The Art of Kindness

– Boomer, where are you, boy?

– Boomer.

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– Hi, I’m Wendie Malick and this is my sidekick Miles, who is one of the biggest goofballs I know.

But I don’t think anyone is happier to be around me than this guy.

My posse also includes a mini donkey named Luca, two quarter horses, Jeb and Cassidy, plus two young Mustangs, Bo and Stewart.

– Don’t eat my hat.

No, no, no, no.

Don’t eat my hat.

– We all share an incredible connection with our pets and Shelter Me celebrates that special bond.

In this episode, you’ll see people and their pets working in harmony.

There are dogs in shelters whose high energy and focus makes them perfect for search and rescue work.

– This is K9 Dax.

He’s a live victim search dog from New York.

– Paired with firefighters, these teams are ready to save people who are buried alive in emergencies or natural disasters.

– Handlers need to come here and learn.

This is the place to do that.

Strengthen disaster response in America.

– Good boy.

Come here.

Come here.

– And then we’ll see a beautiful relationship between a woman and a very unique dog.

– And now Dagger is going to paint.

– Together they spread a message of love and inspiration throughout their community.

– Let’s give a huge Oyster Bay welcome to… – This is awesome.

My best friends have always been animals.

I am so grateful to share my life with them.

These stories show how such partnerships can touch so many lives.

Please enjoy Shelter Me, The Art Of Kindness.

Shelter me And you will have all of my love and loyalty Fire Department Search and Rescue Holler out if you can hear me.

– Anybody down there?

Keep searching.

– Coming back around to the front of the train.

– Dog on – Firefighter Search Rescue.

Holler out if you can.

– It’s time to rotate.

So just like in real life, I’m trying to figure out exactly how many victims there are out there.

– We didn’t do the whole pile, we only did a couple of sections of the pile.

– Stick with me and follow me.

It’s a really big search area, so… – Let’s get moving.

– It’s human nature not to wanna think about the worst that could happen, but every year there are more natural disasters happening in the world.

– You got eyes on him?

– All right, I’m gonna pick him up down here.

– It’s not a matter of if, but when the next disaster strikes, and time is of the essence when that happens.

– So far hundreds have been pulled from… – …rescue dogs on scene right now.

– This is life and death.

– This way.

– She’s showing interest here.

– There is nothing that can rival a dog’s nose when it comes to disaster search.

The dog is able to cover a search area much quicker than any piece of technology.

– Did you get somebody?

Get ’em out.

– Everybody okay in there?

Need some water?

– That a girl.

– Two victims found.

I marked both of them.

– We know when the next disaster’s going to happen, these teams are training day and night, week after week, to be prepared when a disaster does strike.

These dogs can save lives.

– As a canine search specialist, I drove all the way down from Sacramento, as well as my teammates, and we’re coming to a a very large training here.

This weekend you have people from all over the country, and some from outside the United States, who come here to train because the Disaster Search Dog Foundation is like nothing else in the country.

They have the best trainers around and it’s gonna be in a deployment-like scenario, as close to real life as possible, where we’re gonna have to really stretch ourselves to problem-solve.

Jake is my first dog.

He was found at a shelter in Nebraska.

I’ve been doing this about four years now and I’ve had a couple of deployments and a ton of training, but you can always improve.

We are ready to go to work.

– Hey Stranger.

– Hey, welcome.

How are you?

– Great, great.

How are you?

– Good.

How was the trip?

– Not bad.

– Yeah, – I-5 is I-5.

– As always.

– Yep.

– Alright, who’s missed you?

– How have you been, Bud?

I love seeing you, but of course we gotta see the four-legged guys too.

Hi Bud.

How are you?

How was your trip?

Good boy.

– The Search Dog Foundation takes shelter dogs from all over the country, brings ’em to our national training center here in Santa Paula and we train them to be search dogs.

So they go from rescue to rescuer and they learn a set of skills that is very unique for finding survivors that are buried beneath the rubble after a disaster.

A lot of folks commonly believe that a breeding program produces much better results as far as success percentages go.

The results that we’ve seen, quite frankly, are very much the same.

And so there are so many dogs out there in the shelters across the country and even around the world.

– Good job Bud.

– And we can give them a purpose in life rather than allowing them to stay in the shelter and potentially be euthanized.

– I’ve heard that this training this weekend is gonna be on a whole ‘nother level, so – It should be – I heard there’s a lot of surprises and a lot of challenges, so, – And we’re gonna have 15, 16 teams out here, so you’re gonna get to see a lot of people.

– You ready to work?

He’s primed.

