In response to public curiosity about retired search and rescue dogs, the Ministry of the Interior’s Fire Fighting Bureau has disclosed the approximate locations of retired dogs and the legal standards for their retirement.
The ministry said that per regulations, all search and rescue dogs are to be retired when they are seven or eight, depending on their physical condition.
Over the past three years, retired dogs have been available for public adoption by people who meet certain requirements, the ministry said.
Photo courtesy of the Ministry of the Interior
The living environment of those wishing to adopt, their family members, whether they keep any other pets and whether there is a park near their residence are all factors taken into account, the bureau said.
“We want to make sure that these canines, who have devoted roughly two-thirds of their lives to the country and the vocation of saving lives of others, receive their just awards and an easy life in retirement,” the bureau said.
Of the 11 adopted retirees, five are in Taichung, and one each in Yilan County, Hualien County, Pingtung County, Changhua County and Nantou County, it said.
One of them, nicknamed A-liu (阿六), was one of Taiwan’s first trained search and rescue dogs and was in service during the 2016 Tainan earthquake, the bureau said.
A woman surnamed Chu (朱) was selected from those who applied to adopt A-liu. She is a volunteer for a search and rescue party and had worked with A-liu before, it said.
The 11th dog, nicknamed Shovel, lives in New Taipei City.
Taiwanese can file complaints with the Tourism Administration to report travel agencies if their activities caused termination of a person’s citizenship, Mainland Affairs Council Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday, after a podcaster highlighted a case in which a person’s citizenship was canceled for receiving a single-use Chinese passport to enter Russia. The council is aware of incidents in which people who signed up through Chinese travel agencies for tours of Russia were told they could obtain Russian visas and fast-track border clearance, Chiu told reporters on the sidelines of an event in Taipei. However, the travel agencies actually applied
Japanese footwear brand Onitsuka Tiger today issued a public apology and said it has suspended an employee amid allegations that the staff member discriminated against a Vietnamese customer at its Taipei 101 store. Posting on the social media platform Threads yesterday, a user said that an employee at the store said that “those shoes are very expensive” when her friend, who is a migrant worker from Vietnam, asked for assistance. The employee then ignored her until she asked again, to which she replied: "We don't have a size 37." The post had amassed nearly 26,000 likes and 916 comments as of this
New measures aimed at making Taiwan more attractive to foreign professionals came into effect this month, the National Development Council said yesterday. Among the changes, international students at Taiwanese universities would be able to work in Taiwan without a work permit in the two years after they graduate, explainer materials provided by the council said. In addition, foreign nationals who graduated from one of the world’s top 200 universities within the past five years can also apply for a two-year open work permit. Previously, those graduates would have needed to apply for a work permit using point-based criteria or have a Taiwanese company
The Shilin District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday indicted two Taiwanese and issued a wanted notice for Pete Liu (劉作虎), founder of Shenzhen-based smartphone manufacturer OnePlus Technology Co (萬普拉斯科技), for allegedly contravening the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例) by poaching 70 engineers in Taiwan. Liu allegedly traveled to Taiwan at the end of 2014 and met with a Taiwanese man surnamed Lin (林) to discuss establishing a mobile software research and development (R&D) team in Taiwan, prosecutors said. Without approval from the government, Lin, following Liu’s instructions, recruited more than 70 software
RSS