By Tillie Fong
Rocky Mountain News
Copyright 2007 Denver Publishing Company
 
LAKEWOOD, Colo. — Four K-9 teams from Colorado will help search for survivors in Greensburg, Kan., where a tornado devastated much of the town last Friday.

"(The dogs) were very, very excited," said Cindy Matthews, spokeswoman for Colorado Task Force One.

"They want to get out there and find some people."

A call came from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to the task force at 2 p.m. Tuesday, requesting that K-9 teams be packed and ready to move out in four hours. Four teams left Tuesday. They are expected to stay in Kansas for 10 to 12 days.

They join Coloradan Pete Bakersky, a member of the regional Denver FEMA office, who left Monday for Kansas. Bakersky is in charge of FEMA's search and rescue operations in Greensburg.

Colorado Task Force One is one of 28 task forces around the country with K-9 teams that respond to natural disasters. Colorado has 12 such teams trained to FEMA standards.

"They're trained to search in debris piles, which is not natural canine environment," said Roxanne Dunn, the K-9 coordinator for Colorado Task Force One.

"They alert on live human scent and give a bark when they find someone. Police have 'find them and bite them' dogs, but we have 'find them and lick them' dogs. They're people friendly."

Todd Gilgren with the Arvada Fire Department will travel with the dogs and serve as the search team manager.