Mountaintop Natural Pets

Source: AFP.com, August 30,2010

TARQUINIA, Italy — This summer, Italy’s special squad of rescue workers were again chalking up success: some 300 dogs ready to help save lives on dozens of Italian beaches.

In early August in Tarquinia, a town about 100 kilometers (60 miles) north of Rome, the dogs and their human partners saved on the same day two girls, who had fallen off their boat and two others, who had fallen off an inflatable raft.

The labradors, golden retrievers and Newfoundlands trained by the Italian School for Rescue Dogs (http://www.waterrescuedogs.com/) are credited with saving more than 100 lives, including a dozen this year alone.

“Compared to the rest of the world, the school is the only one that systematically monitors beaches every summer with human-canine units,” Roberto Gasbarri, the school’s coordinator for central-southern Italy, told AFP.

The teams work in most of Italy’s 20 regions, even landlocked ones such as northern Trentino Alto-Adige, where rescuers monitor lakes.

Their school, financed by local governments like regions and municipalities, is recognised by Italy’s civil protection and coordinated by local coast guards around the country.

“It’s been five years now that we’ve been relying on the school,” said Lamberto Alessandro, the head of the coastguard in Tarquinia.

“Their help is very valuable to us and they are absolutely trustworthy,” he said, as dogs in lifejackets leapt off boats for practice runs.

“The five tests to get the license are pretty difficult. You need to swim almost as fast as your dog, which is not as easy as it sounds,” said Paola de Santis, 36, who began training this year with her five-year-old lab Teo.

The rescuer certificate for dogs and owners requires one year of training both on the ground and on water, and the teams must train and pass tests each year before the summer season.

The next training round is set to start in mid-September.

Techniques include beach starts with lifesaver in hand or sea rescues from a raft or a helicopter.

“We developed a special system that can allow us to save three people at a time,” Gasbarri said. “The (human) rescuer ties two people to the dog and is then free to take care of the third person,” Gasbarri said.

“That way we avoid tiring back-and-forths,” he added.

For lifeguards, the most dangerous moment in the rescue is bringing back the victim.

In this phase, “the dog is a real engine that helps bring the person back even if he or she resists or is agitated,” Gasbarri said.

Gasbarri said the dogs are never scared of the water and tides as for them, rescues and training are much like a game.

“There are some very dangerous areas, … and when there are large waves and a strong current, only a dog can intervene since, unlike humans, they don’t feel fear in dangerous situations,” said Mauro Mazzola, the mayor of Tarquinia.

The golden retrievers, labradors and Newfoundlands that the school recruits are docile and calm animals and their physical characteristics make them better rescuers.
“They are better swimmers than others because their coat lets out water quickly and they have webbed paws, which allows them to push water behind them and swim faster than other dogs,” de Santis said as her dog Teo shook the water off his coat in apparent approval.
After rescues, especially for children, a dog is a calming presence.

“The patting, kisses and play really help lessen the child’s shock after the danger,” Gasbarri said.

Source: Associated Press, June 16, 2010

Local dog does good

A new police dog has learned an old trick — tracking down a parole violator outside New York City on its first day on the job.

Bloodhound Tank Tebow (TEE’-boh) is handled by Officer Curtis Hahne (hayn) in Newburgh, 60 miles north of New York.

Tank was donated to police Monday and began his career with the officer Tuesday. Two hours later police were dispatched to an apartment complex on a tip the parole violator was there. But by the time police arrived the man had disappeared.

Police say Tank followed the man’s scent into a commercial area, through woods, across streets and into another apartment complex several blocks away. They say the man surrendered without incident.

Tank is certified by the National Police Bloodhound Association. He’ll also be used to find missing people.

Source: NYDailyNews.com, Jan 30, 2010

The $50 annual membership fee at the Mercer/Houston Dog Run in Greenwich Village usually goes toward buying garbage bags, hose nozzles and swimming pools for the doggies.

But last week, members of the private dog run proudly delivered a $2,500 check to the city, and asked that the money be allocated to the city’s K-9 Urban Search and Rescue teams.

“Since we’re a group united by dogs, we wanted our little community to make a difference,” said Beth Gottlieb, the dog run’s president, whose collie, Romeo, is one of the run’s 300 waggy-tailed members.

Days after an earthquake devastated Haiti, Gottlieb spent a sleepless night thinking how the dog run could help in the rescue efforts.

She was surprised – and delighted – by the quick response to her e-mail asking board members to approve a donation to canine search and rescue.

“Everyone was immediately on board and kept upping the ante, asking, ‘Can’t we give more?’” Gottlieb said.

“We wrote a check, brought it downtown and hoped for the best.”

In fact, the money was donated through the Mayor’s Fund to Advance NYC and will go to the city’s 280-member K-9 Urban Search and Rescue team led by the Office of Emergency Management.

