The Dogs of 9/11, Part 1

"We Need a Dog Over Here!'

New Statue in East Orange, New Jersey, Dedicated to the Dogs of 9/11

I Remember It Very Clearly.

It was a mild, sunny Tuesday in early September. I was in my studio apartment on Second Avenue, near 70th Street, eating breakfast and watching the morning news. My Dalmatian, Freddie, was in the bedroom, asleep in his crate, with the door open. Mike Sheehan—a former New York City cop, who’d since become a reporter for Fox 5 news—was stationed downtown outside City Hall covering the mayoral election.

Suddenly a loud explosion came from behind him. The cameraman panned over to one of the towers at the World Trade Center, partially visible in the background. After a few tense moments, and some shaky camera work, Sheehan, who didn’t know what had happened, but who was clearly shaken, threw it back to the newsroom.

The time was 8:46.

After a break, the Fox 5 anchors reported an unconfirmed rumor that a private commuter jet had apparently “lost its bearing” and accidentally crashed into one of the towers at the World Trade Center. My first thought was that it hadn’t been an accident, that the same crew of terrorists who’d tried to blow up one of the towers with a truck bomb in 1992 were back with what I felt had been their inept, “Three Stooges act.”

I took Freddie out to meet some of his doggie pals—Roarke (a boxer) and Cassie (a miniature schnauzer)—for our morning play session. When I got to Cassie’s building on 57th Street I learned that both towers had been hit, not by commuter jets, but by big airliners. There was also an unconfirmed rumor that another jet had crashed into the Pentagon and that the attacks had been committed by Osama Bin Laden’s crew.

Still, I thought, the most damage they could have done was on a couple of floors. Yes, some unfortunate souls would have died. But everything would get back to normal soon.

The dogs and I played for a while in the red-dirt softball field under the 59th Street Bridge, then I took Cassie home, then Roark and Freddie and I headed north up Second Avenue. By this time the traffic had jammed to a standstill. Police sirens were useless at getting the cars and taxis moving, so the cops were actually driving up on the sidewalks. After we walked a few blocks, I saw dozens of people gathering around the front window of a nail salon so I stopped to see what was going on. There was a TV mounted on the back wall. The images on the screen showed the slow-motion collapse of one of the towers. I felt like I’d just had the wind knocked out me, my knees buckled, and I finally came to grips with the seriousness of what had happened.

We Are All New Yorkers Now

Like everybody else in New York (and much of the rest of the world), I was glued to the TV for the rest of the day. Finally, at about 6 in the evening, I took Freddie out for his evening walk. We saw two long, very long lines of people as far as the eye could see in both directions—many covered in a coating of gray dust—walking almost single file, plodding along, zombie-like, headed uptown. The subways and buses were out of service; so were the taxi-cabs. These poor souls had to walk all the way from the lowest reaches of Manhattan to the Upper East Side, Spanish Harlem, and beyond. They seemed to be in shock, or just dead tired, or both.

Those are some of my personal recollection of 9/11/2001.

Then came the rescue efforts, the media coverage, endless footage of the dust clouds, slow-motion plane crashes, the constant news reports, conjectures, and a lingering feeling of chaos.

It wasn’t long before dozens of search-and-rescue crews showed up at Ground Zero, eager yet serious teams of dogs and handlers from all over the country. Unfortunately, there was almost no one to rescue. There were, for the most part, only bodies or body parts to be found. So after three weeks or so of steadfast commitment, yielding little or no results, most of the 350+ search-and-rescue teams packed up their hopes and their equipment, and went home.

As one press release put it: “The mettle shown by these dogs and their human halves has affected the world in a way that should not be underestimated.”

Here are some heartfelt comments from people who worked with those amazing animals.

All They Want to Do Is Work Hard and Love You

“The site is very difficult for the dogs. They’re crawling on their bellies and squeezing through things. It’s incredible to watch.” —Sharon Gattas, Riverside Urban Search and Rescue

“They will search endlessly for that scent until they are called off.” —Lori Mohr, National Disaster Search Dog Foundation

“All they really want to do is work hard and love you. How can that not raise the human spirit in us all?” —Gerald Lauber, Suffolk County SPCA

“Some rescue workers couldn’t take it anymore. They asked to play fetch with Thunder. But then they’d sneak off in a corner to just be with Thunder, or maybe to talk with him.” —Bob Sessions, FEMA

“They may not cry to their fellow firemen or police, but somehow they open up to the dogs.” —Laura LoPresti, Monroe, MO

“These dogs have been trained to pick up on people they perceive as being in a state of trauma. So they’ve been visiting a lot of firemen, police, and cleanup detail.” —Anonymous

“He kind of withdrew from everything,” said Mike Owens, Southwestern Ohio K-9 Search and Rescue, speaking about his partner Whorf. “There was so much death there, it was emotional for the dogs.” Whorf located the dead bodies of two missing firefighters on the first day; then, overwhelmed, he lay down and curled up on the spot. He began shedding profusely, quit eating and refused to play with the other dogs.

“Morale is important... So we set up a scenario that the dog can win at. We used a New York firefighter. He hid amongst a little bit of rubble, and we sent her on a search. She finds the firefighter. He plays with her real good. She’s real happy, and she’s ready to go to work again.” —Mark Bogush

“The dog seeks a live person in hopes the survivor will play with him. If he’s not finding a live person, there is no one to play with. So when I get home, I send my 12-year-old son to hide in the woods. Then Jax finds him and they play tug-of-war with a towel.” —Tom Fahy

“He was a great, big guy, and he was just bawling. He was crying like a baby. He couldn’t talk, but he mouthed the words: ‘Thank you,’ and ‘thank the dog.’“ —Louis Wardoup, volunteer, describing how his dog Insee unearthed a firefighter buried under the rubble.

“One of the things, the handler told us, that really yanked on his emotions was the gift he and his dog Ranger received from a child. The gift was a small ziplock bag with two dog biscuits and two Hershey kisses inside, with a note printed by the child that said, ‘Lassie would be so proud of you.’” —Terri Crisp, Director, Emergency Animal Rescue Service

New Yorkers felt an emotional bond with one another after the attacks. In fact, all Americans, and even people from other countries all around the world felt that connection.

“We are all New Yorkers now” was a phrase often heard.

It wasn’t just the search-and-rescue dogs who were traumatized. Many people were also deeply affected by these events. Some sought counseling, others turned to drugs and alcohol or began overindulging in “comfort foods.” And speaking of comfort, as Laura LoPresti, one of the people quoted above says, “Just petting a dog provides comfort to those who need it.”

Not surprisingly, dog ownership began to increase in the years following 9/11, so much so that some in the industry called it an “explosion.” That’s because dogs may not know much about international politics or man’s inhumanity to man. But they do know how to guard us, protect us, make us smile, and comfort us with their presence and their wagging tails.

“We need a dog over here!” —call for help often heard at the WTC site.

All these years later, some of us still need a dog over here.

LCK

"LIfe Is an Adventure—Where Will Your Dog Take You?"