Hello everyone,

(Konnie I'm looking your way )

I am wondering if anyone knows or can provide a resource(s) detailing some verified statistics regarding the effectiveness of the deployment of disaster search dogs.

I'm looking for anything at all at this point, even as meagre as how many deployments per year. But, specifically I am hoping to find out a stats average on how many people the disaster dogs are credited with saving per year, decade, etc.. and how many (unfortunatley) persons remains they are credited with returning to the kin.

 Quote: brad . martin

I am wondering if anyone knows or can provide a resource(s) detailing some verified statistics regarding the effectiveness of the deployment of disaster search dogs.

I'm looking for anything at all at this point, even as meagre as how many deployments per year. But, specifically I am hoping to find out a stats average on how many people the disaster dogs are credited with saving per year, decade, etc.. and how many (unfortunatley) persons remains they are credited with returning to the kin.

This depends on what you consider a "disaster dog" to be. Are you talking about just FEMA dogs (who by definition through the FEMA mission statement are only looking for live humans, not deceased)? Or are you also considering local SAR responders (to a small tornado incident for instance). Are you looking at worldwide stats or just in the US and Canada?

I haven't seen stats on disaster recoveries anywhere. What I do know is that very, very few people are rescued by disaster search dogs (either FEMA or local responders) in a year in the United States. This is a function of the (fortunately) low number of disasters requiring search canine response and the extremely low chance of somebody surviving and remaining entrapped in such a disaster.

Some disaster search dogs will go their entire "career" without ever being deployed to a response. The vast majority of them will never have a find due to the above-mentioned reasons.

HRD (human remains detection) dogs have many more "finds" in their careers vs. live-find trained dogs. Think of the dogs who worked 9/11. Not a single live person was found by any of the dogs who responded. The HRD dogs were busy finding people for months afterwards.

However, despite the lack of finds, disaster search dogs do play an important role in disaster response. One of our major roles is to quickly "clear" areas so that emergency response resources can be allocated where they are most needed. For example, during my team's most recent deployment, we were asked to search damaged homes that were already quickly searched on foot by fire fighters. The incident commander was pretty sure all the people had been evacuated, however, the dogs were used just to be sure nobody was hiding or trapped. And, the dogs were able to search areas that were not safe for humans to enter. So, even if we didn't find anybody, we still had an important role.

Did I answer your question?

Hi Konnie,

Thanks for the info. Your last comment will probably prove to be the best piece for my purposes. What I am trying to do is build a case for my proposals to higher ups. When I meet with them I'd rather go in with something concrete to demonstrate the value of such a program.

However, instead of - over time - what about specific deployments? As far as a "disaster dog" find if you have stats on official FEMA dogs, S&R responders, or even the local Lassie making live finds I'll gladly take the info.