Fed: Ivy, the bomb dog, shows off her military training

AAP General News (Australia)
04-02-2009
Fed: Ivy, the bomb dog, shows off her military training

By Max Blenkin, Defence Correspondent

CANBERRA, April 2 AAP - With a look of unbridled joy, Ivy set about demonstrating her
military training, bounding about before sniffing the target and halting unerringly next
to a suspect bomb.

Formerly a drug sniffing dog, the three-year-old black Labrador has been retrained
to detect explosives and now has a six-month tour of Afghanistan under her collar.

So too has her handler, Lance Corporal Adam Exelby, from the Sydney-based School of
Military Engineering, who put Ivy through her paces on Thursday for the benefit of pupils
at Canberra's Curtin Primary School.

He said Afghanistan was a challenging experience. But while he went on holiday after
returning to Australia, Ivy spent a month in quarantine.

"We only had a certain number of handlers on the ground, so some times it could be
quite demanding, other times there's a little bit of down time," he told reporters.

"The work we carry out is fairly dangerous. The way we are actually working, what we
do over there, is for a good cause."

Afghanistan remains a dangerous place for man and dog. Since 2002, 10 Australian soldiers
and three bomb detection dogs have died there, with others left injured.

Only one of the dogs, Razz, died from a bomb blast. The other two succumbed to the
same fate as numerous suburban pooches - getting run over.

In the case of bomb dog Merlin, that came about as he reclined in the cool shade of
the wheel of a stationary 13-tonne Australian Light Armoured Vehicle.

Lance Corporal Exelby faced a tough grilling from the students.

How long does it take to train an explosives dog? Five months, he explained. What do
army dogs eat? Commercial dry dogfood with meat and bones as a treat once a week.

What explosives can they detect? Dogs are trained to react to 13 different types of
explosives, although a dog nose can detect 25,000 different odours.

"We work 50 metres in front of a patrol. She is looking for bombs and making it safe
for the patrol to come through," he explained.

"There are lots of bombs over there at the moment."

All this was for the launch of the new Department of Veterans Affairs educational publication,
M is for Mates.

Veterans Affairs Minister Alan Griffin said the publication, explaining the significant
role animals have played in Australian military history, would be useful for schools ahead
of Anzac Day.

"That is ... how they have played the roles detecting explosives, carting food and
goods for troops and also as mascots," he said.

AAP mb/kms/jl

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