Two dogs from a Primorye police dog center, Gorda and Bonnie, are now part of a larger specially trained group sniffing around for mines and weapons on patrols and at road checkpoints in the war-torn republic.
The center's chief, Yury Pankov, said the canines, mostly sheep dogs, saved a lot of lives, especially in winter weather, when mine searching devices often fail. On an earlier trip to the Chechen capital of Grozny, Rizenshnautser Sim warned of a 150-millimeter shell turned landmine which was hidden in a gravel pit. When soldiers were about to collect gravel Sim desperately tried to alert his handler by sitting several times near the pit - the conventional sign that dogs are taught to make when they find explosives.
