By Dr. Taji Abraham
Most of us remember what we were doing when we first heard about the attacks of September 11, 2001.
Just as Californians were getting ready to start their day, my husband and I were suddenly awakened by a phone call from my mother-in-law. I could hear the fear in her voice as she said, “Didn’t you hear what happened in New York? Put on the TV.”
We turned on the television and, like millions of people across the country and around the world, we were stunned. I remember the shock, the disbelief, and then an overwhelming feeling of helplessness. And, as we all know, what followed was a day and a loss that changed our world forever.
On this 25th anniversary of 9/11, we remember the thousands of people whose lives were lost and the thousands of stories of courage and sacrifice. But there was another group of heroes; those who worked quietly, took it all silently, and gave everything they had without ever knowing why — the extraordinary four-legged heroes who ran toward the devastation when everyone else was trying to get away.
More than 300 specially trained dogs were involved in the search, rescue and recovery efforts at Ground Zero and other 9/11 sites. They came from across the country and included search-and-rescue dogs, police K-9s, bomb-detection dogs, cadaver dogs, and therapy and comfort dogs.
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In the first hours and days, search-and-rescue dogs were looking for something everyone desperately hoped to find, the scent of someone still alive beneath the enormous piles of concrete, steel and debris.
One of these dogs found the last living person rescued from Ground Zero, 27 hours after the collapse of the towers. As the days passed and the possibility of finding survivors became increasingly small, the mission changed from rescue to recovery.
Cadaver dogs were then brought in to locate human remains.
These dogs worked in unimaginable conditions. They climbed unstable mountains of twisted metal and concrete while fires were still smoldering. They were exposed to ash, smoke, dust, heat, sharp debris and potentially hazardous substances. Some worked 12-hour shifts, and their paws, eyes and noses had to be cleaned repeatedly.
Veterinarians were actually stationed at Ground Zero to care for them. Among them was Dr. Cynthia Otto, who would later lead long-term studies examining the health of the dogs that had been deployed to the World Trade Center and Pentagon.
And there was another heartbreaking aspect of their work. As the days went on, some dogs became discouraged because they were no longer finding living people. Their handlers would sometimes create “mock finds” so the dogs could experience the feeling of successfully locating someone and remain motivated to continue.
But the dogs weren’t only searching.
Therapy and comfort dogs became a ray of sunshine in a landscape of death and grief. Dogs like Nikie, a Golden Retriever, provided comfort to exhausted rescue workers who had spent countless hours on the pile. People would stop, pet the dogs, and sometimes share stories about the loved ones they were desperately hoping to find.
Among the many remarkable dogs was Apollo, an NYPD German Shepherd and the first police K-9 to respond at Ground Zero. He and his handler, Officer Peter Davis, arrived shortly after the towers collapsed. Apollo fell into a hole, and moments later a fireball erupted. He came running out with his coat on fire. His handler brushed away the burning embers and Apollo went right back to searching.
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His coat was singed by red-hot metal, and his paws were cracked and bruised by jagged concrete, yet he continued working. Apollo eventually lived to age 14.
Then there was Bretagne (Brittany), a Golden Retriever with Texas Task Force One. She was only two years old when she and her handler, Denise Corliss, were deployed to Ground Zero. They worked there for 10 days, searching through the wreckage.
Bretagne later responded to Hurricane Katrina, Hurricane Rita and other disasters. After retiring from search-and-rescue work, she continued serving her community as a reading-assistance dog. She became the last known surviving search-and-rescue dog that had worked at Ground Zero.
In 2016, at age 16, Bretagne was laid to rest after developing kidney failure. Her fellow firefighters and rescue workers stood at attention and saluted her as she entered the veterinary hospital. She was carried out draped in an American flag and accompanied in a formal procession.
Tsunami, a German Shepherd, worked at Ground Zero beginning September 12 with her handler, Hal Wilson. She helped locate victims whose remains were subsequently recovered.
Riley, a Golden Retriever, was trained to find living people and also helped recover the bodies of firefighters.
Sage, a Border Collie, worked at the Pentagon, another site attacked on September 11. She later went on to work at Hurricanes Rita and Katrina and was eventually deployed to Iraq.
And then there was Trakr, a German Shepherd with his handler, James Symington. Trakr helped locate a survivor at the World Trade Center.
But perhaps the most heartbreaking canine story of 9/11 is that of Sirius.
Sirius was an NYPD bomb-detection dog stationed in the South Tower that morning. His handler, Officer David Lim, was initially unable to evacuate with Sirius because he was helping other people escape.
Officer Lim eventually made it out. Sirius did not.
When the South Tower collapsed, Sirius was killed.
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He is believed to have been the only police dog killed in the attacks at the World Trade Center. His story is a reminder that the victims of September 11 were not only human.
And then there is Roselle, whose story is completely different but equally extraordinary. Roselle was a guide dog inside the North Tower with her blind owner, Michael Hingson, on the 78th floor when the plane struck the building.
She calmly guided him down 78 flights of stairs and out of the building to safety, shortly before the South Tower collapsed. She wasn’t trained as a search-and-rescue dog. She was simply doing what she had been trained to do: guide and protect her human.
There is also an important part of this story that is sometimes misunderstood.
Over the years, there have been claims that the 9/11 rescue dogs developed widespread cancer and died prematurely because of their exposure at Ground Zero. Their exposure to dust, smoke and hazardous materials was very real, and scientists understandably followed their health for years.
But the long-term studies did not show that the dogs, as a group, had significantly shorter lifespans because of their deployment. Researchers found that deployed and non-deployed search dogs lived similar lengths of time, generally 12 to 13 years, with degenerative diseases such as heart disease and osteoarthritis being the most common causes of death, followed by cancer.
So perhaps the most important thing to remember is not simply how these dogs died, but how they lived and what they gave.
They searched when there was still hope. They recovered when hope had faded. They comforted those who were grieving. They worked beside the people who risked their lives to help others. They didn’t understand terrorism. They didn’t understand hatred. They didn’t understand why the buildings had fallen.
They only knew that their humans needed them and they went to work.
Twenty-five years later, as we remember the thousands of people who never came home, we should also remember these extraordinary four-legged heroes who ran toward the devastation when everyone else was trying to get away. They were America’s heroes on four paws.
(Dr. Taji Abraham is a retired veterinarian and researcher. After earning her veterinary degree in Kerala, India, she pursued postgraduate training in preventive veterinary medicine and epidemiology, followed by doctoral studies in Comparative Pathology at the University of California, Davis. She put her PhD on hold to homeschool her two highly gifted children, both of whom began college at the age of seven. Today, she enjoys writing about the intersection of science and everyday life, parenting, and the experiences that have shaped her family’s unconventional journey. She also finds herself learning about medical AI from her son, who earned his PhD in biomedical engineering at 19 and founded a medical AI startup at 22, and discovering the world of opera, classical music and jazz through her 20-year-old soprano daughter, who is in her third year of a doctoral program in voice performance. She enjoys traveling with her husband and following both of her children’s journeys as they speak, perform, and share their work at conferences and concerts around the world.)