News and Events

Dogs that Sniff and Save

Arlington-based organization provides mine-detecting dogs.

Featured in the Arlington Connection
By Montie Martin

Arlington, VA – November 10, 2011 – Many people in the poorest countries in the world live with landmines, and the Arlington-based Marshall Legacy Institute helps to alleviate the burden with man’s best friend.

The institute trains and deploys mine-detecting dogs to some of the most heavily landmine-saturated countries in the world.

Dogs, with their finely tuned noses, can detect mines at significantly faster rates than traditional hand held detectors. While a person can clear 50 square meters of land a day, a dog can clear up to 1,500.

“Dogs have wonderful noses, and are naturally trainable,” said Perry Baltimore, CEO of the Marshall Legacy Institute. “Our dogs must make the highest echelon of training because so much is at stake.”

Not just any dog can become a certified de-miner. MLI mine-detecting dogs are selected from a pedigree raised specifically for their noses. The dogs are then sent to Texas for six weeks of intensive training.

The effort of bringing a dog up to professional standards is costly, and averages approximately $20,000 per dog. The investment pays off in the long term, however, as MLI has never lost an animal in the field.

“A dog can work between six and eight years and clear up to two million square meters of land before retiring to a good home,” said Baltimore.

The benefits of removing landmines are extensive. Landmines kill and maim civilians even after conflicts end, they prohibit the use of land for agriculture, and they cut off roads and access to markets.

“Landmines hamper the economic development of a country,” said Elise Becker, vice president of operations with MLI. “In a country like Angola, there are more mines than people.”

Angola is the most recent country to form a partnership with MLI. On Oct. 12, the organization held a signing ceremony and sent a team of six dogs and two handlers to train locals in canine-based de-mining techniques.

“Fifty percent of the country is mined; people can not move around safely,” said Delfina Nascimento, Second Secretary of the Embassy of Angola. “People have no water, no electricity, no homes. But there are landmines.”

According to Nascimento, during the 27-year civil war a landmine cost $50 to purchase and bury in the ground. Today that same landmine costs $5,000 to remove.

Despite the seemingly insurmountable hurdle of clearing landmines from a country twice the size of Texas, Nascimento remains optimistic for Angola now that peace has been established since 2002.

“There has been big progress,” said Nascimento. “The economy has grown and young people are going to university instead of the military.”

In Angola, as in many other countries plagued with landmines, mines were considered an instrument of war and used without considering their future impact. Landmines, however, do not discriminate between soldiers, and pose serious ethical concerns when civilians are maimed or killed.

“Anything that kills children in an attempt to stop combatants is unethical,” said Dr. Brian Doyle, an associate professor of theology at Marymount University. “The argument that they are not meant to kill but to act as a deterrent is political and does not, in my opinion, convince any ethicist.”

The unethical nature of landmines, their lethality, and their economic devastation was recognized universally in the 1997 Ottawa Treaty banning the production and sale of landmines. Although the United States is not a signatory of the treaty, according to MLI no other country in the world supports de-mining efforts more than the United States.

“We’re so grateful for loving, passionate, charitable Americans who sponsor this cause,” said Baltimore. “All of the dogs have been paid for by personal donations, and the government matches funding two-to-one.”

Major funding for MLI comes from the U.S. State Department, which supports 28 dogs in Afghanistan alone. Other significant funding sources include the military contracting firm General Dynamics.

“The success of the dogs is phenomenal,” said Rob Doolittle, a spokesman for General Dynamics. “Lives and land are saved because of the work of the dogs.”

Perhaps the most impressive funding source, however, has been the outpouring of support from schools. The MLI Children Against Landmines campaign offers students an opportunity to see first hand how a mine detecting dog operates in their classroom, and students can raise funds to support the cause.

Children can interact with peers from abroad over the Internet, and hear from survivors of landmines first hand.

“Young people get involved, and help victims of landmines,” said Yooh-yung Kim, a volunteer with MLI “No one can dispute the legitimacy of the cause.”

To date, there are 165 MLI dogs operating in 13 countries. The scale of the mission to eradicate landmines, however, is daunting. Landmines affect over 70 countries, and while the MLI program can point to great success having cleared an area the size of London, much remains to be done.