Air Date: Week of September 21, 2001

Living on Earth's Maggie Villiger reports on the dogs working to help the recovery effort in New York.

Transcript

CURWOOD: Coming up, the politics of oil in Central Asia. First, this page from the Animal Notebook with Maggie Villiger.

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VILLIGER: At Ground Zero, nearly three hundred dogs are working in twelve hour shifts around the clock in the recover effort. Humans, dead or alive, emit a scent. And millions of their microscopic particles are floating in the air for dogs to detect with their keen sense of smell. Search dogs are also effective where human sight is limited, like in dark, debris strewn places; and, even underwater.

They usually come from the larger, working and sporting breeds like German Shepherds, Rottweilers or Golden Retrievers. Special boots were donated to protect the dogs' paws from the sharp, unstable debris they're working in. But the footwear inhibited their traction and had to be cast aside. So many of the dogs have gotten cuts and bruises from sharp material in the debris. Others developed eye and respiratory problems from the dust and smoke. But the Federal Emergency Management Agency has veterinary medical assistance teams on hand to treat the animals. That's this week's Animal Note. I'm Maggie Villiger.

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CURWOOD: And you're listening to Living on Earth.

 

Links

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