Dog’s Life
Many dogs languishing at animal shelters across the country are overlooked by visitors in search of their next family pet. Too hyper to be kept by their former owners and too “crazy” to be adopted from the shelter, many of these abandoned and unwanted canines face a certain, grim future.
But not anymore. Now there’s hope.
In fact, these dogs are often saved from the edge of death at the eleventh hour to later repay the favor and save someone else’s life.
They become search dogs.
These excitable, bold, intelligent, friendly and high-energy canines are perfect candidates for the lifesaving work performed on an international scale by the National Disaster Search Dog Foundation (SDF).
Based out of Ojai, Calif., SDF is a nonprofit, non-governmental organization that rescues unwanted dogs from shelters across the country, extensively trains them in advanced disaster search protocol, and then pairs them up at no cost with fire departments from California to New York. Currently there are 74 SDF teams in the United States, with an expected 20 more to join the ranks this year. It’s a three-part recipe: finding the right dog, pairing it with the right handler, and making sure both are superbly trained.
To think, this all began as the brainchild of a retired physical education teacher who now, in her late 70s, pilots her own experimental airplane and knows that dogs have so much to offer us, if we only show them how.
Back in the early 1990s, Wilma Melville yearned to do more with her black Labrador Murphy. She enlisted the help of renowned dog trainer Pluis Davern from Sundowners Training Kennel in Gilroy, Calif., to mold the pair into a great canine search team. They attained Advanced Disaster Search Dog certification with the FEMA, becoming just one of 15 Advanced Certified teams in the country.
In 1995, Melville and Murphy were deployed to the site of the Oklahoma City terrorist bombing. There, Melville felt shocked at the limited number of canine resources and certified canine/handler teams available to aid in search and rescue missions during times of disaster.
“It completely opened my eyes to the national scene,” Melville said.
Up until this time, disaster search dogs certified in the United States were trained and handled by civilian volunteers using dated methods that took upwards of five years and $15,000 to master. Melville figured there had to be an easier, quicker, more efficient and less expensive way to stock the nation with very adept disaster teams.
So she founded SDF in 1996 and designed a program based on streamlined disaster training methods and the recruitment of rescued dogs.
In addition, Melville chose to pair these dogs up with first responders, mainly firefighters, who already know how to work within disasters and maintain the flexible schedule necessary to make a life-long commitment to a search dog partner. A firefighter is capable of enveloping a dog into his or her life and work environment, all while being surrounded by a team of others who also take part in the search dog training and development.
Top dog
Where to find the dogs? Instead of handpicking expensive pups from the litters of high-profile working parents at enormous expenses, Melville turned to the nation’s overcrowded shelters.
“There are terrific dogs at shelters that have been mismanaged by their previous owners,” said Melville. “If we bred dogs, we would be producing a fairly large number of dogs that don’t have the characteristics we needed. Rather than do that and create more, we prefer to [pick from] shelters.”
The dogs that make great search dogs with SDF are the “crazy” ones–the ones pacing inside their shelter kennels, bouncing off the walls and acting completely and utterly obsessed with their toys. These are the ones with intense focus and a sharp hunting instinct. These are the ones SDF wants and needs.
“No one is going to adopt these dogs,” said Janet Reineck, director of development for SDF. “Many of them are 24 hours away from euthanasia… These dogs only care about one thing: tugging on a toy.”
Breed doesn’t really matter too much, but the vast majority of the search dogs are Labradors, Border Collies, German Shepherds and Golden Retrievers, along with mixes of these breeds. These breeds have the inherent genetic skills needed to succeed in this career. In addition, they are known to be friendly with people and other dogs, as well as smart, sturdy and athletic–all other necessary qualities in a search dog.
While it may sound easy to locate an SDF candidate, it’s not. Often times, it’s like finding a needle in a haystack.
“We have to test at least 30 [qualified] dogs to find one,” said Melville.
The ideal dog is one with extreme boldness, energy, strength, agility and motivation. He or she wants nothing more out of life than to work.
“These dogs live to [search],” said Reineck. “They have to have a job. They don’t just want to go to the beach and play ball.”
SDF members scour the shelters, follow up on leads given to them by shelter employees and breed rescue volunteers nationwide, and evaluate dogs every week. It’s difficult work, says Melville, because the organization is very choosy and there are so many great dogs at the shelters. Not all of them can be saved and not all are qualified for this type of work. So it makes it emotionally tough on the shelter scouts to leave so many behind.
Once the dog is found, it heads to a “canine prep home” family for some love, socialization and basic manners training. In a few weeks or more, it then travels to the Sundowners Training Kennel in Gilroy for an intensive six- to eight-month adventure of search-dog schooling every day. Training consists of real-life scenarios that the dogs may encounter at disasters: piles of rubble that were once buildings, mudslides, dense brush, rocks, beams, unstable foundation and water. The dogs gain experience in walking on different types of rubble, climbing fire ladders, crawling through tunnels, going places that may look frightening (high piles of rock) without hesitation, listening to commands, obeying without hesitation, and working off leash and at a great distance from their handlers. The dogs practice finding the scent of a person buried or hidden among the debris and environment, and then alerting their handler to their find. Dogs are even trained to not eat or drink anything found at the disaster site–a very handy skill when searching areas contaminated by flood water or decaying matter. The intensive training is a huge marker in setting SDF apart from other organizations, say SDF officials.
