When we think about September 11, 2001, our minds naturally go to the people. The nearly 3,000 lives lost, the families who were forever changed, and the first responders who ran toward danger while everyone else was trying to get away.
But there were also hundreds of dogs involved in the events of that day and the difficult weeks that followed.
Some were guide dogs who helped their owners escape the World Trade Center. Some were police and search-and-rescue dogs working through the rubble. Others were there simply to comfort people who were exhausted, grieving, and trying to process what they had witnessed.
As a dog lover, I think their stories are worth remembering too.
These weren’t fictional movie dogs. They were real dogs with real handlers, and they were doing the jobs they had been trained to do in circumstances none of them could have been prepared for.
Here are a few of their stories.
Roselle: The Guide Dog Who Led Her Handler to Safety
Roselle is probably the dog most people have heard of when talking about the canine stories of 9/11.
She was a yellow Labrador Retriever and a guide dog for Michael Hingson, who was blind. On September 11, Michael and Roselle were working on the 78th floor of the North Tower of the World Trade Center.
When the first plane hit the building, everything around them changed.
There was smoke, noise, confusion, and people trying to figure out what was happening. Michael knew they needed to get out, and Roselle began guiding him toward the stairwell.
They started walking down.
And they kept walking.
Together, they descended all 78 floors of the North Tower.
What I find especially incredible about Roselle’s story is that she wasn’t trained to understand something like September 11. She didn’t know what an airplane crash was or why the building was filling with smoke. She knew her job, she knew her handler, and she relied on the training and trust they had built together.
During their escape, Roselle also helped another person who had been blinded by debris and smoke.
Michael and Roselle eventually made it outside, escaping the North Tower shortly before it collapsed.
Michael later wrote about their experience in his book, “Thunder Dog: The True Story of a Blind Man, His Guide Dog, and the Triumph of Trust.”
And I think that title really captures what makes Roselle’s story so special. It wasn’t just about a dog leading someone down a staircase. It was about the incredible amount of trust between a guide dog and the person who depends on her.
Roselle didn’t know she was a hero.
She was just taking care of her person.
Read more: Michael Hingson’s story of Roselle
Book: Thunder Dog: The True Story of a Blind Man, His Guide Dog, and the Triumph of Trust
Salty: Another Guide Dog Who Stayed With His Handler
Roselle wasn’t the only guide dog inside the World Trade Center that morning.
On the 71st floor was Omar Rivera, who was also blind and was working with his guide dog, Salty.
Salty was another yellow Labrador Retriever, trained by Guiding Eyes for the Blind.
When the attack happened, Rivera and Salty had to make their way out of the building along with everyone else.
Salty guided Rivera toward the stairs and stayed with him as they began making their way down.
At one point, Rivera tried to let Salty go because he was worried the dog might be able to escape more quickly on his own.
Salty wouldn’t leave him.
He stayed with his handler, and the two continued down the stairs together.
They eventually made it safely outside.
I think Salty’s story is a good reminder that guide dogs aren’t simply trained to walk in front of someone. They are trained to work as part of a team with their handler. They learn to make decisions, avoid obstacles, and keep their person safe.
That relationship became incredibly important that morning.
Read more: The story of Salty and Omar Rivera
Sirius: The Police Dog Who Didn’t Make It Home
Sirius’s story is one of the hardest ones to tell.
Sirius was a four-year-old yellow Labrador Retriever who worked as an explosives detection dog for the Port Authority Police Department. His handler was Lieutenant David Lim.
When the attacks began, Lim and Sirius were in the South Tower.
Lim secured Sirius in his kennel before leaving to help with the evacuation and assist other people in the building.
He intended to come back for his dog.
David Lim survived.
Sirius did not.
Sirius was killed when the South Tower collapsed. His remains were eventually recovered from the wreckage several months later.
When he was recovered, Sirius was given a ceremonial escort and honored as a member of the Port Authority Police Department.
There is something especially heartbreaking about this story because Sirius wasn’t able to escape with his handler. He was simply a working dog whose life was lost in the same tragedy that took so many human lives.
His story is still preserved today through the artifacts and records kept by the National September 11 Memorial & Museum.
Read more: Remembering Sirius at the 9/11 Memorial & Museum
Apollo: The Search-and-Rescue Dog Who Kept Going
Apollo was a German Shepherd and an NYPD search-and-rescue dog. He and his handler, Officer Peter Davis, were among the canine teams that worked at Ground Zero.
The conditions these dogs worked in were hard to imagine.
There were enormous piles of unstable debris, fires, water, sharp metal, smoke, and dust. The dogs had to navigate through all of it while searching for people.
At one point, Apollo fell into water while working.
Then a fireball came through the area.
Apollo survived and went right back to work.
That’s one of the details about the search dogs that really stands out to me. These dogs weren’t walking around rubble because someone thought it would make a good picture. They had jobs to do, and they were trained to use their incredible sense of smell to locate people.
The work also changed as the days went on. At first, the dogs were searching for survivors. As time passed and the rescue effort became a recovery effort, other dogs were trained to search for human remains.
Apollo eventually retired and lived to be 14 years old.
Read more: The AKC’s story of Apollo and other 9/11 canine heroes
Bretagne: A Young Dog Whose Story Didn’t End at Ground Zero
Bretagne was only two years old when she and her handler, Denise Corliss, traveled from Texas to New York as part of Texas Task Force 1.
