The wildfires that ravaged Southern California in recent weeks destroyed hundreds of buildings and left thousands of people homeless.
Many victims of the fires suffered another loss -- one less financially costly, perhaps, but no less painful.
In cutting a swath of destruction, the flames killed thousands of dogs, cats and other domestic animals, and sent at least as many scurrying into a burned-out wasteland free of food or shelter.
As the American Red Cross and other disaster-relief agencies tended to the needs of the fires' human victims, a team led by Niagara Falls native Carmen Battaglia helped reunite them with their four-legged loved ones.
Battaglia -- a cousin of Niagara Falls Reporter publisher Bruce Battaglia -- serves as president and CEO of the American Kennel Club's Companion Animal Recovery. He drove 600 miles to visit six animal shelters in the affected area.
"From the highway you could see total destruction of the environment and all of the homes in the area," he said in an update to fellow AKC members. "Everything was black and covered with ash for miles."
The devastation created a logistical nightmare for workers at the permanent shelters, as well as temporary facilities like one set up in a hangar at Norton Air Force Base outside Los Angeles.
"Many pets ran off when the fires approached and are still missing," said Battaglia, a Bishop Duffy graduate. "Others were dropped off at shelters by homeowners whose homes were destroyed."
In addition to providing necessities like food and crates for the displaced pets, AKC-CAR volunteers are working to reunite them with their owners.
While AKC-CAR assists in finding any lost pets, it has been particularly successful in locating those embedded with a computer microchip or tattooed with an identification number.
The microchip, roughly the size of a grain of rice, carries an identification number and is implanted under the skin in the scruff of the animal's neck. The microchip can be read by any of more than 20,000 networked scanners across the country, then cross-indexed in a national database to find the animal's owner and home address.
More than 2 million animals are enrolled in the program, and more than 150,000 lost pets have been reunited with their owners since 1995.
Aside from his work with AKC-CAR, Battaglia -- who holds a Ph.D. in Behavioral Science -- has been active in breeding dogs for use in Homeland Security programs.
"They've got to be extremely healthy, because you want them to work for a long life -- generally 10 years," he said. "That means they need good hips, elbows and hearts. You want them to have steady nerves and be highly trainable. And what they all have to have is a good nose."
Whether they're trained to sniff bombs or to help locate survivors after a terrorist attack or natural disaster, adaptability is also key.
"The breeds of choice, the most portable dogs in the world, are the German Shepherd and the Belgian Malinois," said Battaglia, who authored the book "Breeding Better Dogs," now in its fifth edition. "You can breed them and train them in Miami and take them to Alaska. They get off that airplane in the freezing cold and they're ready to go to work."
Dogs are already in use sniffing out terrorists, both in the United States and abroad. Battaglia, who now lives in the Atlanta area, said training canines to locate potential suicide bombers is of particular interest to security agencies in the Middle East.
"You just put all the explosives on them -- you don't put any dress clothes on them," Battaglia said of the humans used in such exercises. "You just hang all the stuff on them so the dog can see it and smell it. Once the dog gets used to finding that kind of person in a crowd, you start dressing the person and putting more and more clothing on them, so that they look like everybody else in the crowd. Then the dog has to have the same acuity to pick it up in the air as he would have to out at the airport."
Security dogs deter would-be terrorists in another way, he said.
"The suicide bombers can't detonate if they kill a dog when they kill themselves -- they don't go to Allah if they do that," Battaglia said. "So if the community has been whispering, saying, 'The government is here today with the dogs,' the suicide bomber picks up on that. So he's going to hesitate, to take time to find out where the dog is before they detonate. The more time they take, the more time the dog has to air-scent that they're there."
Battaglia is involved with a program designed to breed animals ideally suited to their duties.
"What we're trying to do with the breeding program is separate the gene pools so that the dogs selected to go into the next breeding program will be genetically superior," he said. "We do this generation after generation after generation. This is a natural for me -- I'm just drawn into it."
He has also helped devise a Working Dog Sport, designed to highlight the skills required for security work and expand the pool of breeds considered for further breeding and training. The AKC is considering sanctioning the sport and setting up official competitions across the country.
In the meantime, Battaglia and the AKC-CAR are focusing on reuniting as many pets -- including cats, horses and exotic animals -- with their owners as possible in Southern California.
Battaglia said contributions are still needed. Donations can be made by making checks payable to the AKC-CAR Canine Support and Relief Fund and mailed to: AKC-CAR Canine Support and Relief Fund, American Kennel Club, 260 Madison Ave., Fourth Floor, New York, N.Y. 10016-2401.
More information is available at www.akc.org/news/wildfires/contribute.cfm, where online contributions are also being accepted.
Anyone interested in enrolling their pet in CAR can ask their veterinarian for more information, visit www.akccar.org or call 1-800-252-7894.
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | November 11 2003 |