Page 40 - RAVC Centenary Parade

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MELTON MOWBRAY / FRIDAY 27 JULY 2018
capabilities for troops on operations and exercises. The highly trained military handler directs, controls and interprets the activities of the dog, this combination ensures the dog team provides a detection system which can be exploited for a number of different uses, and some examples are explosive detection and vehicle search. Army search dogs are able to search in all types of structures, populated or not and are capable of searching all varieties of transportation for target scents.
With much experience gained from being deployed in varying many conflicts there is a need to continually adapt to suit differing operational conditions, training techniques are regularly reviewed to best meet operational needs. At all times positive reinforcement techniques are used in Army dog training.
Patrol dogs have been traditionally been used to help provide security at static sites and their deterrence effect in most cases is unrivalled. Other dogs have been be trained to pinpoint; firearms, bank notes, narcotics, tobacco, human remains and stowaways.
The Army dog team once trained will support a variety of Home Land and other typesofsecurityoperations.Readerswill understand, dogs have powerful sensory detection ability by virtue of their highly developed senses of smell, hearing and sight. This is augmented by the dogs natural defence mechanism, agility, size and speed. In most circumstances, this detection ability offered by working dogs compliments other high-tech advances. Another benefit that military working dogs offer is that they
can be quickly recalibrated to detect new threats or substances. Thus the highly trainedmilitaryworkingdogisasubstantial capability for today’s modern Army.
The Army dog teams, trainers and veterinarians of the Regiment have tirelessly delivered a ‘life and limb’ saving capability to both troops and civilians in countering the deadly threat from explosive threats as well as providing base security, throughout the Helmand Province in Afghanistan.
With the return of troops from the conflict, the recently formed Dog Regiment has set about refocusing its attentions, its dog teams have spent many years working in austere and hot climates, the training that the teams had undertaken, focussed heavily on acclimatising and environmental conditioning, training in local quarries; representative of the environment, or testing their scenting ability in the blistering heat of the middle east exercises, the dog teams were watchfully adapted to Afghanistan.
We know working dogs recognize their surroundings, training inside the confines of a military establishment, inherently has a military feel, smell and culture, and as with the soldiers, the dogs become accustomed to these surroundings. Thus relationships with government and non-government organisations have been rekindled of late, allowing the dogs access to many types of buildings, their settings and not least the UKs’ weathe.r The handlers have also had to adjust, and the threat is very different.
Owing to 1 MWD Regiments’ success, highly trained Army dogs are very much in demand for operations hence the formation