搜救犬：无言的战士

山东 路冬梅

经过专业训练后，狗成了百发百中的搜救行家。狗的听力和对气味的辨别能力比人强很多，而且能在光线微弱条件下视物，是国际上普遍认为搜救效果最好的“设备”。

主题语境：人与自然 篇幅：341词 建议用时：6分钟

1Dogs have been useful in rescue situations during heavy snow, earthquakes, and other natural disasters.

2Dogs are found to have up 10,000 times stronger smelling ability than human beings. This is the reason why dogs are trained to find people by following the traces of human scent by sniffing the air.This special ability of dogs has been useful in situations such as earthquakes.When the dogs pick up the desired scent,they follow the scent into the place of the source of the scent.

3Dogs usually find people by following a scent commonly from a piece of cloth worn by the person to be found. The good thing about the dogs' sniffing ability is that they are not distracted (注意力分散的)by other smells.Throughout the history,there are dogs who received credit for successful tracking operations using their sniffing ability.

4As for the rescue operations,dogs become useful when there are missing people after disasters like avalanches (雪崩), earthquakes, and other natural disasters. When there are structural collapses due to these disasters, dogs are trained to find survivors using their sniffing and tracking abilities.

5Over the years, there have been stories of rescue dogs around the world. One of the popular rescue dogs is St.Bernard from the 18th century.After heavy snow,the rescue dogs were sent to look for people who were buried in the snow. One of these St. Bernard dogs dug a person and even tried to warm the person using his own body.

6Dogs are not only trained to find survivors. They are also trained to locate dead human bodies.This is very helpful,especially after earthquakes.Dogs can surprisingly search for bodies not only on land but also in waters. Thus, dogs can be very useful in looking for drowning bodies.

7Indeed, dogs that are trained for search and response teams are sometimes better than humans when it comes to finding survivors or even dead bodies under layers of fallen debris(残骸).Dogs are truly man's loyal friends.

Reading Check

1.Why are dogs trained to find people in natural disasters?

A.They have a strong sense of taste. B.They have a strong sense of sight.

C.They have a strong sense of smell. D.They have a strong sense of touch.

2.How do dogs find missing people?

A.By following their cloth scent. B.By analyzing their possible routes.

C.By turning to the police for help. D.By tracking the source of a disaster.

3.What does paragraph 5 mainly talk about?

A.Rescue dogs'ability. B.A rescue dog's story.

C.Rescue dogs'honour. D.Rescue dogs'characters.

4.Where is the text probably from?

A.A travel journal. B.A short novel.

C.An animal website. D.A space exploration newspaper.

Language Study

Useful expressions

this is the reason why 这就是……的原因 throughout the history 纵观历史

receive credit for 因为……获得称赞 search for 寻找

when it comes to 当谈及……