14 Coast Guard sniffer dogs chosen for search-and-rescue training

MANILA, Philippines—At least 14 of the 230 search-and-rescue dogs in the Philippine Coast Guard’s (PCG) special K-9 Unit have been tapped by the command in locating casualties and missing persons during flash floods, landslides, earthquakes and other natural disasters.

Lt. Commander Armand Balilo, the PCG spokesman, disclosed to the Inquirer on Tuesday that 10 of the canines had already completed a “special training program” for their new task.

The four members of the Coast Guard’s K-team are still in Cateel (in Davao Oriental) (one of the towns devastated last month by Typhoon “Pablo”) along with their Coast Guard handlers. “They will undergo training shortly,” said Balilo.

The training program, conducted at the PCG facility in Taguig City, runs from six to eight months, he added.

Rear Admiral Rodolfo Isorena, the PCG commandant, said the planned deployment of PCG dogs during disasters is “our answer to the call of the times.”

“People are often trapped during landslides caused by heavy rains. With the addition of trained dogs, the Coast Guard is now more capable of rendering assistance to people who are adversely affected by catastrophic events,” he noted.

Isorena added that “aside from sniffing illegal drugs and explosives, the Coast Guard has a new batch of canines trained to locate missing persons and casualties during natural disasters.”

Meanwhile, the PCG has started training 20 narcotics-sniffing dogs for the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency, a body attached to the Philippine National Police.

“The trained dogs would be used exclusively in anti-narcotics operations,” the PCG’s public affairs office said.

It added, “Once PDEA has increased the number of its anti-narcotics-trained dogs, it would no longer need to borrow dogs from other agencies whenever it has an operation.”