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.

They are animals with an acute sense of smell and hearing; therefore, over hundreds of years, people make use of their natural endowments, and train the appropriate ones as rescue dogs.

Known as man’s best friend, these canine wonders have for centuries selflessly assisted humans in numerous precarious environments.

Actually, dogs’ rescue ability was discovered as early as 950 A.D. There was a monastery located in the mountains between Switzerland and Italy, and a monk there trained a dog to rescue people trapped by snow in the mountains. This was the first search-and-rescue dog.

Today, we’ll meet some of these modern day dog heroes from the Hong Kong Search and Rescue Dog Association or HKSARDA, a volunteer, non-government organization founded by a group of British veterans with extensive backgrounds in dog training. On-call around the clock, the group provides free search-and-rescue services to the public.

Most of our members are working in the disciplined services and are professionals, with backgrounds of British veterans, so we have abundant knowledge and hope to apply our knowledge in training our household dogs to serve Hong Kong’s people. Our Association was founded with the goal to introduce and promote the training and service of search-and-rescue dogs, so that our household dogs can help whenever disasters occur in nearby places, or search for missing people in mountains.

Typically, Hong Kong Search and Rescue Dog Association volunteers work in conjunction with police and fire departments as well as other emergency agencies on rescue missions. The team responds to requests for aid within two hours of being notified of an emergency.

When we do the rescue work, we may need to spend a minimum of two hours to a maximum of eight hours, it depends, and we have to stand by at any time to serve the community.

All in all, we play a voluntary and auxiliary role, provide a community SAR dog service and operate in conjunction with the normal services of conventional forces.

Founded in 2007, the Hong Kong Search and Rescue Dog Association is comprised of kind-hearted volunteers, both human and canine, who wholeheartedly serve the community.

Our Association now has four search-and-rescue dogs; two have gone through qualified training, and the other two are trainee SAR dogs. We will assign these four dogs to work at different days of our monthly working schedule.

The Hong Kong Search and Rescue Dog Association applies the standard guidelines of the National Association for Search and Rescue (NSASAR) in the United States and makes amendments compatible with the unique environment of Hong Kong. Having mountainous terrain where people enjoy hiking, wilderness search work is widely applied to locate lost hikers.

All search-and-rescue dogs are assigned to different rescue tasks. For example, earthquakes and collapse of buildings belong to disaster training. Other trainings include wilderness tracking, avalanche rescue and water rescue.

Not all search-and-rescue dogs perform the same type of task.

Based on their training and experience, the intelligent canines can be generally classified as being either air-scenting dogs or trailing-and-tracking dogs. Air-scenting dogs work by pointing their sensitive noses in the air to search for human scents in large, open areas, whereas trailing dogs sniff the ground looking for the scent of the missing person based upon an item previously worn by the person, such as a hat or t-shirt. Some canines are versed in both skills.

Wilderness search work is divided into tracking and air-scenting. For tracking training, we use a long rope to lead the way for the dog, while the handler follows him in locating the missing person.

　 Air scenting relies on the initiative ability of the dog himself. No leading rope is used. The dog takes the initiative and finds the target by following a scent which is airborne.

If it is wilderness searching to find a lost walker, it is better to have the scent of the clothing of the target, so the dog would know who he is looking for. But when the dog is in a specified environment with constraints, such as disaster areas, snowy land or at sea, the specific scent is not required, because the survivor/victim is confined within a designated area.

As with many other search-and rescue dog organizations around the world, HKSARDA is comprised of human volunteers and their loyal canine companions. Oftentimes, the beloved dogs have had no previous experience in such rescue work. They live as faithful members of the family and enjoy the comforts thereof. So how do these household canine companions become super hero dogs?

My daily duties include taking the dogs out for search work as well as search training.

: We’d conduct an assessment to see if a dog is eligible to be a SAR dog. The assessment is done through “lost-and-found” games. We’d also take the dog to various environments, such as mountains, streams and rock beaches, etc., to see how courageous he is and his ability to adapt to various environments.

After the assessment, if a dog is eligible for training, his caregiver should participate in the training together with his dog.

During the training process, the dog caregiver can acquaint himself with the traits of his dog and what he needs to pay attention to, and take note of the different reactions of his dog in different situations.

Therefore, the human caregivers are able to apply their dogs’ devotion and love to train them to carry out these life-saving tasks as a pleasurable activity for the canines. The dogs are always handsomely rewarded with much praise and quality time with their human companions.

We will arrange a “happy ending” for search-and-rescue dogs in each training session or at the end of each operation. When approaching the end of training, we will arrange a short search training and will reward him by giving him a toy to play with or praise if he finds the target person. It is to deeply impress in him so that the impression lasts until the next search training and helps to continue the whole process.

Since your rescue teams need to work closely with your rescue dogs, do you think it’s important to communicate with your rescue dogs and how do you do it? Also, how do you establish a tacit understanding with them and respond to their needs?

Firstly, we treat and care for our search-and-rescue dogs as our brethren. Since they are quite different from the working dogs of the disciplinary force, we treat them as household dogs and train them likewise. Besides taking care of them at home, we also teach them rescue techniques, and therefore we pay much attention to their education, living conditions, games and commands. Since we have a good tacit understanding with each other, we can be aware of his special behaviors or expressions, whatever happens.

Since the dogs live at home with their human family, a strong bond of trust is forged that is important when the partners collaborate in rescue work. There are actually no particular dog breeds that are more compatible with this type of work; all dogs have the capability to be excellent search-and-rescue dogs.

We hope to find dogs among local dog shelters that are suitable for training, including mixed breed dogs, and train them to be rescue dogs. As the concept held by HKSARDA is not to distinguish purebred dogs from mixed breed dogs, as long as the dog has undergone adequate training, its breed would not make any difference at all, just like humans. Any dog can become an outstanding rescue dog with appropriate training and education.

The most important is that the dog must have a desire to search; this can be motivated through games; plus, he has to be very friendly to humans. Then he is likely to become a search-and-rescue dog.

In part two of our program tomorrow, we’ll meet some of the Hong Kong Search and Rescue Dog Association’s dedicated dogs and their loving human caregivers.

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

Thank you for your company today for this episode of Animal World: Our Co-Inhabitants. Coming up next is Enlightening Entertainment after Noteworthy News. Please stay tuned to Supreme Master Television. May you always be illuminated with the inner brilliance of Heaven.

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.