with Elephants game ranch in South Africa, the nose of an elephant has amazing properties – this becomes all the more apparent when we imagine mammoths that had to find food through the ice.
During tests conducted by the U.S. Army Research Office, a 17-year-old male elephant was walked past a row of buckets- one of which would have a swab laced with TNT scent stapled to the bottom. The elephant had to insert his trunk into each bucket and, he was taught to stop and raise a front leg when he came across the one with the swab.
After some tries, he managed to get the bucket right every time and he was rewarded like a sniffer dog – his reward was the marula fruit.