Sage Foundation Awards Emergency Funding
The Sage Foundation had an emergency board meeting and decided to grant $500 additional funds for MWD Emir's emergency surgery on 05/19/13. Read more here
The Sage Foundation had an emergency board meeting and decided to contribute $2,500.00 towards MWD Gabe's treatments. Read more here.
DC Tribute Honors Military Dogs
A very special tribute on Capitol Hill honored war heroes at both ends of the leash !
Sage Foundation awards first grant to Dan and Trace
The Sage Foundation is proud to announce its first grant to help with the care of Dan Fanning's
Trace, a six year-old Yellow Lab. The $1,000 grant will be distributed in four $250 payments, each covering one half of the cost of Trace's monthly treatments for lymphoma. You can read more about Dan Fanning and Trace in Our Hereos.
CSU veterinarians save life of dog that rescues others
FORT COLLINS (AP) - A world-renowned hero paid a visit to CSU's Veterinary Teaching Hospital on May 20.
Looking at the exuberant 11-year-old border collie, no one would suspect she was in for her six-month checkup after having surgery last November for cancer.
Sage and her owner, Diane Whetsel, have worked together since Sage was 10 months old, training to become one of the nation's top search-and-rescue dogs. Sage was first
deployed during the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, tasked with recovering the bodies of the
terrorists who attacked the Pentagon. She was successful and since has worked on the
Natalie Holloway case in Aruba, helped track down missing soldiers in Iraq and worked on
several missing person and homicide cases with police departments across the nation.
As a result of her Sept. 11 work, Sage was enrolled in a canine health study conducted by
the University of Pennsylvania, to determine the risk and effects of search and rescue on
dogs that work in environments such as ground zero.
Each year, Whetsel routinely sends a blood sample and chest X-rays to the University of
Pennsylvania. The tests went without alarm until last fall when Whetsel was contacted by
her veterinarian.
"There was something in her lungs, a mass of some sort," Whetsel said. "They said it
could be one of two, and their guess was either a thymoma or a lymphoma."
Had it not been for the study, Whetsel said the masses might never have been found.
"She was never symptomatic," Whetsel said. "Had it not been for the 9/11 study they were
doing at the University of Pennsylvania, we may not have detected it until she was
symptomatic and the prognosis may have been different." See a PDF of the article as it appeared in the Durango Herald News. Durango Herald News website.
FEMA K9 dies in accident
Release Date: Monday, June 7, 2010
On Friday June 4, 2010, FEMA Virginia K9 Task Force 2 canine, “Win,” died as a result of an accident during Team training. Win was in the process of searching a rubble pile for a live victim. He entered through a small opening of the rubble pile, where the victim was located, when the accident occurred. A piece of concrete reinforcing wire punctured his chest cavity causing internal bleeding. Although Win was injured, he finished his search, located the victim, and lay at her side. The canine handler immediately sensed a problem and Win was quickly transported to Bay-Beach Veterinary Hospital where Mark Honaker, DVM was unable to save him.
Lieutenant Winters was a seven year old male Belgian Malinois/Shepherd and resided in Albemarle County, Virginia. Win joined Virginia Task Force 2 in October 2005 after he received his Advanced K-9 Search certification. He was deployed on five different occasions, including Haiti and Katrina.
FEMA Canine Searchers play a critical role during structural collapse incidents. The canines help search teams locate victims, using their incredible sense of smell to detect live human scent, even from a victim buried deep in the rubble.