how a couple of b.c. rescue dogs became heroes in venezuela
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two rescue dogs rueben (left) and pele joined members of burnaby's urban search and rescue team to look for survivors after two deadly earthquakes struck venezuela on june 24.
burnaby urban search and rescue
had it not been for two well-trained b.c. dogs, the story of how a venezuelan toddler was pulled from the rubble six days after two powerful earthquakes hit that country may have ended tragically.
but thanks to pele, a seven-year-old dutch shepherd, and reuben, a six-year-old belgian malinois, two scrappy rescue dogs from burnaby, the boy was found alive.
pele and reuben made the long journey to venezuela last week along with seven of their human counterparts from the burnaby urban search and rescue team.
“our dog team is definitely the star of the show,” said ryan berry, a member of the team who went to venezuela.
two rescue dogs rueben (left) and pele joined members of burnaby’s urban search and rescue team to look for survivors after two deadly earthquakes struck venezuela on june 24.
burnaby urban search and rescue
the mission was to join other international canine and rescue crews to help find anyone who may still be trapped, and to search for those who died to help bring closure to families still looking for their loved ones.
two powerful 7.2- and 7.5-magnitude earthquakes struck within a minute of each other on june 24, toppling buildings and killing thousands of people. cbc reports the death toll had risen to more than 3,500 as of wednesday.
the burnaby team went to the la guaira area north of caracas, where they searched more than 30 sites. there, pele and reuben helped find 35 people, three of them still alive.
at one of those sites, the dogs — both trained to distinguish between people still alive and bodies — started barking in a way that indicated to the handler that there was a live person nearby.
photo provided by burnaby urban search and rescue shows the aftermath of two powerful earthquakes in venezuela on june 24 and june 25.
burnaby urban search and rescue
a team of venezuelan firefighters were about to give up on the site because they had not heard anything. but then burnaby’s team offered up pele and reuben.
as soon as the dogs reached the site, they both barked to indicate a live find, said berry. the human crew then used technology to pinpoint the exact location of the person.
the burnaby crew worked with the venezuelan team for a couple of hours until they passed off the operation to a larger team from the u.s.
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they later learned that a three-year-old boy had been pulled from the rubble, weak but alive.
“the dogs’ handlers were emotional,” he said. “it’s a hard situation to describe. every site we were going to had people who were covered in dust digging with their bare hands trying to find their family. so it recharged our batteries, i would say, and confirmed that we were helping, that we were on the right path, and it motivated us to keep going.”
the boy, identified by reuters as klieber moran, was rescued early on tuesday, and was reportedly the only survivor found on the sixth day of rescue efforts.
“our team is small — seven members — so we didn’t have the resources to carry out the full extrication ourselves. but our dogs finding that person is what kept the site from being left behind,” said berry.
berry added that they worried about the heat, so gave the dogs a lot of breaks in air conditioned vehicles.
burnaby urban search and rescue has about 33 members, all first-responders such as firefighters, police officers or paramedics, and they are all volunteers. anyone who wants to donate to help the team can do so at burnabyusar.ca.
burnaby urban search and rescue members scour the rubble following two massive earthquakes in venezuela on june 24 that killed more than 3,500 people.
burnaby urban search and rescue
sgt. bob sandher, the canine lead for vancouver’s heavy urban search and rescue team, or canada task force 1, said they also have a trained dog team to help with disasters such as earthquakes.
can-tf1 has not been deployed overseas yet because the federal government is still working on a system and accreditation for all of the heavy teams in the country. but the team’s dogs have seen a lot of action, including finding people in the rubble when a parking lot collapsed in vancouver in 2022.
each of their five dogs are trained from puppies by their handlers as single-purpose rescuers, meaning one dog is trained to find people who are still alive while another searches for bodies.
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when they have found a person, they have been trained to get as close as they can and bark a certain number of times, said sandher. then they know whether the person is alive or dead by which dog is barking.
the dogs are trained using toys so that finding people after an earthquake is more like a game for the dog rather than providing food treats, which could be confusing if a building that collapsed contains food.
for example, when sandher’s dog ledge was looking for a body in a collapsed bakery, he ignored all the food smells and “got straight to work.”
as for pele and reuben, they are getting some much-deserved rest — and a few treats as well.
burnaby urban search and rescue members scour the rubble in venezuela.
burnaby urban search and rescue
photo provided by burnaby’s urban search and rescue team shows the destruction left by the two earthquakes.
burnaby urban search and rescue
members of the burnaby urban search and rescue team left for venezuela to help with rescue and medical aid after two big earthquakes.
burnaby urban search and rescue
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