A well-trained dog can be an amazing asset during a disaster as we have learned, but there are dimensions to these animals that some may not even be aware of!
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When disasters occur, dogs do much more than just aid search-and-rescue missions. They’re often there to provide a source of comfort for us in ways that only an animal can.
In an interview with American Thinker, Debra Tosch, executive director of the Search Dog Foundation (SDF), explained how her search and rescue dog Abby was able to console a firefighter at Ground Zero. “When someone was found, work would stop, and I watched as the tears rolled down the firefighters' faces. I remember one firefighter who hugged Abby and buried his face in her neck after just finding out a fellow firefighter was found,” she said.
Research show that petting dogs can lower anxiety, regulate breathing and decrease blood pressure, and a Japanese study found that simply looking at a dog can increase levels of oxytocin, a chemical released by the pituitary gland that’s associated with human bonding and affection.
But while the firefighter may have found comfort in Abby’s presence, was the dog able to empathize? Research says it’s very likely.
A 2012 study at Portugal's University of Porto found that dogs yawn even when they hear only the sound of a person yawning, providing strong evidence that dogs are able to empathize with us.
And a study at the University of London Goldsmiths College found that dogs comforted people — both their owners and strangers — when the person pretended to cry.
“I think there is good reason to suspect dogs would be more sensitive to human emotion than other species,” Deborah Custance, co-author of “Animal Cognition,” told Discovery News. “We have domesticated dogs over a long period of time. We have selectively bred them to act as our companions. Thus, dogs that responded sensitively to our emotional cues may have been the individuals that we would be more likely to keep as pets and breed from.”
Interestingly, because scent dogs tune into what is good and understand accomplishment it was found that during mega disasters, such as the fall of the twin towers (9/11) and Oklahoma in 1995, Search and Rescue (SAR) dogs were actually becoming depressed because they were only able to find the dead.
This goes to show how much empathy even the best-trained dogs can feel for their human masters. Handlers actually started to hide in the rubble so dogs could find them alive thus bolstering their passion for the mission.
Thank you Mother Nature Network for bringing us this fascinating story!
