Longmont Times-Call
Joe is finally making his international debut.
The 4-year-old yellow Labrador, rescued in 2007 by the Longmont Humane Society, now is part of a canine search-and-rescue team that will comb the rubble in Japan for survivors, after a magnitude-9 earthquake hit the country Friday and triggered massive tsunamis.
Joe and his handler, Linda Tacconelli, are one of 12 American canine search-and-rescue teams from California and Virginia deployed to Japan, said Janet Reineck, development director for the National Disaster Search Dog Foundation, based in Ojai, Calif.
“The handlers do surveillance and decide which places have the greatest likelihood of survival. The dogs are then sent in by their handlers to try to smell living people,” Reineck said. “When they smell a live victim, they bark, bark, bark.”
On Friday, officials from the U.S. Agency for International Development summoned six canine teams, based out of Los Angeles County, that were trained by the NDSDF. Those teams joined forces with another six teams–trained by private individuals, Reineck said–from Virginia.
Twelve dogs–Labradors, Golden Retrievers and Border Collies–and 72 people–including dog handlers, medics and specialists trained in rescue efforts and handling hazardous materials–arrived Saturday evening at Misawa Air Base in northern Japan and are waiting to head to Ofunato City on the northern coast, Reineck said.
Last March, Joe and Tacconelli were scheduled to deploy to Chile following a magnitude-8.8 earthquake. But Reineck said Chilean officials ultimately decided they did not want assistance from the American teams.
Joe arrived at the Longmont Humane Society in 2007, and staff quickly realized his penchant for chasing toys and balls, spokes-woman Brianna Beauvait said.
“He was, for lack of a better word, a nutcase when he came. He would do anything for a ball. He would go up a tree, which he did,” Beauvait said. “No matter what you did with a ball, he would go after it.”
Longmont Humane Society training and behavior department coordinator Sarah Clusman worked with the National Disaster Search Dog Foundation to put Joe through a series of drills and tests. She posted videos of Joe on YouTube, which sparked the interest of an NDSDF canine manager, who flew to Denver in December 2007 and took Joe to California.
In July 2008, Joe graduated from a six-month training program and was matched with Tacconelli, who lives in Santa Barbara. The duo trained intensively, and in September 2009, Joe passed his Federal Emergency Management Agency certification test, Reineck said.
Reineck said Joe and Tacconelli have been deployed two other times–in January 2010 after heavy flooding and landslides battered the California coast, and after a truck crashed into a Santa Barbara home last August.
It is not known how long the search-and-rescue teams will stay in Japan, but they have enough supplies for two weeks, Reineck said. The NDSDF is communicating with teams via “sporadic text messages from the field,” she said.
By Magdalena Wegrzyn