It has been 25 years since the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. The 9/11 Memorial & Museum is paying tribute to the dogs who served at Ground Zero alongside the first responders to recover the fallen.
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More Than 300 Dogs Helped the Search and Rescue Efforts After 9/11
ABC News spoke to Robert Schnelle, who was the first member of the New York Police Department's K-9 Unit to arrive at the World Trade Center after the first plane crashed into the North Tower.
He and his dog Atlas were at Ground Zero over the eight months after the tragic events of 9/11. The pair worked grueling 12-hour shifts searching, rescuing, and recovering at the scene. Atlas was among the 300 dogs who took part in the effort.
"We did that straight through till May 30, [2002], until they shut it down and said that the recovery is now over. The site's now closed, Ground Zero," said Schnelle. "That was a very traumatic day for a lot of us, because we had been there so long, and, you know, you never want to just give up."
The Mission Changed in Many Ways
What started as a search-and-rescue effort became a recovery mission, explained Dr. Cynthia Otto. She was a Pennsylvania veterinarian who came to New York to help after the 9/11 attacks.
"That was just the most devastating part of the whole process," added Otto. "All of these dogs were trained to find live humans, but it became clear that they started to recognize human remains, and they didn't do their normal response."
The four-legged friends could go into places that their human companions could not. Their work helped identify nearly 3,000 people who died at the site. And while they were not trained as therapy dogs, helping their human companions deal with the tragedy became part of the job.
"One of the things that has really stuck with me is that the dogs provided so much more than just the scent detection," said Otto. "They provided some sort of source of comfort for all of us that were working there, and it really made a difference."
