Perdana, Basarnas Has A Tracking Dog Unit Involving 27 Members As Handlers

Basarnas members were trained as first batch sniffer dogs (K9) in Bogor, Tuesday 27 May 2025. (ANTARA-HO-Basarnas)

JAKARTA - The National Search and Rescue Agency (Basarnas) for the first time officially has a sniffer dog or K9 unit that has been specially trained to support domestic SAR operations.

A total of 27 handlers from a number of SAR offices throughout Indonesia completed the first batch of K9 training. This training collaborated with instructors from SAR Dog Indonesia (SDI) held by the Basarnas Search and Rescue HR Training Center (BPSDMPP) in Bogor, West Java, on May 15, 2025.

The first batch. This is an initial milestone for the K9 unit to be trained in the Basarnas environment. They will be part of a more responsive and modern SAR operating system," said Head of BPSDMPP Basarnas Heru Suhartanto who was contacted from Jakarta, Tuesday.

K9 units are trained to carry out various search functions, ranging from tracking human tracks on land, air, or water, sweeping large areas, to detecting bodies that are buried or submerged. K9's sense of smell is considered very effective in accelerating the process of searching for victims.

Heru stressed that this training not only shaped the technical skills of the handlers, but also fostered sensitivity, synergy, and emotional ties between the handlers and SAR dogs, which were key to the success of the rescue mission.

In the future, he said, Basarnas K9 units will be alerted in a number of strategic areas and ready to be deployed at any time when needed in SAR operations. This is in line with Basarnas' commitment to strengthening the capacity and innovation of biological technology-based rescue services.

With the formation of this trained K9 unit, he continued, Basarnas hopes that the response time and effectiveness of SAR operations in the field can be significantly increased, especially in disaster conditions or extraordinary events that require quick and accurate search.