The 7.0 magnitude earthquake that hit Haiti on January 12, 2010, was one of the most destructive natural disasters in modern history with an estimate death toll between 230,000 and 300,000. After three days, international aid efforts were underway and the FBI and other specialist agencies were deployed to search the debris for signs of life. 

There simply wasn’t enough manpower to save everyone buried beneath the rubble, unfortunately, and time was running out. 
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Hunter served his country

Hunter, a Border Collie with a copper coat and white belly - as photogenic as he was talented - might seem like an unlikely hero, but he already had extensive experience in disaster zones.

His handler, Fire Captain Billy Monahan, had served with him for all seven years of his successful career with the National Disaster Dog Foundation. They were deployed to Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s capital, as part of the highly specialized South Florida Urban Search and Rescue Team (FL-TF2) to sniff out any victims who might still be alive - and fast.

Hero dogs

The story of how an American dog came to support the rescue efforts in Haiti starts back on April 21, 1995. Wilma Melville had just retired from her job as a teacher when the Oklahoma City bombings took place; 168 bodies were missing in the rubble.

Melville and her loyal black lab Murphy took the bus with the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Los Angeles Urban Search and Rescue Task Force to deploy Murphy. His job was to find the victims’ bodies so the families could be notified.

That winter, Melville had a brainwave. Rescue dogs are faster than any artificial technology at finding victims alive or dead, yet there were only 15 rescue dogs in the US at the time, not enough to help victims in an emergency on the scale of the Oklahoma City disaster. She decided to set up a task force of doggy heroes, who could search rubble and rescue people in record time.

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Wilma Melville’s stray dogs find a warm home

A special type of dog was needed: ”Dogs that could focus on a single scent in the chaos of a disaster site, with the stamina of a professional athlete [and] the fearlessness of a soldier,” Melville wrote in Hero Dogs: How a Pack of Rescues, Rejects, and Strays Became America's Greatest Disaster-Search Partners. 
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She’d also need to recruit dogs that were inexpensive - or, even better, free. But where could she find such a rare breed? Shelters and strays were her only option. These underdogs would become the backbone of her canine task force. They needed to be masters of obedience and agility. They trained with balance beams, fire ladders, and a custom obstacle dubbed the ‘wobbly monster’. 

The training was so rigorous that only 15 percent of dogs would make it through the seven-month program, but Melville vowed that those that didn’t make the cut would still get a home for life with her. 

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Hunter - a 'failure' no more

It seemed like an impossible mission, but within just a few months the National Disaster Search Dog Foundation, a not-for-profit, was born. Its aim: to strengthen disaster response in America by rescuing and recruiting dogs and partnering them with firefighters and other first responders to find people buried alive in the wreckage of disasters.

Hunter was a failed Disability Assistance Dog. Instead of calmly guiding his disabled ward, he was too rambunctious and excitable, and at just over one year old, he was rejected. No one seemed to want a dog who had failed in his training, but Melville saw something special in him and gave him a shot at the Foundation. His boundless energy was put to good use and he passed with flying colors. Billy Monahan, his handler, had evaluated search dogs all over the world and Hunter was one of the very best he’d seen. 

Back on the ground in Haiti, Hunter and Monahan were faced with the biggest challenge of their career. The destruction in the Caribbean nation was beyond belief with rubble and dead bodies as far as the eye could see. 

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Haiti’s hero dogs‍

They searched the Presidential Palace first and found there was no one still breathing on the site. But Monahan couldn’t become despondent; time was running out. Hunter was sniffing the air and pulling the leash taut. He was ready to get to work, in spite of the terrible odds. Monahan released him into a huge mound of mortar and dust and he began in an area that was once apartment blocks.

If Hunter was afraid, he didn’t show it as he crushed himself into a small rescue dog and penetrated the concrete minefield, dotted with barbed wire and rusting, jagged beams. Monahan watched the ground closely where Hunter had vanished, counting the minutes. When Hunter emerged, his eyes were purposeful, he was ‘hooked’ - a term for when all his senses are directed at one area. He circled the ground until he was pointing at one spot.

Monahan knew his partner well. This was a sign Hunter had found a live scent. Now, they had to dig and hope they reached whoever it was in time. Monahan cleared layer after layer of broken concrete until he found a gap. He called down and a voice called back. Whoever it was, they were alive.

Monahan later recalled this as the undisputed highlight of his 40-plus years of firefighting. He passed down water and called in more assistance until they had cleared enough space to reach down and get the victims out. They recovered three women that day, all because of Hunter and his excellent training from the SDF. 

Hunter was honored for his service as a search dog - both for his work in Japan after the tsunami and in Haiti - as the recipient of the American Kennel Club’s 12th annual Humane Fund Award for Canine Excellence in the Search and Rescue Dog category.

There are now more than 70 SDF-trained Canine Disaster Search Teams in Baja California, California, Florida, Nebraska, New York, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Texas, Utah, and Virginia. They assist on disaster sites across the globe, saving people who might not otherwise escape.