Ninjas among concrete slabs: How search and rescue dogs work in Ukraine and how soon they could be replaced by technology

I’m lying with my back against the wall, covered by a slab of concrete and surrounded by dry weeds, vehicle tires, bricks, and chunks of concrete. I spot a little, agile dog darting past me through a crevice. Then she rushes to the slab and barks loudly right in my face. She is adorable, of course, but her large teeth flash before my eyes, and her bark is deafening. This goes on for several long minutes until Olha, the dog’s handler, approaches and throws her a ball. Then I crawled out from beneath the simulated rubble at the State Emergency Service training facility.

Ninja, a five-year-old dog, looks for humans who are still alive underneath debris. And her biggest source of inspiration is this dazzling red ball. Ninja wants to “hunt” it down beyond anything else.

Search and rescue (SAR) dogs are present in all law enforcement agencies in Ukraine: the National Guard and the Armed Forces, the State Border Guard Service, and the State Emergency Service. Additionally, there are units with entirely different tasks within these structures. While some dogs look for bombs, others serve as police escorts. Dogs trained in search and rescue are able to locate survivors in the debris or in nature. In the article, we are going to concentrate on them specifically.

Where do SAR dogs live?

I first met Ninja in an indoor enclosure at the training ground known as the canine unit. However, she does not live there. Ninja lives at home with an emergency service worker and a dog trainer, Olha Bibikova, along with her mother and two other dogs. One of them is called Kliukva, who was also a SAR dog. The other is Kuzya from Sloviansk, who is paralyzed in her hind legs.

Ninja works at the training ground of the Mobile Rescue Center in the Kyiv region. All the dogs there belong to dog handlers and live with them.

“Dog handlers, like rescuers, work one shift every three days. When an emergency occurs, we go deal with the aftermath. We are on duty from 8 a.m. to 9 a.m. When we go home, the dogs go with us,” says Olha.

Meanwhile, most dogs in the State Emergency Service belong to the state. They do not live with people, but in canine centers. “We have a fenced-in space here with about 50 enclosures,” says Vladyslav Pukhalskyi, a major of the Civil Protection Service and a veterinarian of the Interregional Center of Rapid Reaction State Service Emergency of Ukraine in Romny is a city in the Sumy region.Romny. There are three canine units there: emergency rescue, sapper, and dogs training group, where Vladyslav works.

The dogs are brought from this center to help in other regions, mainly to smaller permanent deployment points. There, they also have semi-permanent enclosures. “The enclosures can be transported by a crane. There are also kennels, covered on top to keep the water out,” says Vladyslav.

When an emergency situation happens and the order to leave is given, the dog is placed in a box (a small cage) and transported to work in a special vehicle along with people. 

In the field 

Work and rest spells

“Something is burning here, it’s hot over there, there’s smoke and dust, and everyone is working around… It’s a tense situation. It’s not the same as training,” Vladyslav recalls his trip to the Dnipro region.

SAR dogs from the State Emergency Service are now constantly working at the places of russian shelling. From the regional center, they go to the Kharkiv, Sumy, and Dnipro regions. From the mobile center, they go mostly to the Kyiv region, but there may be other cities and even regions.

According to rescuers, the dog handler does not let the dog go where it is too dangerous, and the animal could, for example, collapse. The dog does not work for hours on end, assures Vladyslav. “The dog works for about 20 minutes, and that’s it. He searches the area and comes back, and people need to clear the rubble in that spot. They don’t even wait 20 minutes; that’s the maximum. Then the dog needs to be given water and put back in the carrier. We then judge the situation to determine if the dog is needed again.”

Although dogs work in short periods, they can be near the rubble all day or even longer. “There have been times when dogs have been at the search site for 24 hours,” says the veterinarian. When dogs are on site for many days, they live in vehicles, special kennels, and are able to walk around. The dog is not restricted to the kennel all the time.

In Antakya

Even during the full-scale invasion, Ninja managed to work not only on the rubble in Ukraine, but also abroad. On February 6, 2023, a powerful earthquake struck Turkey, and a team of Ukrainian rescuers went to the city of Antakya to help.

“It was devastating. You walk down the street and everything is destroyed,” recalls Olga. At first, Ukrainian teams searched the destroyed buildings, then cleared the rubble. They worked for nine days. Each shift lasted six hours, followed by six hours of rest, and then they went back to work.

