Search and Rescue Dog Teams from the United States Deployed to Nepal

Making up part of the U.S. contingent that were deployed to Nepal on Sunday night were these six dogs and their handlers from the Search Dog Foundation from Ojai, California.

The dogs and their humans will assist in rescue and recovery efforts in that earthquake stricken country. The six teams from the SDF are part of that amazing organization’s canine-firefighter volunteers who have assisted in numerous international and national recovery efforts since their founding.

Established almost twenty years ago by Wilma Melville, a retired schoolteacher from New Jersey, who  with her Lab Murphy, in 1995 was one of the only 15 Advanced Certified teams in the entire U.S. who worked at the bombed Oklahoma City Federal Building. That experience gave Melville the “determination to find a better way to create highly skilled canine search teams,” so she established SDF the following year in 1996.

SDF is the only non-profit in the U.S. dedicated to finding and training rescued dogs and partnering them with firefighters. They recruit dogs from shelters and breed rescue groups, then provide the dogs with professional training, and match them with firefighters and other first responders who then go on to find people trapped in the wreckage following disasters.

They go to great lengths to find canines with the exceptional characteristics required in a search dog: intense drive, athleticism, energy and focus. The traits that can often make dogs unsuitable as family pets and land them in a shelter—intense energy and extreme drive—are exactly the qualities required in a search dog.

SDF offers these talented animals what they crave: a job! The dogs (primarily Labs, Golden Retrievers, Border Collies and mixes) are recruited from animal shelters and rescue groups throughout the Western states—some just hours away from being euthanized.

 A happy ending for all… as these dogs are transformed from rescued to rescuer. The teams are provided at no cost to fire departments or taxpayers, and with no government funding.  Do think of donating to this worthwhile organization so they can continue in their mission to help disaster victims.

Watch the video to see the teams walking up to their plane. We wish them, and the people of Nepal well.

These are the six handlers and their dogs from SDF who are assisting in recovery efforts in Nepal.

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