July 17, 2013
ERBIL-Hewlêr, Kurdistan region 'Iraq',— Three years ago, when Tonny Boeijen of Four Winds K-9 received a call from a Kurd who wanted to visit his kennels in the southern Netherlands, little did he know that his small company would end up providing the highly trained security dogs for Erbil International Airport, in Iraqi Kurdistan.
Behind the wagging tails that go about their business with precision efficiency at Erbil airport every day, is a highly professional Dutch family business with two decades of experience – providing specially trained dogs that experts agree are better at sniffing out drugs and explosives than any gadget in existence.
“Up till now no gadget has proved to be better than the dog’s nose,” boasts Linda Boeijen, a director at Four Winds K9 who runs the business with her father. “There are of course other methods,” she says, “but this is by far the gentlest and most effective.”
The facts support what she says about canine efficiency: Even though the capital of the autonomous Kurdistan Region is part of a volatile Iraq -- where bombs explode daily – there has not been a single reported incident with explosives at Erbil airport, since it opened in 2010.
Captain Hemin Muhammad, the Kurdish officer in charge of the airport’s canine unit, confirms that the dogs get the job done. “The results have been very good,” he explains, but hesitates to talk about any of the catches the dogs have made, citing “security reasons.”
All 34 dogs in the unit were brought in from the Netherlands, where they were trained with their handlers. That is why the dogs respond only to commands in Dutch or English; Linda explains that, “Body language and tone of voice” are also key.
“Every handler has one dog, together they make up a team. When you change dog and handler, you have to train them again,” she says.
The dogs check every car that airport security guards pick out. The trainer leads his canine partner around the vehicle, and if the dog smells something suspicious, it is trained to stop and sit, pointing at the spot to look for hidden explosives or drugs.
One of the handlers demonstrates that, for the dogs, it is all about the reward they receive for successful finds: A hollow black pipe with which they love to play.
During training, a little bit of the substance that the dogs are taught to find is placed inside the pipe, a handler explains. The dog becomes so keen on the pipe and the smell, that he will want to recognize the smell to get his reward – the toy pipe.
The handler demonstrates this by leading Nero, a Belgian Shepherd Malinois, around a vehicle where he has hidden some explosives. The dog finds it, sits and gets his reward.
“He’s not allowed to bark,” explains the trainer, demonstrating the dogs’ great discipline.
Boeijen’s company provides dogs and training around the world, from the United States to the United Arab Emirates, and as far out as Nigeria.
He agrees that the dogs would be an excellent replacement for the Iraqi capital Baghdad, where the first line of defense at checkpoints and sensitive spots is a gadget that has been declared a fraud, but which the Iraqis continue to stand by and use.
The hand-held wands, sold to the Iraqi government for nearly $100 million by a British firm whose owner has been sentenced to 10 years in jail for fraud, do not work,www.ekurd.net the United States military and technical experts have proven.
On the contrary, the dogs have been proven to work.
“All our dogs are fully certified,” Boeijen says, shouting above the din of dogs barking in their separate living quarters, each attached with a small outdoor area. “They yearly have to pass all the tests of an independent organization working under the flag of Homeland Security in the United States,” he adds.
In the Kurdistan Region, where the majority of the population is Muslim, the canine protectors are still publicly accepted, even though according to Islam dogs are impure and should not be touched by Muslims.
Like elsewhere in the Islamic world, hounds in Iraqi Kurdistan are usually only used as security dogs or by shepherds -- although Kurds are slowly catching on to a growing trend of also keeping them as pets.
“Some people are afraid,” Captain Hemin readily admits. “But they do recognize that they are safer because of these dogs.”
By Judit Neurink - Rudaw
Posted: Wed Jul 17, 2013 1:49 pm
