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Recovery effort of their own

Mary Peter and her partner Ruger are recuperating from memories and injuries from their work in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.

By BETH N. GRAY
Published November 21, 2005

	[Times photo: Edmund Fountain]
	Mary Peter and her German shepherd Ruger, here in Peter's Spring Hill home recently, volunteered to search for bodies in New Orleans last month after Hurricane Katrina.

SPRING HILL - Ruger, a cadaver-hunting dog, and his owner-handler have returned from their grisly job searching for human remains in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.

Along with four other volunteer teams from Tampa Bay Area Recovery Canines, Ruger and his best friend and leader, Mary Peter, spent Oct. 21 to 30 climbing piles of debris and smashed homes in the hard-hit 9th Ward "to see if anyone was left behind," Peter said.

Last week, she was still recovering her equilibrium, noting that the media photos and video don't tell the awfulness of the scenes she and the other handlers and their canines encountered.

Ruger, a 71/2-year-old black German shepherd, was recovering from a sprained right knee. The canine, cadaver-certified by the National Narcotics Detector Dog Association, along with certificates for forensic and trace evidence, couldn't be saved from injury by his vaunted papers.

"No telling" how the dog was injured, said Peter, who owns Stillwater Dog Training in Spring Hill. "Dogs were jumping on rooftops." They are eager in their work.

Ruger made several "alerts," Peter said. "Debris piles were so thick. All the dogs alerted in many locations. Those locations were marked, and then others ... had to come in and go through piece by piece.

"The New Orleans firemen were awesome. Every time the dogs alerted, they went in. We just located and backed out."

The Federal Emergency Management Agency had a contract with Tampa Bay Recovery Canines to aid in the search. Although the dog-owner teams volunteered their time and effort, FEMA provided them with hotel rooms and meals. Yet, most of those who operate canine facilities sacrificed a week of income to donate their expertise.

Assigned to each team was a firefighter and a police officer. Abandoned dogs were starting to pack up and become dangerous, Peter said. "We had to protect us and our dogs."

Peter had one slight beef with FEMA: "We didn't know beforehand the contamination we were going to be going into. We should have suited up (with anticontamination clothing). We wore masks when we needed to."

The dogs were scrubbed and decontaminated twice a day, and their handlers' clothes were similarly attended to, Peter said.

The dog owners were told they should get physical examinations, X-rays and antibiotics for themselves and their dogs when they returned to Florida, Peter noted. One dog had contracted Rocky Mountain spotted fever. Individual veterinary bills ranged from $200 to $500, but Peter said she expected FEMA to cover them.

Peter had no such paperwork to negotiate. Midway Animal Hospital in Homosassa has provided Ruger's veterinary necessities for free.

Whatever the personal costs, Peter has a special recollection of her volunteer work.

She met a woman who had lived in her house for 52 years, the house now gone, the woman wondering what to do now. The elderly resident asked for a photograph of Peter and Ruger, who had come to help them. The woman's granddaughter snapped the photograph. So, Ruger and she are immortalized for their good works in New Orleans in the wake of Katrina.

Beth Gray may be contacted at graybethn@earthlink.net

[Last modified November 21, 2005, 01:05:18]