Border Guard Intermediate School 24 is tasked with educating the service-dog trainers, who directly manage, take care of, breed, train and use service dogs in border posts, stations and grassroots units along the borders, and train service dogs for specialised purposes of all units in the entire Army. This is a special task which requires a close combination between the military science and the courage, intelligence, emotion, the strong attachment between human beings and animals, together with the patience and cautiousness to train “special soldiers” and “combatting friends”, who are loyal and highly-skilled, effectively supporting the task of managing and protecting the sovereignty and security over national borders and other special tasks.

Receiving the First class Fatherland Defence Order

To successfully accomplish the assigned tasks, the School Party Committee and Board have made the intense leadership, direction and implementation of many solutions to build the comprehensively strong, “exemplary, typical” unit, and gained good results. The quality of education and training, and combat readiness has been gradually improved; the regularity building and discipline management have been seriously upheld, creating positive and stable changes; the logistic and technical support for tasks has been sufficiently made; all cadres, teachers, technicians and soldiers have been improved with their political awareness and spirit, innovation, creativity and the work passion, being determined to successfully accomplish all assigned tasks, of which, many having been excellently completed. Given the leadership, direction reality and the achieved results, the School has drawn some experience which can be the foundation to be inherited and implemented in the forthcoming time.

Firstly, intensely building the School which is strong in politics. To well carry out this solution, the School has intensely led and directed the party committees and commands of offices and units to well conduct the work of political-spiritual education, cultivating cadres, teachers, trainers, cadets and soldiers, who have steady political spirit and morality, always uphold the image and qualities of “Uncle Ho’s Soldiers” and “Green-badged Soldiers”, being ready to successfully accomplish all assigned tasks regardless of difficulties. Together, the School pays attention to improving the leadership capability and combat power for all-level party committees and organisations, strictly maintaining the party activities and the principle of democratic centralism, adopting the collective leadership and individual responsibility; enhancing and multiplying models of “4-goods, 3-nos, 3-actives” party cells, building the School Party Committee which is “steady from the roots” and “strong from the grassroots”. Especially, given the highly specialised requirements, the School frequently takes care of building the contingent of “red and expert” cadres with proper quantity and structure; well conducting the education and training of professional competence, fostering the enthusiasm for work for the contingent of cadres, ‘teachers and trainers, so that they don’t hesitate to any difficulties and hardships, but dare to face dangers, always consider the “4-legged warriors” as their close comrades, and possess the patience, stable psychology, and high combat readiness, etc.

Besides, the School directs offices, units and mobile groups of service dogs to well perform the protection of internal politics, security, safety, and National and Military secrets, especially when participating search and rescue overseas, welcoming internationals delegates to visit and work at School, etc. The School pays attention to building the safe units combined with building the safe area, being proactive and creative to implement synchronously and effectively the party and political work in all tasks; well implements the mass mobilisation, building the strong and excellent mass organisations and servicemen’s councils, etc. Since 2000, the School Party Committee has been assessed as strong and pure with 100% of party members passing the annual political test, over 75% of which were rated good and excellent; all of its cadres, teachers, trainers, cadets and soldiers , are firm in political stance; they are always ready to receive and successfully accomplish all assigned tasks.

Performance at the Vietnam Defence Expo 2024

Secondly, intensely improving the quality of education and training to meet the task requirements. All offices, faculties and units closely follow the features and struggle against all types of crimes, disaster relief, search and rescue in order to build, add, complete and standardise the contents, programmes and processes of education and training in the way of increasing the time for practice training, matching with the specialisation and age of service dogs, at the same time, assuring the inheritance, close combination and scientific continuity among training periods; minimising the intermediate stage, and maintaining the stability and solidity of quality. In the training process, it is necessary to strictly follow the mottos i.e. “The training quality of school decides the combat readiness capacity of units” and “Schools closely connect with borders” in order to closely combine the professional training with transferring experience of struggling against all types of crimes and conducting the tasks of disaster relief, search and rescue; coordinate with Border Guard units at the grassroots level to arrange teachers, trainers, cadets and service dogs to do an internship and have hands-on experience of doing the tasks along the border lines, at seas and islands to be trained, contacted and improved with their spirit and skills of solving the realistic situations.

