San Diego Union Tribune
At the sound of a whistle, a black-and-white border collie whined excitedly before carefully navigating the rungs of a 5-foot ladder.
It’s a feat that most dogs would be afraid to attempt. But for Martini, the skill is one of several he must master as one of San Diego County’s newest urban search and rescue dogs.
Yesterday, Martini and three other new additions to the Urban Search and Rescue California Task Force 8 took a break from training and demonstrated abilities that may one day save lives.
The four canines have spent the past year learning to climb through rubble, navigate slippery slopes and crawl through small spaces so they can find survivors in a disaster.
“A 10,000-square-foot pile that a dog can search in 10 minutes takes us an hour,” said San Diego firefighter Aide Barbat, Martini’s handler. “They have no fear.”
Martini, Fletch, Stella and Bella were rescued from shelters by the National Disaster Search Dog Foundation and are now living with firefighters from San Diego, La Mesa and Lakeside.
“These four-legged firefighters will be tremendous assets,” said San Diego City Councilman Todd Gloria during a news conference yesterday at a fire training facility on Harbor Drive.
They will join four dogs already on the San Diego-based volunteer unit, which is made up of firefighters, engineers and medical personnel from around the county. The task force, created by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, is one of 28 such teams across the nation ready to offer immediate aid during a crisis.
In the past, dogs from San Diego have responded to the Oklahoma City bombing, the collapse of the World Trade Center and Hurricane Katrina.
Locally, they’ve helped search for victims after the Mount Soledad landslide and bluff collapses.
Yesterday, two of the veteran dogs were put to work when the third story of a storage building collapsed at 16th and Market streets. The dogs searched for victims but found no one.
“They don’t just sit around the station in recliners watching TV every day,” said task force member Steve Swaney, a captain with the El Cajon Fire Department. “They have a job, and they have to work.”
The dogs are trained to ignore smells from clothing, food and deceased victims and to find the scent of survivors.
But to the dogs, work is more like play. Their handlers use toys and positive reinforcement whenever a dog completes a task.
After Stella found a firefighter hiding in a tube yesterday, the black Labrador retriever happily tugged on a length of old fire hose pulled from the firefighter’s pocket.
Search and rescue dogs generally work for eight to 10 years before retiring and becoming a firefighter’s pet.
By Kristina Davis, Union-Tribune Staff Writer