Jakarta, IO – After five days of hard work, Coco, the sniffer dog that belongs to Semarang Public Order Agency (Satpol PP), finally managed to locate three quake survivors buried under rubble on Sunday (26/11).
The Labrador Retriever dog breed is specially trained to find victims of natural disasters. Coco’s trainer Rahmat Hidayat said that apart from Cianjur quake, Coco was also deployed in East Nusa Tenggara (NTT) when it was hit by earthquake last year. Coco has been trained for the task from when it was four months old, reported detik, Wednesday (30/11).
“Coco even managed to locate the mutilated body of Paulus Iwan Boedi Prasetijo, a civil servant from Semarang, dumped in the Marina beach,” said Rahmat. At that time, the Semarang Police dispatched Coco and its sibling Mici.
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“Initially, Coco was trained to detect illicit liquor and to control crowd,” explained Rahmat. Coco is also often used in awareness-raising activities, for example in educating children about Covid-19 health protocols. (rr)