Search operations
Searching for people in Odesa
On 2 March 2024, Tara and her handler Oles Chervonyi took part in searching for people beneath the rubble in Odesa. Suspilne reported on their work.
Tara’s storyNational School of Service Dog Training
Canine expertise.Trusted with lives.
We train canine specialists and working dogs. Our teachers develop programmes and write textbooks, while our dog-handler teams search for missing people and help rescuers. We bring this experience into our classes for dog owners and future professionals.
Recognition from the SES
For emergency response support · Odesa, 2025
The people and work behind NSHSS
From instructor training
to search operations
Our professional heritage
The authors of NSHSS programmes
The school’s programmes are developed by Oleg Radomyslsky, Valery Vysotsky and Aleksandra Zhizhnevskaya — dog training specialists and authors of books and textbooks on canine science and training.
Our experts and their work
Formal cooperation
Cooperation with the SES
The canine service headed by Oleg Radomyslskyi, an author of NSHSS programmes, formalised its cooperation with the SES in the Odesa region through a memorandum.
The memorandum and joint workOur programmes
What we teach at NSHSS
For dog owners
Obedience, behaviour modification and specialist programmes. We teach you to understand your dog and work together in everyday life.
Choose a programmeFor future dog trainers
Ethology, animal psychology, training methods and teaching dog owners. We prepare students to work as instructors and put their knowledge into practice.
Dog trainer coursesFor services and organisations
We prepare search and rescue (SAR), search and specialist dogs to work in challenging conditions.
Search dog trainingThe school offers in-person and distance learning. Owners come with their dogs’ individual training needs, future instructors learn their profession, and working dog teams receive specialist training.
Over the school’s years of work
Graduates, instructors, competitions
100+
instructors trained
35+
competitions held
70+
competitions across Ukraine in which the school took part
100+
champions and prizewinners among the graduates
7
training grounds built with free access
The school’s cumulative results, as recorded in an archived presentation covering the first nine months after 24 February 2022.
Working dogs in the field
On search
and rescue operations
A search dog’s training continues after the exam. Conditions change in the field, and the handler must understand the dog’s signals and work alongside rescuers.
Tara · Cane Corso
Oles Chervonyi and Tara.
Tara and her handler trained at NSHSS. Their service includes patrols, detecting explosives, weapons and ammunition, and taking part in search and rescue operations.
Together they worked in Odesa and the Mykolaiv and Kherson regions. Their tasks included guarding humanitarian cargo, searching for drone debris and guarding a volunteer camp after the destruction of the Kakhovka dam.
In reports about Tara, Oles explains how he reads her signals and makes decisions during searches. Their work draws on training, experience on joint deployments and trust in one another.
Odesa · 2 March 2024
Searching a destroyed building
After a residential building was hit, Tara and Oles helped rescuers search the damaged rooms and look for people under the rubble. This short recording from the school archive shows the conditions inside.
Suspilne Odesa devoted a separate report to Tara. Her handler discusses searching for people and explosives and explains how the dog indicates a find.
Read the story on Suspilne2022 · From the school archive
How the explosives detection programme began
In 2022, Oleg Radomyslsky developed a programme to train dogs to detect explosives. The school first tested it with 12 dogs, then continued training under the programme.
Dog selection includes assessing temperament and testing how strongly a dog responds to search tasks. Further training centres on scent work: searching and distinguishing between scents.
Service work in figures
From the school’s presentation on its work after 24 February 2022
3 700+
Patrol deployments
The school’s graduates helped maintain public order.
17
People found
Children were among the missing people found.
40+
Search dogs
Trained to detect explosives during the first nine months of the full-scale invasion.
During the same nine-month period, the dogs detected more than 400 kg of explosives. The presentation does not specify a separate reporting period for patrols and people found.
Cooperation with the SES
Cooperation with the SES
in Odesa Region
14 June 2024 · Odesa
Photos: Main Directorate of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine in the Odesa region.
Memorandum of cooperation
The Main Directorate of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine in the Odesa region and the canine service of the International Police Corporation for Public Safety formalised their cooperation in search and rescue operations involving service dogs.
The service is led by Oleg Radomyslsky, an author of NSHSS programmes. The meeting brought rescuers and dog handlers together to discuss areas of joint work and coordination at operational sites.
SES announcement of the memorandumRecognition of the team’s work
Recognition
from rescuers
10 January 2025 · SES in the Odesa region
On 10 January 2025, rescuers in Odesa Region presented commendations to volunteer dog handlers and their dogs. The State Emergency Service recognised their help in responding to emergencies, their readiness for callouts and their prompt arrival.
SES report on the award ceremony
Photos: Main Directorate of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine in the Odesa region.
2024 · Hero Dogs of Ukraine
Tara and Joker
Both dog-and-handler teams were recognised by the Hero Dogs of Ukraine project. In their published accounts, the organisers explicitly credit NSHSS with training Tara and Joker together with their handlers.
Our dogs and their handlers
Our handlers
and their dogs
In January 2025, rescuers recognised the work of these dog-handler teams. Meet the handlers and their dogs in photographs from the State Emergency Service.
Tara
Cane Corso
Handler
Oles Chervonyi
Took part in the search after the strike on an apartment building in Odesa on 2 March 2024. Her story was covered by Suspilne and Rada television.
Reia
Belgian Malinois
Handler
Yelyzaveta Kravchenko
Featured in Rada’s report on service dogs. Her handler discusses training, patrol work and searching for weapons.
Noema
Giant Schnauzer
Handler
Viktoriia Liashenko
A commendation from the State Emergency Service in Odesa Region for help in emergencies. January 2025.