OEM spokesperson Chris Gilbride said the funds would go toward training and equipment for the dogs.

NYPD K-9 Officer Scott Mateyaschuk, who just returned from Haiti with his canine companion Aragon, was grateful for the group’s generosity.

“That’s really an honor,” he said. “Anything that will help us do our job is greatly appreciated.”

Mateyaschuk and Aragon, a handsome jet-black 5-year-old German shepherd, were among the city’s four K-9 search and rescue teams that returned from Haiti this week.

Aragon, along with Caesar, Hunter and Storm, searched rubble piles in Port-au-Prince and were used to help locate survivors amid the debris.

The dogs – trained to detect the scent of live bodies, not human remains – also helped provide closure to people who waited to know if a loved one was dead or alive.

Mateyaschuk says finding a victim is a reward for the highly motivated dogs and they “don’t stop until they drop.”

Even the razor wire fence that ripped through Aragon’s back didn’t stop the agile dog from searching the pile at a Haitian children’s school.

All four dogs are assigned to the NYPD Emergency Service Unit, which has eight K-9 teams.

It is the only police unit in the country that has the dual purpose of using canines as patrol – and nabbing perpetrators – and urban rescue.

It takes about a year-and-a-half to train and certify the $6,000 dogs, who hail from the Czech Republic, with Homeland Security. They train at facilities around the country and at Fresh Kills in Staten Island, where their handlers take turns burying one another alive.

Earlier this week, the heroic canines and their handlers were among the 80 members of the Urban Search and Rescue Team honored at a ceremony at City Hall.

Mayor Bloomberg awarded each dog with a special key to the city. But they were quickly gobbled up.

The all-natural ginger dog biscuits were donated by the Beggin’ Dog Bakery in Staten Island, where baker Teresa Palumbo was thrilled to create the custom-ordered treats for the canine heroes.

Mateyaschuk said Aragon agreed. “He thought it was delicious.”

Source: PalmBeachPost.net, Jan 21, 2010

International heroes are coming in all varieties in Haiti — even on four legs.

A black-and-white border collie named Blaze raised his snout into the air, searching for the scents of life amid the stench of death.

And then Blaze made a dedicated scramble over concrete rubble, weaving past twisted rebar and the remnants of someone else’s shattered life toward one of the few walls still standing in a row of decimated houses atop a mountain village in Port-au-Prince.

The dog pawed and sniffed and barked tirelessly at the wall as Steve Driscoll, his handler, came rushing.

Driscoll, a Palm Beach County firefighter and paramedic, shouted to the rest of the Miami-Dade County-based search crew that they had a survivor.

The crew punched a small hole in the 8-inch wall, shined a light and found a 2-year-old girl in a concrete bubble, in dusty jeans and mustard yellow shirt, barely conscious.

She had been entombed for six days. On Wednesday, she went home with her parents, barely a scratch on her.

“That dog performed a miracle,” said Louie Fernandez, a spokesman for Miami-Dade’s elite search-and-rescue team Task Force-1, in a phone call from Haiti. “The rescue of that little girl lifted the spirits of our whole team here.”

Even in the face of sobering numbers — tens of thousands dead — rescuers give thanks for small miracles like the one performed by a man and his dog.

Driscoll, 47, has seen his share of lives pulled from the jaws of death in his 19 years as a county firefighter and paramedic. He has seen the worst of tragedies as a FEMA-certified rescue dog handler and trainer for 12 years, working an 11-day stint in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina.

But he and the 13 members of his search team had never seen anything like Blaze’s find on Monday. They applauded as the toddler was pulled out, given new life.

“I couldn’t believe it when I saw her,” Driscoll said. “It was a pretty overwhelming feeling. Every eye on those 13 was teary-eyed.”

Driscoll gets only a few minutes on a satellite phone every other day, but he used all of his time to call his wife of 16 years, Lori, a physician’s assistant back in Loxahatchee, to tell her the news about the little girl.

She laughed, choked up, as he told her hurriedly how their 8-year-old dog — he calls Blaze “intense” and she “driven” — barked immediately at the deceptive concrete wall.

Lori’s mind went to their watchful family pet, one of fewer than 100 dogs in America to achieve FEMA’s highest level of certification, and recalls the puppy that herded the couple’s two daughters, now 6 and 9, around their living room.

“He watches out for everybody,” she said.

The guys at Fire Station 22 can attest to that. Blaze comes to work with Driscoll on every shift. He runs on the firehouse’s treadmill, and the other firefighters take turns playing hide-and-seek, climbing ladders and squeezing into cabinets, daring Blaze to find them.

“The dog’s amazing,” said Capt. Robert Cusell, one of the shift commanders. “You have to see it to believe it.”