Given the absence of a senior specialised agency to give directions and guidelines on training and using service dogs, and the foreign-language written training textbooks and documents, the School has paid attention to enhancing the scientific research and compilation of textbooks. The School has selected cadres, teachers and trainers who have teaching experience to do research and compile textbooks and documents, and established the council to make close and scientific inspection and evaluation; intensely directed the research and solved any theoretical and practical problems of specialised training subjects; bringing into full play the “special capacity” and the ability of taking on “multi-tasks” by each service dog to improve the working efficiency.

Besides, the School has closely coordinated with the Training Centre of service dogs of the Public Security Ministry and with other countries which are training and using service dogs in order to exchange and learn from the experience, and improve the capacity for teachers and trainers. The School has actively participated in exercises of rescue, contests and demonstrations of service dogs at home and abroad, etc. to bring trainers and services dogs closely to the reality. As a result, the quality of education and training of the School has been much improved with nearly 80% of trainers’ learning results being good and excellent, so are 60% of service dogs’, well meeting the task requirements after graduation.

Conducting in search and rescue in Nu Village in 9/2024

Thirdly, enhancing the regularity building, discipline management and high combat readiness. The School regularly leads and directs the party committees and commands of offices and units to grasp and effectively implement all guiding documents, especially the directives by the Defence Minister on regularity building and discipline management, through which, to make positive changes on the awareness and actions for all cadres and soldiers; actively mobilises the internal power together with the seniors’ financial support to build the living and working environment, and breeding facilities for dogs, create new methods of training dogs, specialised training grounds, etc. making them “regular, bright, green, clean and beautiful”; strictly manages soldiers both inside and outside the barrack, in anytime, especially in mobile units of service dogs stationing and doing their tasks on their own, being out of the management of the School; strictly maintains the daily and weekly routines, commanding, guarding and patrolling duties, addressing and greetings under the regulations, the performance of duties and assigned tasks, internal unity and agreement, building the School with the cultural lifestyles, discipline and rules, “all soldiers following the regulations”. In doing the task of struggling against crimes and taking part in search and rescue, the earlier cadres, trainers and service dogs come, the more effectively they could save people’s lives and trace criminals, etc. Therefore, the School focuses on improving the training quality of exercise and rehearsal of changing combat readiness states; directing offices, units and mobile units of service dogs to well prepare their forces, vehicles and the work of support, being ready for doing their tasks when ordered.

Fourthly, well conducting the logistic-technical support for any tasks. Together with taking care of soldiers’ material and spiritual life, the School pays special attention to equipping enough training facilities, assuring the absolute safety for teachers, trainers and cadets, especially the service dogs when training in high intensity, difficulty and complication. Concurrently, all offices, faculties and units effectively manage, exploit and use the existing facilities and vehicles, combined with mobilising all sources to purchase training equipment, renovate the training grounds to make them more modern, synchronous and suitable with each training subject and the age of the service dogs.

The School frequently makes direction and strict inspection of the caring and breeding of service dogs, assuring the sufficient and timely food standards and portions, the disease prevention, treatment and regular vaccination. The School also coordinates with the Military Institute of Preventive Medicine to conduct medical checks and parasite tests for cadres and soldiers, and promote the propaganda on the prevention of some diseases which can infect human beings, assuring the rate of healthy staff in the School at over 98.6%. The School regularly grasps and well prepares the logistic-technical work for the task of combat readiness and sudden tasks according to Decision No. 1221/QĐ-BTL, dated 26 March 2019 by the Border Guard Command, especially in responding to natural calamity, search and rescue, and also in civil defence when ordered.

Bringing into play the achieved results and experience, Border Guard Intermediate School 24 has continuously made innovation, creativity and unity; proactively overcome difficulties to build the regular, comprehensively strong, “exemplary, typical” School, contributing to strengthening the combat power of the Border Guard soldiers, meeting the task requirements in the new situation.

Senior Colonel, Dr. NGUYEN QUANG THUYEN, Principal of the School