Karai
German Shepherd
Handler
Vladyslav Shuvalov
A commendation from the State Emergency Service in Odesa Region for help in emergencies. January 2025.
Eduard
Pit Bull Terrier
Handler
Yevhen Manokhin
Took part in patrols and search operations. Received a State Emergency Service commendation in January 2025. Read Edik and Yevhen’s story below.
Ellison
Shepherd dog
Handler
Yevheniia Amelchenko
A commendation from the State Emergency Service in Odesa Region for help in emergencies. January 2025.
Photos: Main Directorate of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine in the Odesa region.
Eduard and Yevhen Manokhin
From a shelter
to a search team
Yevhen met Edik at an Odesa shelter in June 2022. The dog had been brought from Istanbul, undergone lengthy treatment and been returned by two adoptive families. For the first two weeks, Yevhen visited every day: feeding him, taking him for walks and learning to understand him.
Edik’s severe aggression towards others initially prevented him from joining group classes. Yevhen stayed with him at a distance from the training ground, calming him and watching the other dogs train. Gradually, Edik learnt obedience, and his handler completed dog training courses. Later, they patrolled Odesa together and took part in searches for people.
Eduard died in the line of duty.
The school on camera
The school’s work
in news reports
Handlers talk about training dogs and working in the field.
Rada TV · United News · Original Ukrainian-language report
Tara · Cane Corso
Oles Chervonyi’s working partner. In the report, he describes searching for people and explosives, and working in Odesa, Kherson Region and Mykolaiv Region.
Joker · Spaniel
Before the war, he competed in hunting dog trials. He later trained to search for people and explosives, and worked in the rubble of the residential building in Odesa.
Reia · Belgian Malinois
A young search dog with experience of patrols and detecting weapons. Her handler describes her training and focus while working.
126/K9: training and first place at the Ukrainian Championship
In April 2023, four handlers and five dogs from the military 126/K9 group began training in Odesa. Serhii Blahodarnyi led the team’s six-month training at NSHSS. In October, the group took first place in the team standings at the Ukrainian Open Championship for Explosives Detection.
In the report, handlers discuss their training, the final seminar and the graduation exams assessed by Valery Vysotsky.
Joker: from field champion to search dog
Before the full-scale invasion, Joker the spaniel and his handler Vitalii Ivaner competed in hunting trials. Joker earned the title of Outstanding Field Champion of Ukraine.
After training at NSHSS, Joker learnt to detect explosives, weapons and ammunition. Alongside Vitalii, he worked at checkpoints and took part in curfew patrols.
The pair later joined a canine search and rescue unit. During an operation in Odesa, Joker indicated a location where rescuers subsequently found the bodies of victims.
In 2024, Joker was recognised by the Hero Dogs of Ukraine project. He also featured on the February page of the project’s 2025 calendar. The video shows Joker and Vitalii receiving their award.
Experts sharing their experience
Programme authors
and teachers
Oleg Radomyslsky, Valery Vysotsky and Aleksandra Zhizhnevskaya develop the school’s programmes and teaching materials. Their work covers raising dogs, training working dogs and educating instructors.
In class, future canine specialists learn to analyse a dog’s behaviour, choose a training method and explain their work to the owner. Ethology, animal psychology and teaching methods help them make informed decisions.
The school’s authors and instructors
School founder
Oleg Romanovich
Radomyslsky
A service dog training instructor since 1986. Author of specialist training programmes and a guide dog training textbook.
Author of the school's programmes
Valery Borisovich
Vysotsky
Author of 6 monographs and more than 100 publications, books and programmes on training escort and guard dogs.
Senior lecturer at the school
Aleksandra
Zhizhnevskaya
A Category I instructor with a master’s degree in Cynology. Co-author of the textbook ‘Companion and Service Dog Breeding and Training’.
The school's learning materials
- ‘The Escort Dog’
- ‘Caucasian, Central Asian Shepherd Dogs and Other Wolfhounds’
- ‘You Have Bought a Wolfhound’
Certification and quality assurance
How we assess
qualifications
Our own certification system.
NSHSS assesses knowledge and practical skills through its own certification system. The rules, categories and entry procedure are set out in the regulations.
Go to the register Regulations for entry to the registerAssessment in several stages
Every specialist completes a theoretical knowledge assessment and a practical examination.
Categories 3 to 1
The category depends on the instructor's competencies, from basic obedience to guide dog training and dog-assisted therapy.
Annual confirmation
Qualifications are not awarded for life: our instructors confirm their status through testing every year.
What to ask your instructor.
The register is the school's own certification system. An entry does not mean that the specialist is an NSHSS employee, accepts clients in your city or holds all the permits needed to work in another country. The absence of an entry does not in itself prove a lack of qualifications.
Contact the school
Contact NSHSS
We can help you understand the training programmes, answer questions about the school’s work and discuss cooperation. Describe what you need in the form or contact us directly.
Ask your question
Leave your contact details and the school team will respond to your enquiry.
Dogs helping people
Support
in everyday life
We train guide dogs for blind and partially sighted people. Oleg Radomyslsky has devoted many years of work to this field and written a textbook on guide dog training.
The dog learns to navigate obstacles and work with a person as a team. Training takes account of the future owner’s actual routes and everyday needs.
About guide dog training ↗30 April 2025 · Odesa
A guide dog competition.
The school held a guide dog competition at the Lokomotyv sports complex in Odesa. Timed to mark Guide Dog Day, the event showed how people and dogs work together to complete tasks.
Read the Lokomotyv club report↗Dog-assisted therapy
Training canine-assisted intervention assistants
Participants study canine behaviour, dog selection and training. They learn to handle a dog in sessions led by specialists in the relevant field and to ensure safe interaction with participants.
Dog-assisted therapy programme ↗