The carefully chosen handlers undergo their own intense training program, both solo and with their assigned canine partner. The handler also vows to continue daily training for the rest of the dog’s working life to keep skills sharp and ready for inevitable future disasters.
It is vital for trainers to pair the right handlers with the right dogs. The handler and dog must enjoy each other and have a special bond. Take, for example, Ron Horetski and his dog Pearl. Horetski, a Los Angeles County Fire Department captain in the city of El Monte with 22 years experience, paired up with Pearl, a black Labrador, two years ago. Together they’ve been to numerous disasters, including the Haiti earthquake last year.
“She’s a good dog to work with,” said Horetski of his Lab who was in an animal shelter due to “hyperactivity” before being rescued in 2007. In 2010, Pearl was named “Dog of the Year” by the ASPCA. “[The organization] does an excellent job matching dogs with handlers. We have a great relationship. She’s always with me.”
Close, but not quite
Even with the very sharp screening and evaluation process, not all the dogs pulled from shelters will become certified search and rescue dogs. In fact, only about 10 out of every 100 earn their stripes and pass certification. Reasons for not passing can include a bum hip, an aversion to walking on rubble, an inability to master the right kind of bark needed to alert handlers, or the realization that the couch is a better place than a disaster site.
The SDF prides itself on its lifetime commitment to any dog pulled out of a shelter and welcomed into the program, certified or not. Dogs that do not become certified search dogs may be adopted out through a breed rescue, while others “change careers” and become drug-sniffing dogs or even “bedbug-sniffing” detective dogs. But the vast majority are trained and then adopted as pets to qualified families found by SDF. And just like with their canine disaster teams, SDF promises to be there for the life of this dog, no matter what circumstances may crop up to disable the family from keeping it.
“That is what ‘once rescued never needs to be rescued again’ means,” said Melville. “If it doesn’t work out, we’re there–kind of like a safety net under each dog.”
It takes a village
Becoming a disaster team handler is not for the uncommitted. These folks must be dedicated and devoted to not just the dog, but also each mission behind the dog. This is a 24-7 relationship with the dog going everywhere with his handler, even non-disaster related places, just in case immediate deployment to a disaster is necessary. This close relationship at all times also allows for continuous training and socialization for the dogs. The dogs live, work, sleep and eat with their handlers. As it may seem, finding qualified handlers is almost as tough as locating the dogs themselves. Last year, SDF received 75 handler applications in Los Angeles.
Six were chosen.
While “civilians” are not automatically excluded in this process, it is often very difficult to fulfill all the requirements needed to become a handler unless the person is a first responder with a flexible schedule and employer support, such as the case with firefighters.
With the training operation so spread out among different facilities, SDF realized the need to have a centralized location where all of the training, from the very start to ongoing maintenance, can be held. This year, the National Training Center, set on 125 acres of land in Santa Paula, Calif., will begin to fulfill that need. Dogs will be housed and trained there while facing a variety of ever-changing and stimulating scenarios. Teams will congregate at the facility to further their skills. Other search teams not part of SDF will also be invited to the center in an effort to further improve search dogs as a group. Construction on the $14.5 million project begins this year, with operations scheduled to commence in 2012.
The places you’ll go
SDF dogs and handlers can be called to a disaster anywhere in the world. In the past, they’ve been to the sites of train derailments, mudslides, terrorist attacks, tornadoes, hurricanes, car crashes, earthquakes and building collapses. Such incidents include the recent Mexico earthquake, last year’s Haiti earthquake, a gas explosion in Sacramento, a train wreck in La Canada Flintridge, Calif., an Albany, N.Y., house explosion, Hurricane Rita, Hurricane Katrina, a bluff collapse in San Diego and the floods of New York.
Perhaps the best-known case of search dogs working within a disaster zone was after the World Trade Center attack on Sept. 11, 2001. Out of 33 FEMA teams there at Ground Zero, 13 were from SDF. It put this group on the map, said Reineck.
Search dog teams are also utilized on a local level, such as with car crashes, train derailments and missing-persons cases.
Why dogs?
A dog can do so many things humans cannot, and do them quicker. Their physical abilities are indisputable. They can search for hours and hours, very quickly clearing an area by getting into small spaces and crawling up large piles of rubble, all while still wagging their tails. “They are trained to do a special task–to detect live human scent,” said Horetski. “That’s why we have the dogs. They’re a tool.”
But these search dogs also offer those anxiously awaiting word on lost loved ones some hope and peace in a chaotic situation.
“The dog says to them, ‘there’s still life,'” said Reineck. “Dogs have this extremely therapeutic effect on everybody.”
These dogs, once tossed away or relinquished by overwhelmed and under-prepared owners, faced a grim future in our nation’s shelter system. But thanks to SDF, not only did these dogs get a second chance at life, but they passed it forward by giving people a second chance at their own lives. Where some people may have seen “hyper” or “out of control” shelter dogs, SDF saw lifesavers with the ability to locate, save and heal.
by: Kyra Kirkwood