Devoted by Rebecca Ascher-Walsh

Author:Rebecca Ascher-Walsh [Ascher-Walsh, Rebecca]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-4262-1263-5
Publisher: National Geographic Society
Published: 2013-09-30T16:00:00+00:00

LABRADOR RETRIEVER

GENERAL APPEARANCE: Strongly built, athletic, well-balanced, medium-sized dog

COAT: Short, straight, and very dense

AVERAGE SIZE: 55 to 75 pounds

POPULARITY: The Labrador retriever is one of the most popular breeds in the United States.

After seven months of training, Pearl was assigned to Horetski, and the two began an arduous year of training together. The FEMA certification test requires the dog to search a 6,000- and a 15,000-square-foot rubble pile with four to six “victims” hidden in the two piles; other items such as food and clothing are also hidden as distractions. The dogs have 20 minutes to search each pile, and the dog can’t miss more than one of the “victims”; if the dog alerts to any object other than the human, the dog fails. Thanks to her go-go attitude and intense focus, Pearl aced the test.

But there was little time to celebrate: On January 12, 2010, 17 days after Pearl’s graduation, an enormous earthquake hit Haiti, and Pearl and Horetski were deployed as part of a canine search-and-rescue team. “It was like a war zone. Everywhere there were crushed buildings. I remember looking around and thinking, ‘Where do we even start?’ ” says Horetski. “You find someone buried five floors below, and it takes 12 to 38 hours to get them out. Pearl had to climb over dead bodies and human remains. And because it was so hot, I had to give her IVs of fluid just to keep her hydrated.”

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