APOPO, a Belgian-registered non-governmental organisation, trains animals to find what people cannot easily reach. Its RescueRATs are being prepared to locate survivors under rubble after earthquakes, and its Technical Survey Dogs and Mine Detection Dogs already help clear land contaminated by explosives, including in Ukraine.
In the early 2000s, APOPO began training African giant pouched rats to detect landmines. It later expanded into tuberculosis screening. That expertise now underpins two separate disaster-response programmes: RescueRATs, which are being trained to locate people trapped under rubble, and Technical Survey Dogs (TSD) and Mine Detection Dogs (MDD), which support the survey and clearance of land contaminated by explosive ordnance.
RescueRATs began with pilot studies testing whether rats could locate human targets rather than landmines. The results led GEA Arama Kurtarma, a Turkish search-and-rescue organisation, to approach APOPO about developing the concept for earthquake response.
The potential advantage of RescueRATs is their ability to access and search confined spaces within collapsed structures that may be inaccessible or difficult for human rescuers, search dogs or larger equipment to reach.
The rats, trained in increasingly realistic debris environments, now carry technology-enabled backpacks fitted with cameras and two-way communication. The programme has two complementary capabilities. In search mode, a rat navigates debris independently and performs a trained indication by activating a switch on its vest when it detects a person, which transmits a signal to the team at the basepoint.
The rat can then be recalled using a designated audio signal. In survey mode, the backpack’s camera and sensors give teams visual information on debris configuration, obstacles and access routes they would otherwise struggle to assess. ‘The approach is intended to complement, rather than replace, existing search-and-rescue capabilities’, APOPO says.
‘RescueRATs has not yet been deployed in a real-world disaster. The programme remains in the research and development stage, with evidence to date coming from training and simulated search environments.’ That work, APOPO adds, has nevertheless ‘produced encouraging results, helping us to further refine the rats’ trained behaviours, equipment and operational procedures, while informing the next steps towards real-world trials’. Real-world reliability still depends on the same factors that affect any trained detection animal: consistent training, debris complexity and the accessibility of the search area itself.
Innovation and unconventional solutions can strengthen preparedness by opening new avenues for addressing complex problems and expanding the range of capabilities available to responders before a disaster occurs.
That experimental spirit is central to how APOPO frames the project. ‘Innovation and unconventional solutions can strengthen preparedness by opening new avenues for addressing complex problems and expanding the range of capabilities available to responders before a disaster occurs’, APOPO says. ‘RescueRATs is an example of this approach. It explores how unconventional heroes – rats – can use their innate abilities to provide a new means of complementing existing search-and-rescue techniques.’
APOPO’s work with detection dogs – known as HeroDOGs in its public fundraising – builds on that same expertise. Operationally, the organisation trains two types of dogs for distinct roles: TSDs, which investigate suspected hazardous areas to determine where contamination is actually present – searching large areas and vegetation with GPS tracking so clearance resources are concentrated only where genuinely needed – and MDDs, which then carry out the more systematic clearance search. APOPO trains Belgian Malinois for 12 months before deployment, with ongoing testing and accreditation to national mine action standards. ‘Safety is central to the methodology’, APOPO says. To date, no APOPO dog has been injured or killed by a landmine during operations.
Unlike RescueRATs, this programme is already operational at scale. APOPO established a permanent presence in Ukraine in 2024, beginning with 16 TSDs and 8 Ukrainian women handlers, working alongside the non-governmental organisation Mines Advisory Group and funded through the EU, UN Development Programme, the US Government, the Swiss Development Cooperation and the Government of Flanders.
Growth has been steady since: 4 teams and 32 dogs by the end of 2024, 6 teams and 48 dogs during 2025, and 8 teams and 64 dogs today, concentrated mainly in Mykolaiv and Kharkiv Oblasts. Between March 2025 and August 2026, these teams processed approximately 2.54 million square metres and located 22 explosive items, with all released plots already returned to local communities.
One of the main lessons from Ukraine is that dogs are most effective when they are properly integrated with the wider land-release system rather than viewed as a stand-alone solution.
Ukraine is one of several active deployments. APOPO also runs dog operations in Cambodia and Azerbaijan, and has previously worked in Senegal, South Sudan and Türkiye. Since its first operational dogs in 2018, the programme has searched 36.1 million square metres globally and located 1 371 explosive items, and now has the largest MDD and TSD capacity in the mine action sector, with more than 130 operational dogs and a further 39 currently in training. APOPO is assessing expansion into other mine-affected countries, including potential future work in Laos and Syria, drawing on methodologies already tested in Cambodia and Ukraine.
Across both programmes, the logic is the same: trained animals extending what human teams can reach, see and assess, not replacing them. The goal, as APOPO puts it, is to integrate these detection systems wherever they can make response and clearance faster, safer and more cost-efficient.