Taipei City Fire Department

Taipei City Fire Department today (23rd) once again signed a memorandum of understanding with Japan's Training Dog School. The memorandum was signed by Commissioner Mo Huai-Zu of the Fire Department and Oshima Kaori, representative of Japan's Oshima Training Dog School. The aim is to strengthen the city's disaster rescue and response capabilities through continued collaboration, enhance Taipei's search and rescue team's capacity, facilitate the exchange of humanitarian rescue and search techniques between Taiwan and Japan. At the same time, this symbolizes the profound cooperative relationship between Taiwan and Japan in the field of disaster response.

Commissioner Mo Huai-Zu stated that the main contents of this cooperation memorandum include strengthening the exchange of canine handler techniques, enhancing the search capabilities of search and rescue dogs, and strengthening search and rescue cooperation between Taiwan and Japan. Additionally, through the sharing of canine resources between both parties, the city's search and rescue team's capability is significantly improved. This collaboration not only contributes to raising the technical standards of Taiwan's search and rescue teams but also promotes exchanges in the field of humanitarian rescue between Taiwan and Japan.

Taipei City Fire Department conducted search and rescue dog technical training and testing from November 21st to 24th, inviting participation from fire departments in Keelung, Taoyuan, New Taipei, and various counties and cities. This event also involved the appointment of Instructor Oshima Kaoru as the examiner for I.R.O (International Rescue Dog Organization) tests and the renewal of the cooperation memorandum. Instructor Oshima Kaoru, a Japanese national, established a dog training school in 1989, started breeding disaster search and rescue dogs in 1994, and obtained IRO (International Rescue Dog Organization) assessor qualifications in 2009. She not only has extensive international competition experience but also assisted in the 1999 rescue efforts in Taiwan during the 921 earthquake, establishing a deep friendship with Taiwan. When invited to come to Taiwan to guide the search and rescue team's canine handlers, she readily agreed, stating, 'For Taiwan-Japan friendship, lending a helping hand is the right thing to do.

This year's technical improvement training attracted a total of 40 canine handlers from search and rescue teams across Taiwan. The training included search and rescue exercises in rubble piles and the introduction of Japanese dog training concepts by Instructor Oshima. This allowed the canine handlers to learn how to guide search and rescue dogs to locate casualties in challenging search and rescue environments.