“One building was being dismantled by an excavator. It was a multistorey building that had simply collapsed. In international classification, this is called a pancake collapse. And then someone heard a suspicious sound. There were a lot of people there, and they called us. Ninja started searching and marked the spot with her voice. Turkish rescuers pulled a 30-year-old woman out of there,” says Olha. The woman was immediately placed on a stretcher and taken to an ambulance. She was conscious, but her condition was marked as critical. That year, the Ukrainian Kennel Union awarded Ninja the The Medal for Lifesaving is a medal of Ukraine presented for saving human life, acts of charity, humanistic and other activities in public health, and accident prevention. Source: Wikipedia.Medal for Lifesaving.

A puppy with a strong food motivation has a better chance of becoming a SAR dog. Play motivation is also important: a toy motivates the dog to perform a task.

Building skills in reverse

“All dog skills are taught from the end goal,” explains Olha. “What do we want to achieve? We want the dog to find a person and mark them with the voice. The person takes a motivational object — something the dog wants, such as a toy or food — and shows it to the dog. If the dog barks, the toy or some food is given. Then the person hides gradually. If it is a forest, then behind a tree, and if it is rubble, then behind some kind of shelter. The dog quickly understands that he needs to sniff. This is natural for a dog; this animal lives by its nose.”

Dogs are taught to search for dead people and, for example, drugs using a sample. Besides that, the process is similar. The difference is that a search and rescue dog must receive encouragement from the person he has found, not from its handler. That is why dogs must be friendly to people.

Dogs that have undergone training to become SAR dogs take exams together with their handlers. There are three stages of certification. The first one is an eligibility exam. The dog must find one person in a rubble pile or in the forest and pass an obedience and agility test. Then comes the so-called Class A exam—the dog must find two people within a certain time. The next stage is Class B—the dog must find three people. The search area increases for each class.

Is training beneficial or harmful?

“When we take a predator animal, whose senses and entire physique are designed for active movement and hunting, and place it in a very comfortable apartment with a soft bed, such an animal has nowhere to apply its physical abilities and intelligence,” says dog behavior expert Ria Smulska. She cares for six street dogs and works with pet dogs. According to her, a dog cannot be forced to search using cruel methods. The animal works at a distance, without a leash or an electric collar. So the dog chooses whether to cooperate with humans and obey commands.

“For dogs, such training is a joy. They can use their noses to demonstrate species-specific behavior. They work in tandem with their favorite person. No handler who has trained a dog will treat it as expendable. The dog is your partner, whom you have raised and cherished. Training is very energy-intensive for the handler too,” says Ria.

Puppies are trained every day. The older the dog, the less often he needs to be trained, says Olya Bibikova. “The dog should miss the search. If you train for an hour every day, the dog will barely drag itself there. Oh no, not again, it’s taking so long, I’m bored… Ninja searches once a week. It’s part of the hunting instinct. When she finds a person and they throw a ball for her, it’s as if she has found and caught her prey.”

How SAR dogs receive medical help

“Eva just had an appointment. I treated her skin,” says veterinarian Vladyslav. “I have 34 dogs under my care.”

Previously, there were three employees in the department. Now he is the only one, but they plan to expand the staff. Vladyslav regularly examines the dogs, gives them vaccinations and treats them. However, the health of search dogs is not only his responsibility, but of dog handlers. “The dog handlers see that something is wrong with a dog, then they bring the animal to me. In diagnosing a disease, it is not only the clinical picture that is important, but also the medical history. How the dog behaves, whether he is active or more passive, whether he has been jumping or whining. You need to gather as much information as possible.”

Before starting their job, dog handlers undergo training in SAR dog handling. They also learn about veterinary care. “I explain to them how to examine dogs, how to remove ticks, how to take the temperature, and what to inject if necessary. They can also always call and ask questions,” says Vladyslav. Veterinarians equip dog handlers with first aid kits so that they can help the dogs in an emergency. According to Vladyslav, the most common cases are scratches or bee stings. Even more common are digestive disorders. “We go to a different place, where the water is different. Dogs react strongly to water. They start to have problems.”

Search and rescue dogs must be healthy, even from a pragmatic point of view. They cannot be obese, have problems with their musculoskeletal system, or suffer from pain. Otherwise, the dog will not be able to work.

After working on the rubble, dogs sometimes come back with cuts, says Vladyslav. More serious injuries, he says, are rare. “Last year, there was a case where a dog was injured after searching the rubble. A medic stitched her up.”

