Dog lovers from Breitenworbis: Volunteering saves life with team dogs!

Dog lovers from Breitenworbis: Volunteering saves life with team dogs!

in Breitenworbis, a small town in the Eichsfeld, the "team dogs" are committed to saving missing people. This voluntary rescue dog relay consists of 23 committed members who prepare themselves and their loyal companions for an emergency in intensive training sessions every week. According to mdr take place every Sunday in fields and in the forest. In addition, every second Friday is obediently trained on the dog's exercise area, which is essential for the effectiveness of the missions.

The team dogs have established themselves in the region since its foundation 19 years ago and have already completed 243 missions. A total of twelve missing people were found in these missions, which often extend over several hours. Exercise manager Lutz Behrend and his colleagues simulate realistic scenarios to optimally prepare the dogs and their dog handlers. For example, one of these scenarios could be a group of young women who does not return after a hen party. During the exercises, the members play different roles - so Deborah Stallknecht hid in one of the last scenarios in the forest and was discovered within a short time by Andy Keilholz and his bitch Nova, a Louisiana Catahoula Leopard.

training and techniques

The training of the dogs includes various techniques of search, including search for space, search for rubble and mantrailing. The dogs can do a lot, especially when searching for space: this method enables a dog-human team to search up to 30,000 square meters of confusing terrain in just 15 minutes, which corresponds to about 40 to 50 helpers. Dogs show their finds through various behaviors, such as binding, ringing or free references, which makes it considerably easier to find the missing persons, the Johanniter-accident help .

Another important aspect is the regular training of the dog handlers and their four -legged friends. The Federal Association of Rescue Dogs (BRH), founded in 1976, has set itself the goal of creating standards for training and continuously improving them. All BRH seasons adhere to uniform requirements that guarantee the quality of the operations. Each team has to take exams in order to be operational, and annual repeat tests ensure that the skills always stay up to date, as can be seen on the website of the brh

The funding of the rescue dog squadron is made from donations and membership fees; The members bear 95% of their expenses for training materials and fuel costs themselves. Such voluntary initiatives are a fantastic example of how community and a good knack for dogs can help to save lives!