On April 19, 1995, a bomb exploded at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people and injuring hundreds more. It remains the deadliest domestic terrorist attack in the nation’s history.
One of the search teams that responded to that event included Wilma Melville and her USAR dog Murphy. The conditions of the deployment were difficult and, at times, dangerous. Over the course of the 16-day response, 26 rescuers were hospitalized due to injuries, and one nurse was killed after being struck by falling debris.
Melville returned home to California a changed person. She had seen firsthand just how critical the need was for highly trained canine disaster search teams. But in 1995, there were not many certified canine disaster teams available for this type of response. She committed to changing that reality through the creation of the National Disaster Search Dog Foundation (SDF) the following year.
Today, SDF trains disaster response dogs and their handlers at a 145-acre facility in Santa Paula, California. Teams trained through SDF have deployed to disasters around the world, including most recently to Jamaica after Hurricane Melissa and to Central Texas after the flooding disaster last summer.
The training model at SDF is notable. The organization recruits dogs that demonstrate high energy, tenacity and boldness, making them ideal for search and rescue, but perhaps unsuitable as a family pet. After a stringent screening and testing process, 85% of the dogs will be certified and ultimately transferred to handlers after 9-12 months of onsite training at the SDF center. Those dogs that do not meet standards for disaster work are either referred to other canine training programs, such as drug interdiction or arson detection, or will be placed in a loving home.
Denise Sanders, senior director of communications and search team operations for SDF, shared that all dogs that go through the program have been rescued from shelters or other surrender situations across the United States.
“Our goal is success in placement,” Sanders shared. The organization makes the commitment that once rescued, no dog in their program will ever need to be rescued again.
At the beginning, Melville funded the organization herself and everyone who worked with her were volunteers. “She had volunteers working off of her coffee table at her home in Ojai,” Sanders recounted.
Over the years, the foundation has grown and expanded and now includes many individual and corporate donors that support the facility and a paid staff of 35 full-time employees.
“She was able to tell the story and let people know what the vision and the mission of the organization were,” Sanders explained, referring to Melville’s success in getting financial support. “People wanted to be part of it.” The foundation has never received any government funding.
At any given time, there are usually 30-40 dogs on campus. Once a dog is accepted into the program, often through a kind of video audition, SDF pays to have that dog transferred to their campus. Staff members at the center then continue to evaluate the selected dogs, not so much for skills initially but for the innate drive that is required in disaster work.
“The first part is getting to know the dogs, understanding how to connect with them,” Sanders said. “A lot of our dogs have been confined to a crate or a kennel, and really not had a lot of contact with people over time.” Through the course of the training, “you see them really starting to light up. The dogs thrive once they get it and it clicks for them. They drive the training themselves.”
Toward the end of the training period, potential handlers — primarily firefighters — start interacting with the dogs on campus. Once selected, handlers come to campus up to five times over a six-month period. They are housed onsite, up to two weeks for one session, at no cost to themselves or their organizations. During this training period, the organization is looking for good matches between dog and handler. “You can really see when one of the dogs starts gravitating toward one of the humans,” Sanders said. “You start to see that bond develop.”
At the end of the training, once a match has been made, “the dog goes home with the handler, lives with them, goes to the fire station with them when they’re on duty, and they start working toward certification together at that point.”
The foundation also provides support to handlers and their dogs for the duration of the dog’s life, providing training and paying for all canine medical expenses. Dogs and handlers return to campus every year after placement for ongoing training and support. And Sanders emphasized, “Of course, if something were to happen, the dogs can always come back to us, and we will find them another placement.”
Training for the dogs is not solely focused on disaster response skills. “We don’t just do search training,” Sanders said. “We also do direction control and agility. They go through endurance and strength training exercises. We have a full nutrition program for them. The dogs really are elite athletes, and they need to be for the work they do. But we also let them be dogs. They go out at play group and run and have fun. That is incredibly important and a huge part of our handler training program. It’s not the old days of being a working dog where work is all that you do and you’re in the kennel the rest of the time. They’re part of the team.”
Sanders has been with the National Search Dog Foundation for 17 years. A former 911 dispatcher, she has worked in several different roles with the organization. In that time, the work remains incredibly fulfilling. “Watching a dog that we’ve evaluated in the shelter, we’ve seen the potential, we’ve selected them, worked through the initial training, gotten them to where they need to be partnering with their team and see them go out the door and actually deploy to a large-scale incident — watching a dog go through that transition and transformation is truly amazing to this day. That’s why we’re here. That’s what we do.”
