Dogs in the Fire Department? We’re Not Just Tugging Your Pull Toy

Paul Sandigo with Cassie

Forget those old timey paintings of Dalmations riding to fires on horse drawn carriages, their ears flapping in the breeze. Modern canines have a much more important role in today’s fire service.

The San Francisco Fire Department (SFFD) employs several Search and Rescue Canine/Firefighter teams specifically trained to find live humans who may be buried in collapsed or destroyed structures.  These highly skilled dogs are attached to a firefighter human at the SFFD, and they are also part of FEMA Task Force 3 in Menlo Park. They can be deployed to large-scale national disasters such as hurricanes, wildfires, and floods.

These dogs’ extraordinary sense of smell and ability to explore uneven and unstable terrain make them fantastic search partners.  Canines can safely and quickly cover a large disaster zone and are trained to follow directions from their handler at a distance.  Training on piles of rubble, destroyed office buildings, and natural rock piles, the dogs learn the skills needed to maneuver and explore, sniffing out the scent of live humans who are trapped beneath the layers of concrete. In training, people are actually placed in hard-to-find sites to mimic a disaster scene.

Not every dog has the immense motivation, agility, and fitness required to become a Search and Rescue dog.  In fact, many of these super lively dogs would be terrible house dogs. To find the right candidates, SFFD has joined forces with the National Disaster Search Dog Foundation (SDF), a nonprofit organization that trains elite canine-firefighter teams to search for victims of natural disasters and terrorist attacks. SDF has partners all over the United States who look in rescue centers for dogs with the natural talents to make it in “The Search” — a high drive, keen love of toys, and a thunderous bark. Selected pups undergo intense training at the SDF until they are ready to be matched with a firefighter partner.  

And the work doesn’t end there. The partners then train together for months—roughly 800 hours in all —to prepare for certification as a Search and Rescue team.

Cassie and her handler, Paul Sandigo, are going through this certification process right now. Cassie is “a ball of fire,” says Sandigo, an SFFD firefighter since 2010.  He trains with Cassie in addition to all his regular duties as a firefighter, but it’s work he enjoys. “She is so smart and fun and full of love,” he says. 

The SFFD selected Sandigo to become part of a canine team, something he’s  wanted to do since he first saw search dogs at work at the World Trade Center in 2001.  Paul attended a two-week training program at the SDF in Santa Paula, where handlers learned how to train and work with search dogs.  After days of working with all the dogs at the center, each handler is paired with a dog to take home. Cassie, enthusiastic and attentive, was matched with Sandigo.  

The pair now train weekly, practicing agility (climbing ladders, jumping onto unstable surfaces), direction and control (following instructions about where to go and how long to stay), and searching for a live human scent that has been hidden from the dog and handler.

Lieutenant Eli Thomas with Vader

Cassie is up for her final exam soon, where she will be tasked with locating several hidden humans while ignoring food and other distractions.  Once she finds a victim, she’ll alert her human partner with a specially trained bark designed to bring rescuers to the specific location.  There is some fun after all the training, though. “She loves to swim and chase the ball, too,” Sandigo says. 

Another SFFD dog, Vader, has been working with his handler, Lieutenant Eli Thomas, in the department since 2015.  Vader goes to work each day with Thomas and practices his searching and fitness skills regularly to stay in training.  Together, Vader and Eli have been deployed with Task Force 3 to Hurricanes Irma and Olivia. Vader has also searched for missing persons at a cliff collapse at Fort Funston. 

“Vader is a goofy gentle giant!  He has a huge drive and is extremely agile,” says Thomas.  “But he also loves to sneak into my son’s room for a nap.”  

These highly trained canines love their jobs and are always ready for the search. The SSFD is lucky to have them - as is anyone in peril whose only hope of rescue is a keen nose and a willing heart.