Print
Oct 10, 2008 12:06 am US/Pacific
Unwanted Bay Area Dogs Become Lifesavers
OAKLAND (CBS 5) ―
Every year, thousands of dogs end up at Bay Area animal shelters. While some get adopted, many don't. But one group is turning some of those dogs destined for death, into lifesavers.
Sad faces greet you at animal shelters across California. These are dogs that - at least for now - nobody wants.
One of the main reasons pooches are placed in the pound: misbehavior.
"They don't do well sitting in your back yard, they don't do well with little kids because they are just very very rambunctious dogs," said Marin County Fire Captain Jim Boggeri. "They need a job and they need to get out and run and do this job."
Giving these unwieldy dogs a job that suits their personalities is what the National Disaster Search Dog Foundation does.
"Everybody else's trash is my treasure," is the way National Disaster Search Dog Foundation Canine Manager Karen Klingberg puts it.
Klingberg scours shelters for dogs that can't make it as pets but might make it as disaster-scene searchers and rescuers.
"This is where your high-energy, your driven fence jumper, pulling, untrained dogs end up. And to me, those are like 'yeah'," she said.
After successfully passing a battery of tests, dogs that are sometimes just hours away from being put down at a shelter are enrolled in a six-to eight-month certification course.
Huck is one of those dogs in training. He labors over a horizontal ladder, trying to make sure his hind legs find the rungs.
Pluis Davern, National Disaster Search Dog Foundation's lead trainer, explained, "A dog that is worried about his footing, when things are moving or things are uncomfortable, then he's going to be thinking about his feet and never about searching for the victim."
Huck is put to the ultimate test when CBS 5's Simon Perez hides in a barrel buried under a pile of palettes in the corner of a two-acre lot.
At first Huck is way off course. Then he gets closer, but is still searching the wrong pile. Before long he is at the right pile of debris. That exemplifies the determination and effort urban search and rescue dogs must have.
Marin County Fire Captain Boggeri has been with his partner Recon to Hurricanes Katrina and Ike.
In the end they never rescued anyone because, they often taking days to arrive and the victims were either already saved or dead. That's why Boggeri said more dogs need to be trained, so teams can be stationed around the country closer to the next disaster.
"We have probably several million dollars in equipment [and] we have no single piece of equipment that can do search work like the canines do," Boggeri said.
The irony: it's the dogs that are least suitable for the home and most in need of rescue that often make the best rescuers.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
