SANTA PAULA, Calif. — A black Labrador bounded across a strewn rubble pile under the hot mid-morning sun. His nose moved like a violinist’s bow, dancing quickly and carefully in every direction, as it led him in pursuit of his goal. A team of helmet-clad first responders from across the U.S. stood atop the gray concrete pile in rapt attention, following the dog’s every move.
Suddenly, a bark. He found a body. In this case, the “body” was a participant at a recent National Disaster Search Dog Foundation, or SDF, training session. The dog, tail wagging furiously, was handed a chew toy, which he proudly carried as he pranced out of the rubble pile.
This was a practice run, but realism is key at the SDF’s 145-acre training facility in Ventura County, California. The foundation trains dogs for FEMA and state-level rescue operations. Since its founding in 1996 by Wilma Melville, a FEMA-certified canine search specialist who responded during the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, SDF-trained teams have deployed to nearly 300 disasters.
One of those disasters was the 2023 earthquake in Turkey. Los Angeles County Fire Department firefighter and engineer Cory Baldovin, 33, deployed there with his Belgian Malinois, Diva. Baldovin spoke with Direct Relief about the time they deployed after the earthquake to assist with rescue and recovery missions.
“We did the initial action there with the recon teams, going out and assessing,” Baldovin said. “The dogs worked amazingly through the night and the cold… We train so much that when we go on deployments, it’s very impressive to see just how much it’s like our training. The dogs know what to do.”
Baldovin, Diva, and their colleagues triaged and tagged more than 6,000 structures during their 15-day deployment.
Search dogs are often among the first to respond after a disaster, moving through rubble to find survivors. Guided by handlers, the trained animals use their powerful sense of smell to detect human scent. Rescuers depend on them to identify where to dig to save lives and to rule out areas without survivors or human remains, helping direct search and rescue efforts to the most critical locations.
Baldovin has worked with SDF for six years and currently handles two dogs: Diva, 11, and Webber, a 3-year-old black lab. He started working with Diva when she was 6.
“I can give Diva a look and she knows exactly what I’m talking about,” he said. “Webber is spunky… more of a goober, but he works hard. Diva is awake all the time, always alert, looking for the next cue. She loves it. It’s her game.”
In a fundamental shift from traditional dog obedience, SDF emphasizes a collaborative rather than coercive relationship between dog and handler, teaching volunteers to respect and rely on canine instincts. One exercise involves concentrating human scent near an empty section of a room with no place for a person to hide. Many new handlers instinctively call their dogs away, thinking there’s no person near there, but the dogs are correct.
As Baldovin and Sanders explained, dogs don’t search visually; they follow scent, which may collect away from a body due to wind or void spaces. Handlers are taught to overcome their instinct to redirect the dog.
“They had us light an incense stick, close our eyes, and try to find the scent,” Baldovin said. “It puts you in the place of the dog. And it teaches you to spread out your mind.”
“Seeing them pinpoint on something, it’s like, ‘OK, there’s no way [a person could be nearby],’ but you have to trust your dogs,” Baldovin said. “Dogs always end up being right.”
“The whole point of the training is to trust and honor the dog,” said Denise Sanders, SDF’s senior director of communications and search team operations. “The nose knows.”
SDF has trained about 200 dogs, nearly all rescued from shelters. Shelter networks initially screen about 500 dogs per cohort. SDF narrows the field to 50 to 70 dogs for in-person evaluation, and 15 to 20 complete the course. Those who don’t graduate are rehomed.
“Ball drive might make a dog challenging as a family pet, but perfect for disaster search work,” Sanders said. “It’s all about finding the right place for them to be successful.”
Handlers train through a five-visit, months-long program, including a two-week onsite course where the dog transitions from SDF trainers to the new handler. The dogs undergo a 9-to-12-month program, progressing through what SDF calls freshman, sophomore, junior, and senior training levels. Dogs are fed fresh, handmade meals, exercise with a “personal trainer” in a custom-made gym, and have access to an underwater treadmill.
The trainee dogs start with simple search exercises in SDF’s expansive training facility, starting with finding a scent in an enclosed barrel. As they advance, the challenges get more complicated, eventually leading to practice searches in various settings on the grounds, which include rubble pits donated by a California highway construction project, a Hollywood studio-esque village of “damaged” homes, automobiles, boats, train cars, and even a small plane.
“It should be the best day every single day for dogs,” Sanders said about SDF’s training program. “Everything is designed to ensure connection between handler and dog,” Sanders explained. “That’s where the magic is.”
“It’s amazing to see what we can do in two weeks,” Baldovin said. “Passing the leash to us is like, ‘Here’s this Ferrari.’ The dogs know exactly what they’re supposed to do, but we come in and learn how to work with them.”
Baldovin said that Diva and Webber are part of his family now. “They’re not just a tool. They go everywhere with me, work, home, a friend’s house, three miles on the beach, hikes… Creating a bond helps in a work setting. Like my friend told me, I take my work home 365 days a year.”
Recalling his time in Turkey, Baldovin said some days were especially tough for him and Diva. To ease the stress, he set up a simple practice search for Diva so she could make a quick find, bark, wag her tail, and play her favorite game with her favorite person.
Direct Relief provided the National Search Dog Foundation with $25,000 to support its work to strengthen California’s disaster readiness by training new search dogs and handlers to locate survivors and respond effectively to emergencies.
