Riley, a Golden Retriever that assisted in the 9/11 search and rescue efforts, was trained to find live people. Still, he did help recover several bodies of firefighters. But Riley worked desperately to find the living – that was his job.
His search partner and human explained, “Riley knew the people he continued to find were dead. He was never a formally trained cadaver dog. His job was to find the still living. I tried my best to tell Riley he was doing his job. He had no way to know that when firefighters and police officers came over to hug him, and for a split second you can see them crack a smile – that Riley was succeeding at doing an all together different job. He provided comfort. Or maybe he did know.”