Woody a member of Ohio Task Force who was deployed after September 11th.
Dogs Juno, Pepper, Rushton and Cruise have trained nearly their whole lives to become members of an elite few in this country who are certified by FEMA to be a part of their regional task force. For this Task Force their first official assignment is to find survivors of Hurricane Irene along the East Coast. The dogs can search an entire city block in less than hour — a task that could take human search team members all day. They can climb debris, sniff through holes in building, and even follow scents in flooded areas while traveling on the bow of a boat.
They are elite dogs. Ohio Task Force One which is the home to Juno, Pepper, Rushton, and Cruise is a search and rescue team based in Dayton that includes doctors, engineers, truck drivers, communications equipment technicians, and search and rescue experts. Late Monday afternoon the team received orders to proceed from Newburgh to the Albany area, where they will search houses in small communities that were hit by flash flooding.
“You have to do this purely for the love of the job because you’re not going to profit from it. It’s going to cost you dearly,” said Triplett. “It really consumes your life. You have to dedicate so much to it.”
The dogs begin training as young as 18 months and then spend about a year of intense training in order to pass the certification test. Once they are certified training doesn’t stop. They undergo at least monthly task force training sessions where they are given the task of sniffing out the scent and are celebrated when they make the find. Certification lasts three years, so search and rescue dogs usually only last six to nine years in the FEMA system and then they have to retire completely or if they are still fit and healthy can try to work as volunteers for their local police in case they need help in a search and rescue attempt.
