It’s not uncommon for a team of rescue dogs to show up at disaster sites. They were used after the tsunami in Myanmar, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, and now, in Haiti.  There is one team that’s a little different. It’s made up of dogs that were themselves rescued.

The dogs come from the National Disaster Search Dog Foundation, based in Ojai, California. SDF  works exclusively with rescued dogs and trains them to rescue people buried alive. Most of SDF’s 69 canine search teams are certified by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). The dogs undergo rigorous testing, in which they must find four to six victims in a pile of rubble. The pile may contain distractions such as food or cats. If they become distracted, they fail the test. SDF receives no government funds for training these dogs, but relies on donations. The full rescue training course costs $10,000 per dog.

It’s heartening to think that dogs that were saved from death in an animal shelter–society’s thow-aways–are now saving the lives of people in Haiti. In one rescue, a dog named Hunter (how appropriate!) found four little girls buried alive under four feet of concrete near Haiti’s Presidential Palace.  Good dog!