Philippines trains pet dogs for search and rescue

Manila: With her owner holding her leash, Philippine pooch Hazel sniffs through rubble in a simulated search for survivors of a major earthquake in th...

Manila: With her owner holding her leash, Philippine pooch Hazel sniffs through rubble in a simulated search for survivors of a major earthquake in the capital Manila.

Hazel is taking part in a programme training pet dogs and their owners in search and rescue so they can be deployed in the aftermath of a disaster.

Every Sunday, around 46 mongrels and purebreds of all sizes are put through their paces by volunteer trainers at a facility in suburban Manila where they learn to find people, scale ladders, and bound over wooden structures.

Philippine disaster agencies already have search and rescue dogs that are deployed when disasters strike the archipelago nation.

But there are concerns that there might not be enough of them if a major earthquake were to hit the sprawling metropolis of Manila.