“Knock and Call” Search Method

In the 1960s in Europe, under influence of the Cold War, governments began to pay more attention to the protection of civilian populations in war or disasters. They built air raid shelters and emergency hospitals, and they trained people for salvage and medical care and equipped them with the necessary machinery. In spite of this, there was little attention paid to the question how one could find buried people. Handlers continued to train using the “knock and call signals” search method. This elaborate and time-consuming method, however, only functions if victims are able to react to the knock signals and the calling.

Fortunately, a few dog lovers continued the training and operation of their search and rescue dogs. Because there was little written of earlier experiences with the use of search and rescue dogs, Urs Ochsenbein in Switzerland started in the early 1970s with experiments in training search and rescue dogs. A few years after that, we began to train our dogs for search and rescue work.

Figure 1.7 In the 1960s, Saarloos Wolfdogs were trained with tape recordings and big speakers to get them used to fighter jets flying over for missions during wartime.

Figure 1.8 After the earthquake in the Romanian capital of Bucharest on March 4, 1977, search and rescue dog teams successfully searched in the partially collapsed reinforced concrete frame and masonry wall offices and apartment buildings.

Success in Romania

In the meantime, governments were asking industry to develop technical instruments for searching. After some years it was clear that, in practice, equipment for tracing buried people didn’t work. Instruments for listening and electronic detection were available, but they couldn’t satisfy the stringent requirements of practice. Certainly they were not able to beat search and rescue dog teams. In May 1976, after a major earthquake in the Friuli region in northeastern Italy (900 people dead), twelve Swiss teams went on mission. When they saved eighteen victims alive and salvaged 125 dead people, their search methods aroused the interest of professionals.

In basic courses, the training methods for search and rescue dog teams spread in Europe. We visited many of these trainings and symposia. During the mid-1970s, there was some fear that search and rescue dogs would be less successful in large cities with modern buildings. In the Friuli region in Italy, the teams had encountered mainly traditionally built houses—besides a factory and barracks—with little concrete and steel. This anxiety was set to rest when, after the earthquake in the Romanian capital of Bucharest on March 4, 1977 (about 1,500 dead), the search and rescue dog teams made it possible to salvage ten people alive and ninety-seven dead out of the rubble piles of modern houses.

Figure 1.9 After the 1988 earthquake in Armenia, we searched with Cardigan, our Welsh Corgi, in the rubble piles of Spitak and Leninakan.

Saving Lives, Recovering Bodies

That search and rescue dogs can achieve great things was also clear after the catastrophic earthquake in the Avellino region in southern Italy in November 1980, just as it was in Mexico City in September 1985, where more than 200 people were saved out of the rubble. Without our search and rescue dogs, only a few would have survived.

The same happened after the major earthquakes in Armenia (1988), Turkey (1992 and 1999), Japan (1995), Algeria (2003), Iran (2003), Haiti (2010), and, of course, in several smaller disasters where we and our colleagues saved many human lives. Our dogs also located the bodies of dead people, so that those could also be salvaged. Around the world, the opinion is now that careful training of search and rescue dogs is more necessary than ever. Events have proven that you can count on a search and rescue dog if the dog and its handler are trained with a useful method.

Figure 1.10 Around the world, careful training of search and rescue dogs is now considered more necessary than ever.

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