There have been no cases of dogs dying at the center in the entire history of canine calculations, according to the center. The center has existed in its current form since 2018. The State Emergency Service did not disclose information about fatalities after the start of the full-scale invasion. However, dogs have died in other structures; for example, since 2022, at least 25 dogs of the Armed Forces of Ukraine have died. These were not search and rescue animals, but mostly guard dogs who died because of russian shelling. 

In place of a dog

Why dogs?

Microscopic robots assist with surgical procedures, drones replace intelligence troops, and artificial intelligence engages in philosophical discussions. Why, then, in such a technological society, are dogs brought in to help?

Rescue missions do not arrive at the rubble empty-handed. They have special microphones and cameras, including infrared ones. These technologies help find victims who can be seen, heard, or whose infrared signature can be detected. If this is not possible, then only canine teams can help.

Dogs can quickly locate victims by smell. Technology cannot replace a dog’s nose, which has evolved over millions of years. At least not yet. 

Right platform needed

“Hello! That’s Spot!”

In numerous videos, scientists show a funny yellow “dog”. They say you just want to pet him. No matter how cool he may seem, he has no emotions or thoughts. Spot is a robot from Boston Dynamics, designed primarily for data collection.

For something to work on rubble instead of a dog, that something needs to be able to move as dynamically as an animal or a human. Spot is a dynamic platform capable of moving through space. Unlike wheeled or tracked drones, it moves better over awkward piles of earth or debris because it mimics the movement of a dog.

The Hong Kong-developed Unitree Go2 is actively sold on the Ukrainian market. It is also demonstrated at various technical innovation exhibitions in Ukraine.

There are many other robot dogs. Some are already being used by the Ukrainian army, but not for search and rescue, rather for certain logistical tasks.

Robots do not get tired or feel pain. Perhaps they will replace dogs in rubble if they are equipped with a so-called electronic nose. 

All you need is a nose 

Most likely, in addition to dog paws, Spot will also have an electronic nose, says Dr Nik Denler, developer of one such “nose.”

An electronic nose is a sensor. It analyzes what we and animals perceive as smell. These are volatile substances emitted by objects. These molecules hit the sensor, and the computer converts the data into a signal, in our case, whether there is a person under the rubble.

Electronic noses will also be used in other areas. They will detect the presence of diseases in plants and the smell of forest fires. Such devices are already being used to determine air quality, including in Ukraine. However, when it comes to searching for people after disasters in real-life conditions, electronic noses have not yet replaced live dogs.

In experiments only

The “nose” developed by British scientist Nik Denler was able to recognize the smells of bananas, cheese, pineapple, and eucalyptus, even when they changed 60 times per minute.

He developed the device, the size of a bank card, together with colleagues from the University of Hertfordshire. Although the goal of the development was to replace police dogs with robots, at the moment this experiment has only confirmed that the technology can analyze smells in general.

In 2018, at the University of Innsbruck, five men and four women entered a special airtight chamber made of stainless steel and glass one at a time. Beforehand, the chamber was cleaned of odors, and a special fan stirred the air. The volunteers entered wearing only underwear and no makeup, and they had not eaten anything for eight hours beforehand to simulate being trapped under rubble. For the first hour, the person breathed through a mask, and for the second hour, without it. During this time, the latest device measured volatiles — first those released through the skin, then those released through the skin and breath.

The electronic nose managed the task and was able to indicate the presence of people.

This device is one of the most famous odor sensors designed to search for people under rubble. It was developed by ETH Zurich.

There is also a French development, the Sniffer sensor, for searching for people, which has already been integrated into a robot named Smurf. This device moves on wheels, so Smurf cannot move as freely as a dog.

Sniffer and Smurf were tested together during the CURSOR project (a European scientific initiative to develop various rescue devices). This pair could detect the presence of a person at a distance of about two meters. They only worked in training conditions.

When an emergency happens, dogs are needed immediately. They are a valuable part of rescue teams, who have been extensively trained and live in special conditions. They are not stationed in every remote location where an earthquake, avalanche, or explosion could occur. They must be transported to the site, sometimes even by plane or helicopter. Therefore, devices could potentially become an even more accessible solution than dogs. 

At the same time, many people are concerned about another conflict: A dog can never give informed consent to dangerous work. No matter how well dogs are cared for, they are still exposed to risk in one way or another. Technology could eliminate this issue.

Replacing dogs with robots is an area of intense scrutiny and interest for scientists. So an electronic nose is a broad and dynamic field of research. However, so far, no Spot moves as skillfully as Ninja, and electronic sensors have not surpassed her sensitive wet nose.