For the past several weeks down at the Camp Verde Fire District Station 81, there’s been a new face hanging around. It’s rather furry.
It belongs to Kimber, a 3-year-old brindle Dutch shepherd who has been coming to work with Shawn Tucker, a member of the station’s B shift.
Kimber’s not a pet, per se. The dog is being trained by Tucker to work as a search and rescue dog certified by the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Urban Search and Rescue program. If successful, Kimber would be one of 10 such dogs in Arizona, Tucker said.
The dogs are used in situations involving searching through damaged buildings and rubble, looking for possible survivors trapped in the wake of a disaster. The dogs are kept on a rotation so that when the first four are out on an assignment, the next group is queued up and ready to go.
“The feds have been expanding this program particularly since Sept. 11,” Tucker said.
In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks that struck in New York City, the Pentagon and that Pennsylvania field more than 10 years ago, dogs were used to search through the rubble, particularly at the World Trade Center site.
For the full story, see the Wednesday, April 4, issue of The Camp Verde Journal.
