National Disaster Search Dog Foundation

A historic “Super” El Niño is actively developing in the tropical Pacific Ocean, with climate experts currently suggesting there’s better than a two-thirds chance of it becoming one of the strongest such events on record since 1950; a powerful warming pattern peaking this fall and lasting through the winter, driving massive shifts in global weather, raising the potential for heavy rainfall and flooding here and around the world. 

At the other extreme, projecting the likelihood of wildfires in California and elsewhere has become a controversial area for wagering in the prediction markets. The fear is that placing bets on the likelihood of a wildfire could create incentives for arsonists or encourage people to influence active fires, and this is not to mention gaming around  major accidents like train wrecks, or – God forbid – the earthquake “Big One” along the San Andreas Fault. 

But whatever awaits in the coming times, National Disaster Search Dog Foundation (SDF) is standing at the ready, with teams of canines and their first responder handlers capable of being deployed on very short notice. 

Or rather, the canine-human teams that are placed in fire, sheriff, and police departments and other first responder organizations around the country are set to go, after having been thoroughly put through their paces in anticipation of such disasters at SDF’s National Training Center in a rural area in Santa Paula.

SDF trains dogs, mostly shelter rescues themselves, to become disaster search partners for firefighters and first responders. The dogs’ sole mission – the object of their rigorous, reward-based training – is locating survivors buried in the wreckage and rubble that is the aftermath of a natural (or other) disaster. While the Training Center itself has been in operation for just shy of a decade, the National Disaster Search Dog Foundation has been doing the work for 30 years, formed by its founder, Wilma Melville, in the desperate aftermath of a terrorist bombing in 1995. Melville was shocked and frustrated at the severe deficit of certified canine disaster search teams poring over  the wreckage in the wake of the terrorist bombing that destroyed Oklahoma City’s Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. 

If a disaster has been in the headlines in recent years, you can bet that the prized pooches and their human partners have been on the scene in the vast majority of them. Already this year, SDF-trained teams have been deployed 11 times in response to situations as varied as Tropical Storm Bertha in Texas, a structure fire in Lancaster, CA, collapses of tunnels (Santa Ana) and a structure (Newport News, Virginia), a house explosion in Rochester, NY, a mudslide in San Clemente, and, of course, the Venezuela earthquakes. 

While the practice of helping responders find trapped, living victims is of course the emotionally magnetic appeal of SDF, the real work is done during the year-long training in the woods of Santa Paula. 

That process starts with finding capable canines. The hyperactive, hyper toy-focused house pet that can prove a bit too energetic for a family is just the canine persona SDF seeks. Those dogs’ unique and energetic devotion to searching and playing makes them perfect for the SDF team. 

“Those dogs that are just too much for a family just need to channel that canine energy and that drive into a job,” said Denise Sanders, senior director of Communications and Search Team Operations for the National Disaster Search Dog Foundation. “That toy obsession and laser-like focus that doesn’t allow them to enjoy being a pet? Those traits can sometimes mean they’re meant for more; a different life that they can thrive in, that of a search dog. It’s typically hunting and herding breeds that show that they can use their nose and really enjoy hunting for the toy.”

Mostly the dogs are found at shelters, many of which enjoy longstanding partnerships with SDF. But anyone whose energized pet is becoming difficult to deal with is encouraged to contact the organization, skipping the shelter middleman. 

“If somebody has or knows of someone with a dog that’s just over the top crazy, completely toy obsessed, and they can’t handle it anymore, please have them fill out the application,” Sanders said. “We will want to take a look because that dog may be a very good candidate.” 

SDF takes that energetic toy obsession – which may well be an unwelcome handful for a family seeking a calming canine companion – and channels it into training the former pet to be a search dog. Once paired (effectively for life), the human/canine team works together through the rigorous, calamity-specific rescue scenarios whose elaborate, large scale set pieces define the 145-acre National Training Center in Santa Paula. The whole key is that while the disasters are an emotional challenge for the human responders, the dogs see it as just another electrifying game of finding their favorite toy. The search for survivors desperately clinging to life is a game these lifesaving dogs adore playing, which is why they’re willing to go for hours at full energy.

“The dogs need to be as ready as possible, which is why preparation is paramount,” Sanders said. “The idea is to provide a number of different scenarios and experiences to the dog and the handler together, prior to being needed to deploy. Urban environments are so complex, we aren’t able to replicate every possible scenario that may come up. But when the teams get to where they’re going, they’ve at least had experiences from their training here that gave them an idea of where to start and how to build from there. They aren’t trying to figure it out as they go. They have something to pull from.”

The humans need the extensive training, too. 

“They learn to understand how to best utilize their canine partner and teams’ skill set to tackle this problem at a disaster site, knowing the magnitude of it and that lives are at stake,” Sanders said. 

Once the dog and devoted handler are partnered up and fully prepared, they’ll join a roster of more than 100 active search teams placed with 15 different task forces. That includes one team here in Santa Barbara that’s part of the Los Angeles County Task Force. Eric Gray and his current canine search companion, Dee, deployed to Venezuela most recently. Gray also worked at the Montecito Mudslides back in 2018 with his first search dog Riley. His being stationed here means we’re more fortunate than most in having a team nearby available at a moment’s notice. 

“This team is right there in your backyard and they’re ready to go,” Sanders said. 

Hopefully, they won’t be needed this winter.  

Visit www.searchdogfoundation.org