Beautiful golden retriever Bretagne — believed to be the last living search dog who worked at Ground Zero — returned to the site this week for the first time since the 2001 attacks.
As she and her emotional owner/handler Denise Corliss toured the Lower Manhattan memorial where nearly 3,000 people died, a flood of memories came back.
“It took my breath away. I thought I was mentally prepared but when I approached the pile the first time – I just could not believe it had happened,” Corliss told the Today Show of that black day 13 years ago.
The search-and-rescue duo came to Manhattan one week after the attacks as volunteers with Texas Task Force 1, a group that deploys emergency responders to disaster sites across the nation.
Immediately, Bretagne (pronounced Brittany) got to work, sniffing the pile for potential survivors.
“I think she was in that [work] mode once we were activated,” said Corliss. “When she’s sees the pile she’s ready to go to work. She’s like, ‘Let me in, let me do my job.’”
When Bretange wasn’t working 12-hour shifts searching for survivors in the rubble, the blond pup was nuzzling up to other searchers, doubling as a therapy dog.
“Searchers and some rescuers would come by to pet her and thank her and tell us their stories, why they were here, so it became an unexpected role of a therapy dog,” said Corliss.
The pair spent nearly two weeks working the pile.
Corliss remembered one time when Bretagne left her side to dutifully tend to a defeated-looking firefighter who was sitting on the ground. She ordered the canine to return to her, but Bretagne wouldn’t listen, Today reported.
“I was surprised that she wasn’t listening to me, but she really wasn’t — it was like she was flipping me the paw,” Corliss said. “She went right to that firefighter and laid down next to him and put her head on his lap.”
Bretagne and Corliss went on to lend their hand after other disasters, like Hurricane Katrina, Hurricane Rita and Hurricane Ivan.
“You’d see firefighters sitting there, unanimated, stone-faced, no emotion, and then they’d see a dog and break out into a smile,” Dr. Cindy Otto, a veterinarian who cared for the 300 or so search dogs at Ground Zero, told Today.
These days, the 15-year-old Bretagne is enjoying the retired life, her fur fading from old age. But she keeps active with jaunts in the pool, to help her mobility, and visits to elementary schools, where she helps first graders read.
“She’s doing great,” said Corliss. “I’m just amazed at how healthy she is. We’re very blessed.”