And that dedication reminds them of Driscoll. The former high school football player and world-class water skier still holds the academy’s record for doing more than 2,700 continuous sit-ups.

Officially, Palm Beach County Fire Rescue doesn’t have a K-9 search and rescue program. And the “higher-ups” don’t know that Blaze works every shift at Station 22 and sleeps in his own crate, Battalion Chief Nigel Baker said.

“But I’ll personally vouch for him,” Baker said. “That dog’s family.”

Source: ElPasoTimes.com, Dec 14, 2009

The family of Robert Sumrall, the rescued hiker, said Monday he is awake but still not talking.

They expect Sumrall will be transferred to an acute-care hospital today after 10 days of intensive care at University Medical Center.

Sumrall, 67, vanished with his dog Zulu, a black Labrador retriever mix, in the Black Range of the Gila National Forest more than two weeks ago.

After seven days in the frigid mountains of west-central New Mexico, two ranchers found Sumrall with 3-year-old Zulu on the east side of the Mimbres Valley near San Lorenzo, N.M. Sumrall was lying down semi-conscious with Zulu on top of him, but as the two people approached them, Zulu ran away and is still missing in the mountains.

Sumrall’s wife, Jan Sumrall, said it is taking him a while to recover, but she believes the frostbites on his body and feet and his body functions are looking a lot better. Jan Sumrall is a former city representative.

“Just the thought of him getting better each day keeps me going,” she said.

Jan Sumrall said doctors have not said anything about long-term effects her husband could suffer.

Because of the tracheotomy he had, Robert Sumrall cannot talk yet, said Chris Hoggard, his son-in-law.

As Robert Sumrall recovers, his family and the Animal Rescue League aren’t giving up on the search for Zulu.

“We are confident that we will get our little girl back,” Jan Sumrall said.

The disappearance of Zulu broke the hearts of many animal lovers in the area who have followed the story. She has been called a hero, a savior and the loyal friend who helped Sumrall stay warm in wintry conditions in the mountains.El Paso Times blogger Lorraine Kubala started an account to reward whoever brings back Zulu. But Cissy McAndrew, who owns the property where Sumrall was found, said that hikers are trespassing and that the search should be left to the professionals, the Animal Rescue League.

The group installed live traps and took food and clothes from Robert Sumrall to the search area last week. The efforts yielded no clues on Sunday however, said Loretta Hyde, founder of the Animal Rescue League.

Hyde went Sunday with another dog and did not find Zulu. They have also posted flyers in bed and breakfasts and gas stations around the area, but Hyde said the area where Zulu could be is large.

“It’s very discouraging because that place is so huge,” Hyde said. “It’s just wilderness. Every corner you go around it’s the same thing.”

Hyde said that it is hard to say whether Zulu is alive because of the threat wild animals pose in the forest. But doctors said Labradors can be strong enough to resist the cold and wildlife.

Source: Dreamdogs.com, October 27, 2009

Over 4,900 people have joined a Facebook campaign to set free a rescue dog in what they claim is a miscarriage of justice.

The four-and-a-half year old Border Collie is the best qualified search and rescue dog we have in Britain, being the only dog we have that has passed the International Rescue Dog Organisation’s readiness for mission test.  Darcy is trained to rescue victims of both natural disasters and terrorist attacks by finding them in even the greatest amount of rubble.

However, today she is not on duty but is stuck in a kennel on a six-month quarantine term where experts fear she may even lose her sharpened skills.  This is her reward for having joined other rescue dogs in Indonesia to rescue the victims of an earthquake that killed hundreds of people.

The other dogs on that same mission are now back in their homeland serving their people, but not our Darcy.  The strict quarantine terms of returning to Britain mean this rescue dog was placed in a kennel in Colchester on the 8th October and is set to stay there for six months.  This is despite her rabies booster vaccination given just two weeks before she left for her mission.

The quarantine term applies to Indonesia because it is not part of the list of approved countries in the official Pet Travel Scheme.

It is not just the general public demanding her release but also MPs, and the Essex Fire Service that spent thousands of pounds of their budget on training Darcy is running a Free Darcy campaign.

John Ball is the dog handler for Darcy and said:

“These rules are outdated and go against what current science tells us.  No dog that has been vaccinated has caught rabies, and the incubation period can be up to two years anyway so the six months quarantine is an arbitrary figure.  I can only hope the Government will listen to reason and change the law.”

A spokesperson for Defra (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) commented:

“This long-standing rule is in place to protect the UK from the incursion of serious diseases such as rabies, which has been reported recently in Indonesia.”

Source: Associated Press, May 29, 2009

WENATCHEE — Blewett the black Labrador retriever, a dog rescued from the the woods himself, knows what it’s like to need a little help so it probably was no surprise when he rescued another dog Monday.