Watch: Four-Legged Hero Helps Clear Explosives in Ukraine

A determined Jack Russell called Patron has been earning his keep by helping Ukrainian forces and sniffing out explosives.

The two-year-old pooch has gained social media fame after stepping up to do his job in Chernihiv – north of Kyiv.

All he asks for at the end of the day is a belly rub (or three) and some cheese treats. Then after a good night of rest he is back in the field again the next day with operatives from the State Emergency Service of Ukraine (SES).

He has been filmed in a dog-sized Ukrainian military vest sniffing out unexploded ordnance among the rubble with an officer from the SES.

Watch Patron at work below:

The Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has said hundreds of devices had been left behind by Russian forces as they withdrew from northern Ukraine, the Daily Telegraph reports.

“While retreating, Russia’s military personnel is setting up booby-traps, banned by the international law, even on food facilities, private housing and human corpses,” it said earlier this month.

Now dogs like Patron, who has been working since he was six months old, are clearing them out to keep Ukrainians safe from further injuries and deaths.

Mine detection dogs were first used in the Second World War and now it is thought that over 750 are used in humanitarian mining programmes internationally.

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