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: ABCNews.com, Mar 16, 2010

Dogs, used for companions, search and rescue efforts and to aid the handicapped, have added parachuting to their list of skills.

Austria’s explosive sniffing dog joined NATO forces in Norway’s Operation Cold Response exercises. Strapped to his handler, the dog plunged 10,000 feet from a transport plane over Narvik, Norway.

The Austrians’ Belgian Shepherd dogs appeared to be perfectly calm both before and during the jump, according to a reporter with Central European News agency.

“They don’t perceive height difference the same way humans do, so that doesn’t worry them. They’re more likely to be bothered by the roar of the engines, but once we’re on the way down, that doesn’t matter and they just enjoy the view.” One handler explained to CEN.

Some 8,500 soldiers from 14 nations participated in Norway’s Operation Cold Response. The three-week exercise ran from February 17 to March 4 in Northern Norway and included special operation forces, conventional forces, NATO units, and marines.

Dogs, just like their human colleagues, are regarded as valued team members and aren’t put into situations that could prove unnecessarily dangerous.

One operation trooper even said the new four-legged trainee “has a much cooler head than most recruits.”

Source: news.medill.northwestern.edu , Feb 17, 2010

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: TimesOnline, Nov 12, 2009

An Australian special forces explosives detection dog has been found after going missing in action in Afghanistan 14 months ago.

Sabi, a four-year-old black labrador, was returned to the Australian base at Tarin Kowt after an American soldier found her wandering in a remote area of the southern province of Oruzgan last week.

The US soldier, named only as John, knew that his Australian counterparts had lost their canine companion during a gun battle between Australian, US and Afghan special forces and Taleban insurgents in south east Afghanistan last September. Nine Australian soldiers, including Sabi’s handler, were wounded during the assault and Sabi went missing.

Sabi, who was on her second tour of duty in Afghanistan, was officially declared missing in action. It is not known how she survived the past year, presumably eluding the Taleban, before being discovered by the soldier, who realised that she was not a stray dog because she understood certain commands.

Her trainer made sure that the dog was Sabi with a tennis ball test.

“I nudged a tennis ball to her with my foot and she took it straight away. It’s a game we used to play over and over during her training,” the trainer said. “It’s amazing, just incredible, to have her back.”

Trooper Mark Donaldson, a recipient of the Victoria Cross who is currently in London after a meeting with the Queen, was at the battle where Sabi went missing.

“She’s the last piece of the puzzle,” he said. “Having Sabi back gives some closure for the handler and the rest of us that served with her in 2008. It’s a fantastic morale booster for the guys.”

Yesterday Sabi was feted by US General Stanley McChrystal and the Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, who met the dog during an overnight trip to visit the troops in Afghanistan.

“Sabi is back home in one piece and [is] a genuinely nice pooch as well,” Mr Rudd said.

The Government is now working on returning Sabi to Australia after a period in quarantine.

Dogs have become loyal companions to the thousands of troops stationed in war zones around the world.

In August British soldiers were saddened to leave behind Sandbag, a sandy-coloured retriever who had been born on the base at Umm Qasr in Iraq, after Downing Street turned down a request to repatriate the pet.

Last year US Sergeant Gwen Beberg created headlines with her campaign to take a stray dog back to America when she returned home from Iraq. Sergeant Beberg had rescued Ratchet from burning rubbish in Baghdad.

Sabi is the first dog known to have become lost in battle — and returned home.

Source: AJC.com, Nov 7, 2009

The Atlanta Humane Society added $5,000 to the reward fund for information that leads to the arrest of the person who  shot and killed a Griffin Police Department German Shepherd and then dumped the dog in a ditch beside a Lamar County Road.

The dog’s handler, Griffin police Cpl. Chad Moxon, and his family had already put up $1,000  so the reward now stands at $6,000 with the Humane Society’s offering.

After getting home from the  firing range on Monday, Moxon discovered Jimi and his dog Yeager  missing from their kennel at his house on a dirt road in Lamar County.

“The gate looked like it had been tampered with, and there were tire tracks leading up to the gate,  going across my back yard,” Moxon said Friday. “I can’t  say for 100 percent that someone came in there and took the dogs, but I do believe that’s what happened. ”

Moxon said he searched all Monday night and most of Tuesday night for the German Shepherds. He handed out about 300 flyers and followed up on several false alarms from people who thought they had  spotted them.

Moxon got a call Wednesday morning that Jimi may have been found in a  ditch on Rock Quarry Road near the Monroe County line. Moxon said there was little blood at the scene so he suspects the 3-year-old dog was dumped there after he was shot in the side. The vet found buckshot in the wound.

“I just sat down in the ditch for the next 30 minutes. I didn’t have the energy to get him out,” Moxon said.

Shortly after he got home a neighbor called with the news that Yeager was in his yard.

“I almost didn’t recognize him,” Moxon said. “He was badly beaten.

“Hes still at home recovering,” Moxon said of his 2-year-old dog, also a German Shepherd. ” I’m hoping he’ll recover in the next few days.”

Jimi was a “multi purpose” dog, trained at detecting drugs and explosives and tracking people. It’s a common practice for police handlers to take their assigned dogs home even though they belong to the departments.

“This is the first time I’ve come to work without him in two years,” Moxon said.

Anyone with information should call Lamar County Sheriff’s Office at 770-358-5159 or 770-358-8881.