Rubble Rovers to the Rescue in Disasters

RICHMOND, Va. —  They squeeze into spaces barely big enough to breathe in, searching for victims of earthquakes, hurricanes or mudslides. And they do it for a dog biscuit or a pat on the head.

Search and rescue dogs, trained to pick up human scent in the air, sniff out victims before rescue crews bulldoze their way through the rubble of a natural disaster.

“We can put them into an area where we have no idea who may be lost,” says Mark A. Pennington, who helps coordinate the dog teams through the Virginia Department of Emergency Services, “and they’ll find any human being in that area.”

Actually, Pennington says the dogs are successful about 75% of the time. “They can have a bad day just like anybody else.”

The department has coordinated 148 searches in Virginia since January, including those for downed aircraft and people missing in wilderness areas.

Pennington and Ralph E. Wilfong, who heads the search and rescue division, also sent teams on earthquake missions to Mexico City in 1985, El Salvador in 1986 and Armenia last December.

Teams were sent to aid in the Puerto Rico mudslides of 1985 and most recently to help in the aftermath of Hurricane Hugo in the Carolinas. They offered to help with the San Francisco earthquake rescue, but workers managed without them.

“If it’s a very good dog, it can differentiate between a live and a dead victim,” says Pennington’s wife, Winnie, assistant program manager of the search and rescue unit.

Most dog teams adhere to standards that are being developed on the national level. Dogs used for search and rescue missions average 3 years of age and represent various breeds. They generally work until they’re about 8 or 9, but some work well into their teens.

“It used to be shepherds were the best breed,” Pennington says. “But now they’re using anything, as long as it’s a working or hunting-class dog. We have everything from mastiffs to Newfoundlands. Labrador retrievers are popular, because they’re very gentle dogs, particularly when dealing with children and old people.”

A dog must be proficient at wilderness rescues and undergo two years of training before it is ready for disaster work.

“For disaster work, they do an extensive amount of agility training for the dogs,” Winnie Pennington says. “People think a dog can automatically jump over a fence or jump through a small opening, but that’s not true. Dogs can’t naturally do that. They have to learn how to use their pads and their claws a certain way to be able to balance.”

The animals must also learn to travel in all sorts of vehicles.

“You don’t know whether you’re going to be riding in the back of a pickup truck or hoisted in by helicopter,” Pennington says. “All the dogs have to be operational--airworthy--in all modes of air transportation.”

During the Hugo mission, dogs, equipment and handlers were loaded onto a C-130 cargo plane while the engines were running full throttle.

“The dogs have to be pretty self-controlled to function in that,” he says.

But the animal is only half the story. No dog search team is complete without the handler, in most cases the dog’s owner, who is a volunteer trained and certified in rescue missions.

Each handler provides his own food, water and shelter. “We’ll provide the transportation,” Pennington says.

Handlers must be able to find their way out of the woods, survive in all sorts of weather and know first aid, because they often are the first people to reach a victim.

No dogs have been killed during a rescue, though one was hit by a car during a wilderness search.

But danger is ever present for dogs as well as handlers.

“They’re on the rubble piles along with the dogs,” Pennington says. “A lot of times they go into the buildings. In the case of an earthquake, if there’s an aftershock while they’re in the building, that’s it.”