This was Bretagne’s first deployment as a FEMA-certified search-and-rescue dog.
She spent days working at Ground Zero alongside the other search dogs and their handlers.
But what makes Bretagne’s story especially meaningful is that September 11 wasn’t the end of her working life.
It was really just the beginning.
Bretagne went on to respond to other disasters, including Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita. After she retired from search-and-rescue work, she continued helping people in another way—as a reading-assistance dog for children.
She lived to be 16 years old.
When Bretagne died in 2016, she was given a special farewell honoring her years of service.
It’s easy to think of the dogs who worked at Ground Zero only in terms of what they did there, but Bretagne reminds us that these dogs had entire lives outside of September 11. They had handlers who loved them, homes to return to, and years of companionship ahead of them.
Read more: The AKC’s story of Bretagne
The Dogs Who Were There to Comfort People
Not every dog who went to Ground Zero was there to search.
Some dogs had a completely different job: comforting people.
Therapy and disaster-relief dogs worked alongside rescue workers and others at Ground Zero, giving people a chance to step away from the devastation for a moment and interact with something familiar and comforting.
One of those dogs was Nikie, a certified disaster-relief therapy dog who worked with his handler, Frank Shane.
Think about what those workers were surrounded by every day. They were exhausted, grieving, and working in an environment that was unlike anything most people will ever experience.
Then there was a dog.
Someone could stop and pet him.
They could scratch his ears.
They could sit with him for a few minutes.
The dog didn’t need to know what had happened. He didn’t need to ask questions or offer an explanation.
He was simply there.
And sometimes, that’s exactly what a person needs.
Nikie’s vest and booties, which he wore while working at Ground Zero, were eventually donated to the National September 11 Memorial & Museum.
Read more: Nikie’s story at the 9/11 Memorial & Museum
What Happened to the Dogs After 9/11?
One question that often comes up when people learn about these dogs is what happened to their health afterward.
The environment at Ground Zero was extremely hazardous. The dogs were exposed to smoke, dust, fires, debris, and a variety of contaminants while working at the site.
Researchers followed many of the search-and-rescue dogs in the years afterward to better understand the possible long-term effects of that exposure.
There were health concerns among some of the dogs, but it’s important not to turn that into the claim that every 9/11 dog developed cancer or that exposure definitely shortened their lives. The research is more complicated than that.
Some of the dogs went on to live long lives.
Apollo lived to 14.
Bretagne lived to 16.
Roselle lived to 13.
Roselle did eventually develop serious health problems, including an immune-mediated blood disorder and kidney problems. Exposure to toxins has been discussed as a possible contributor to some of her health problems, but there isn’t enough evidence to say that her 9/11 exposure definitely caused them.
What we do know is that these dogs worked in an environment that was incredibly difficult and potentially dangerous, and their health was something their handlers and veterinarians continued to care about long after their work at Ground Zero ended.
They Were Dogs, Not Superheroes
I think this is an important part of their stories.
When we see pictures of dogs standing on piles of rubble, it’s easy to call them superheroes.
And in many ways, they were heroes.
But they were still dogs.
They got tired.
They needed water and rest.
Their paws could become sore.
They could become discouraged.
They depended on their handlers.
They weren’t fearless little machines that could work endlessly without being affected by what was happening around them.
They were dogs doing jobs they had been trained to do, alongside people they trusted.
That’s part of what makes their stories so meaningful to me.
Their courage wasn’t about being fearless.
It was about continuing to work and staying connected to the people they trusted, even when the world around them was completely unfamiliar.
Remembering the Dogs of 9/11
There were hundreds of dogs involved in the response to September 11 and the recovery that followed.
We may never know every one of their names.
Some searched for survivors.
Some searched for those who had died.
Some detected explosives.
Some helped emergency personnel.
Some provided comfort to people who desperately needed it.
And some, like Roselle and Salty, were already inside the World Trade Center when the attacks happened and helped their handlers find a way out.
Their stories don’t take away from the human tragedy of September 11.
They are simply another part of it.
When I look at these stories as a dog lover, what stands out most isn’t just what the dogs were trained to do.
It’s the relationships.
The trust between a guide dog and his or her handler.
The bond between a police K-9 and the officer who worked beside them.
The relationship between a search-and-rescue dog and the person giving them direction.
And the simple comfort of having a dog beside you when everything else feels wrong.
Dogs have been working alongside people for centuries, but stories like these remind us why that relationship is so special.
They don’t have to understand our world completely to show up for us.
Sometimes they just know that their person needs them.
And they stay.
Want to Learn More?
If these stories touched you, there are several wonderful resources where you can learn more about the individual dogs and the people who worked beside them.
Thunder Dog by Michael Hingson and Susy Flory tells the firsthand story of Michael’s experience escaping the World Trade Center with Roselle.
Running with Roselle tells more of Michael and Roselle’s story and is written for younger readers.
Dog Heroes of September 11th by Nona Kilgore Bauer shares stories of the dogs and handlers involved in the rescue and recovery efforts.
And the National September 11 Memorial & Museum has preserved photographs, artifacts, and stories that help keep the memory of these remarkable dogs alive.
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