Thanks to their fine noses, dogs often become lifesavers after an avalanche accident, an earthquake or in the search for missing children and disoriented people suffering from Alzheimer's or Dementia.

Response teams from IRO member organisations are ready to respond 365 days a year when disaster strikes.

As such, it relies upon donations to provide search and rescue dog teams with the certification, training and education necessary to find lost and missing people.

At the same time, international cooperation is becoming increasingly important, in order to coordinate search and rescue dog teams efficiently when major disasters occur.

In the early hours of 6 February 2023, a 7.8 magnitude earthquake caused catastrophic damage in south-eastern Turkey and parts of Syria.

Several IRO member organisations sent almost 100 search and rescue dogs with their handlers to the quake zone in Turkey within a very short time.

According to the motto "365 days a year mission ready", demonstrations, information events and trial trainings are organised all over the world.

The Spitak earthquake in Armenia in 1988 raised the question of international cooperation in the field of search and rescue dog training.

As one of the most severe earthquakes in recent decades, it gave the impulse to strive for better coordination between disaster relief workers, search and rescue dog teams and authorities.

As a result, the IRO was founded in 1993 with the aim of setting standards for the training and deployment of search and rescue dog teams worldwide.

Under his auspices, the IRO became internationally recognised and a uniform global standard for the training of search and rescue dogs was introduced.