Why use dogs when mechanical means are available?
There is no single technological solution to all demining scenarios. Machinery can be helpful under certain circumstances but difficult terrain often severely limits or obviates its use. Moreover, manual methods and or mine-detecting dogs must follow machinery in order to attain humanitarian clearance standards. In these instances, humans can bear the brunt or be assisted by highly trained dogs with a proven olfactory capacity for finding explosives (dog smelling tissue is at least 1000 times greater than humans) as well as greater physical agility. In U.N, reports from Afghanistan, data show by square meters that dog teams clear mined areas three times faster than comparable numbers of deminers without dogs. Moreover, in a three day September 1995 U.S. Military field test of some 30 discrete demining technologies, held at Fort A.P. Hill in Virginia, the RONCO/Global dogs were described as: “At the top of the list, in terms of finding mines and trip wires, are dogs. They detected every
