The Dogs of 9/11: Courage, Service and the Story of Roselle

Twenty five years after September 11th, we remember the remarkable dogs who guided, searched, recovered and comforted, and the people whose lives became forever intertwined with theirs.

Most people who went to work on the morning of September 11, 2001 had no reason to believe the day would be remembered by history. Michael Hingson was among them. He arrived at the World Trade Center with his guide dog, Roselle, a yellow Labrador Retriever, and went to his office on the 78th floor of the North Tower.

At 8:46 a.m., American Airlines Flight 11 struck the building above them.

Michael, who is blind, could not see what had happened outside. Roselle could not understand it. What they did have was years of training and trust in one another. Despite the impact, noise and confusion around them, Roselle remained composed as Michael and his colleagues made their way toward Stairwell B and joined the thousands of people beginning the evacuation.

The descent took roughly an hour. Michael and Roselle traveled down dozens of flights of stairs as firefighters and other emergency personnel moved in the opposite direction, climbing toward the disaster unfolding above them. Roselle continued working through conditions no guide dog could have been specifically trained to anticipate, helping Michael navigate the environment while Michael listened, made decisions and directed her. Their survival was not simply the story of a dog rescuing her owner. It was the story of a partnership functioning exactly as it was meant to when almost everything around them had ceased to function normally.

They eventually emerged from the North Tower and into lower Manhattan. Their ordeal, however, was not over. Michael and Roselle were still nearby when the South Tower collapsed, sending an enormous cloud of dust and debris through the surrounding streets. They sought shelter and continued away from the World Trade Center. Approximately thirty minutes after Michael and Roselle had escaped it, the North Tower collapsed as well.

They had made it out together.

The Dogs Who Came After

As Roselle and thousands of survivors moved away from the World Trade Center, another group of dogs would soon begin moving toward it. Search and rescue teams from across the country deployed to New York, bringing dogs trained to locate people in environments that were extraordinarily difficult and dangerous for humans to search.

More than 300 dogs participated in the response surrounding September 11th, serving in search, rescue, recovery, detection and comfort roles. They worked alongside firefighters, police officers, FEMA teams and other responders at Ground Zero, where the remains of the World Trade Center had become a vast and unstable landscape of twisted steel, shattered concrete, smoke and debris.

The search dogs could use scent to investigate areas their human partners could not easily reach. They climbed across the pile with their handlers, searching voids and confined spaces for signs of life. As the possibility of finding survivors diminished, recovery dogs continued working, helping return victims to families who were waiting for answers.

The work was physically demanding for the dogs and emotionally devastating for the people beside them. Yet the dogs provided something beyond their specialized training. In a place defined by unimaginable loss, their presence became a source of comfort for responders who were spending hour after hour surrounded by destruction.

Names That Became Part of the Story

Among the dogs who responded was Apollo, an NYPD German Shepherd who arrived at the World Trade Center with his handler, Officer Peter Davis, shortly after the attacks. Apollo searched the debris and became one of the best known canine members of the response.

Trakr, a German Shepherd working with Canadian police officer James Symington, also searched Ground Zero. Trakr became associated with the discovery of Genelle Guzman McMillan, who survived beneath the wreckage for more than a day and became the final person pulled alive from the debris.

Bretagne, a Golden Retriever with handler Denise Corliss and Texas Task Force 1, was just two years old when she was deployed to New York. September 11th was her first disaster assignment. Bretagne later responded to other disasters, including Hurricane Katrina, and eventually became the last known surviving FEMA search dog from the Ground Zero response.

Not every canine story ended with a dog returning home. Sirius was a four year old yellow Labrador Retriever and Port Authority Police Department explosives detection dog assigned to Officer David Lim. The two were working at the World Trade Center that morning. Lim left Sirius secured in their kennel in the South Tower when he responded to the emergency, telling his partner he would return for him. Lim survived the collapse. Sirius did not. His remains were recovered from the World Trade Center site months later.

These are some of the names history remembers, but they represent only a fraction of the dogs who served.

A Different Kind of Service

The dogs of September 11th were not all doing the same job. Search dogs looked for survivors. Recovery dogs searched for the fallen. Detection dogs worked alongside law enforcement. Therapy and comfort dogs provided support to people coping with shock, exhaustion and grief.

That last contribution can be easy to underestimate. Responders at Ground Zero worked long shifts under extraordinary psychological pressure. Dogs gave them permission, even briefly, to focus on something other than the devastation surrounding them. A firefighter could kneel beside a dog, scratch its ears and talk about the dog waiting for him at home. A handler and dog could offer a few minutes of normal human connection in a place where very little remained normal.

Their service cannot be separated from that of their handlers. Every search dog on the pile had a person climbing onto it too. The trust that allowed Roselle and Michael to descend the North Tower was reflected differently in the relationships between search dogs and the handlers who followed them into the wreckage. They worked as teams, relying on one another in circumstances that tested both.

Twenty Five Years Later

The story of the dogs of September 11th is ultimately part of a much larger story of human courage, sacrifice and loss. Nearly 3,000 people were killed in the attacks. Families lost people they loved. First responders entered buildings from which many would never return. Thousands of survivors carried the events of that morning with them for the rest of their lives.

Remembering the dogs does not diminish that human story. It gives us another way to understand it.

Roselle did not know that September 11th would become a date remembered around the world. She knew the person beside her trusted her. Search dogs arriving at Ground Zero did not understand the enormity of what had happened there. They knew their training, their handlers and the work they had been asked to do.

They searched when there was still hope of finding life. They continued when the mission became one of recovery. They stood beside people experiencing some of the most difficult moments of their lives, and they offered comfort simply by being there.

Twenty five years later, we remember Roselle and the hundreds of dogs who served during and after September 11th. We remember their handlers and the first responders who worked beside them. We remember those who survived, those who answered the call and, above all, every life that was lost.

Their stories deserve to be remembered.

We will never forget.

September 11, 2001