Long expected event we have all been waiting with curiosity for the last 3 months started on October 16 th 2004 with the alarm clock at exactly 3:30 a.m.

Participants : rescue team of the KOSSP " Zagreb "- team leader Ana, Mirela with her dog Gunna, Sara with Cap and Tibor with Mav and all those great guys from Mountain Rescue Service " Zagreb " lead by Darko Baksic.

Civil Guard representatives : Damir Pilcik, Bojan Davidovic and Zvonko Vucenik.
Transport vehicles : two Land rovers of the type Defender (one of them driving our KOSSP people and the dogs; the other, bigger one, carrying the equipment) and one comfortable van for the Mountain Rescue Service guys.
Weather forecast : rain, showers. rain.
Meeting location : in front of the Civil Guard building in Zagreb .
Meeting time : 4:30 a.m.
Departure time : 4:40 a.m.

Everything except the departure time was going according to the schedule. The van driver's mobile phone broke down so we have been waiting and waiting and. Anyway, the van driver got enough sleep and we started towards Ljubljana at 5:30 a.m.

Unfortunately, the weather forecast turned out to be completely true. It was raining cats and dogs with a relentless pace and intensity. Gray sky was brightened up a bit by the cheerful atmosphere and jokes in the van. After all, were we driving in the Defender or not?

At the Slovenian border we got the chance to try out whether the microchips implanted into our dogs were functional. Although the usage of microchips is justified we couldn't help feeling that someone was just scanning the codes of the fresh bought merchandise when we saw the scanner going over our pets' necks confirming the existence of the microchip. I know it's useful, but still.

The gathering in Slovenia was scheduled for 9 a.m. and although being late in departure from Zagreb we managed to arrive an hour earlier. By the way, the drill itself has lasted for four days and our arrival was scheduled only for the last day. The drill that was symbolically named "Earthquake 2004" and was organized by Slovenian Civil Guard, represented a simulation of a catastrophic earthquake and international coordination of fire crews, ambulance teams, rescue teams with dogs and Mountain Rescue Services. Impressive number of several hundred participants included teams from Hungary , Italy , Slovenia and, of course, Croatia .

After rich breakfast hospitably offered by the organizer, the teams headed towards the ruin that was less than 10 minutes away by car. The ruin was really huge and divided into two bigger buildings. Ten meters from the buildings there was a high tower intended for the demonstration of rescuing from higher buildings that was performed by one of the Mountain Rescue Services.

Next to the ruin entrance Slovenian fire truck has demonstrated the rescue from the first floor of the ruined building by using the firefighting ladder. That action was interesting also for the gathered journalists. By the way, the drill was observed by a lot of journalists, cca 50 of them, which was really an impressive number and it showed the importance of drills such as this one.

At the very beginning the first rescuing exercise with dogs was performed. Two dogs participated in it: one Hungarian and one Croatian - Gunna. The decoy was hidden below iron boards at the depth of some 4 meters extra fixed into a dug up hole in the ground. Due to lack of air which couldn't leak outside the iron boards under which was hidden also the decoy's smell, this exercise was a science fiction for the dogs who couldn't find the decoy. Only after the board was slightly moved and the air started to leak a bit, the dogs started barking in order to show decoy's location.

Two dogs already mentioned above were meant to also find another decoy, which was hidden inside the ruin. I have a special story linked to that search which needs to be told in details in order not to happen ever again.

We went towards the opposite side of the ruin. First in line was Gunna. She glet loose at the outer edge of the ruin. The sketch shows the room in which the decoy was located (marked with an arrow). After Gunna's entry into the dark room I heard only one bark and then - silence. Since the silence was lasting a bit too long, I went with judge to check what went wrong. In a completely dark room entered by stairs there was decoy on the right side squatting and Gunna on the left side in a hole some 3,5 meters deep and shaped as rectangular (cca 4x2 m). The decoy was sitting at the platform that looked a lot like a balcony but without safety fence, 4 meters long and 1,5 meters wide. The decoy himself confirmed our assumptions on what has actually happened.

In the dark Gunna was acting according to the expectations, moving slowly and paying attention not to hit something or fall. After she has reached the decoy she did what she was supposed to do - she barked and went one step back since she was taught not to touch the decoy while barking. Since there was not enough space for moving away, the back of her body fell into the abyss (there was no bearing wall from which she could have potentially back off with her hind legs and avoid falling).

I was evidently very upset and started asking questions: how was it possible on a drill like this one that a dog is sent into an unsecured area? Why was the decoy silent when the dog fell into a hole? Were the organizers aware that the dog could have been very hurt or, in the worst case scenario, even got killed since he fell on a pure concrete strewed with different chipped-off pieces?

Short "investigation" afterwards gave answers on what has actually happened. Two rooms inside the ruin were separated by a wire. The intention was that a dog enters into the left room and barks at the decoy from that position. The right door SHOULD HAVE BEEN closed.

Mutual lack of coordination between the judge and the technical team (which was not familiar with the way rescue dogs work and therefore wasn't aware that right room was dangerous for them) led to the situation in which the judge also wasn't familiar with the danger inside the right room at all. Terrifying oversight that could have easily led to more tragic consequences.

All of us who want to participate in rescue operations with or without the dogs are aware of the fact that in actual operations a situation can happen in which we as leaders or our dogs themselves can find ourselves in danger. Still, in that case a reason for our presence there is followed by much higher goal - an attempt to save human lives, which isn't the case on the drills. For that reason it is not questionable that these situations are primarily caused by the organizer's error.

However, in order to avoid misunderstanding, it is important to mention that on neither of the exams our rescue dogs have been taking so far in Slovenia an oversight like this one has never happened and that the conditions have always been at the highest level. In those cases organizers were exclusively people who work with dogs and are aware that such oversights cannot be tolerated. In this case we have seen the lack of coordination between more different teams; Civil Guard and firemen placed the marker but did not inform the judge well enough. May it never happen again!