Yeah, he’s ready to go.

He’s ready to go.

We’re excited.

– He can’t wait.

– This is the first and only training center that’s designed specifically for disaster search dogs.

It’s 125 acres of what we call Doggie Disneyland because we have training props throughout the campus.

Everything from a search city as we call it, which is a neighborhood prop mimicking either a tornado or a hurricane that has gone through, to a train wreck, which is something else they may come across in the field, and a freeway collapse.

So they need to be ready and see those things here at our National Training Center campus before they arrive at a real deployment.

– This drill’s gonna cover victim reward.

The victim’s gonna produce the dog’s toy when they alert that they can smell live human scent, and that’s when the dog’s gonna get rewarded.

So we’re gonna have you first send in from probably next to that red box.

Send your dog into this first barrel here and it’s just gonna be a straight victim reward.

– The barrel exercise is the foundation where all the dogs start.

Dogs don’t start out by learning to recognize live human scent on the rubble.

They can’t.

So we start with the blue barrels.

The scent is contained so the dogs have one option to bark at.

This is a drill that the handlers, even though they’re experienced, the dogs are experienced, it’s always good to go, what we call, go back to kindergarten.

Go back to the basics so that this is where we clean up any little mistakes.

– Search – Essentially, the very first thing we teach a dog when they get here is to perform a behavior a lot of people don’t like.

We teach the dog, if you bark, I’m gonna give you what you want.

Most of us want our dogs to be quiet, right?

Like we don’t want barking dogs all day long.

But for us, we hear that dog barking.

We’re like, good job.

Yeah, that’s exactly what we want.

Here’s your toy.

– Good girl, Winnie.

– Good girl.

Get him out.

Get him out, Winnie.

– But when they learn to bark, you see this light bulb moment where the dog realizes, I’m barking, I’m allowed to bark.

First of all, I’m not being told to be quiet.

Secondly, you’re gonna give me a toy because I barked, which is my most precious thing in the world, and then you’re going to play with me and tell me I’m a good dog for doing it.

And so that really lays the foundation for the rest of their training.

– Good job, buddy.

– I truly believe these shelter dogs are made for this job.

They cannot be a house pet, and that’s because they have so much energy that they need to run around.

They cannot stay in a home.

These dogs are often on the euthanasia or unadoptable list for the exact behaviors we look for in a search dog.

A search dog is high energy, high drive and needs to be moving and doing things.

They have over the top energy and the endurance to go with it.

– Yes – But the most important trait, something called toy drive.

– Search – They have to possess a toy.

They just will not quit.

– Yes.

Yeah, that was great.

– We use a tug toy that can be tugged on and that taps into the dog’s innate sense of being a wild animal and tugging with a prey, which is the prey drive that we need and that they’re using for their search.

– Mark that, yeah.

– We know these dogs want the toy because we screen them ahead of time for a high, high, high level of toy drive or prey drive.

And then we teach them that a person in a barrel can produce that toy if they bark at the person in the barrel.

– Good job Luca.

– That’s when the dog starts to link up.

Oh, live human scent that I, a person I cannot see if I just bark at ’em, my toy’s gonna pop out.

And then we create a search pattern for the dog.

So we have lots of barrels.

Now you have to go find that person, then bark at them, then your toy will pop out.

And the third step would be adding the rubble.

So now that person’s in the rubble and you still have to search, you still have to bark at them.

– Now we’re gonna focus on handler reward.

– In a real life disaster, the victim’s never gonna have a toy.

Victim’s not gonna be able to reward the dog, but we want the dogs to believe that the victim does have their toy and is gonna play with them after they’ve alerted.

– And it’s important to note that when the dogs, if you are approaching your dog and your dog stops alerting and looks at you, you are to continue to do whatever you’re doing.

Don’t stop.

Because if you stop moving, when they stop barking and look at you, that’s a cue.

Like something’s coming.

So we want your approach to mean nothing.

Like you’re gonna be moving around the dog, if the dog stops alerting and looks at you, you’re just gonna keep moving.

– Yeah.

– And we can do it a couple times.

– Yeah.

– Yes!

Good boy.

Nice job.

Look at you go, buddy.

That’s so nice.

– Greg did a handler reward and the timing of it was perfect.

With the handler reward, the toy is thrown down right in front of the dog’s face.

We don’t want the dog to ever think that toy’s coming from the handler.

So we want that handler reward to be more or less invisible to the dog.

That’s why we do these drills.

– Yes.

Good job Rosie.

– The victims are never gonna reward in real deployment.

They can’t.

That’s why we’re there trying to rescue and save them.

The work that’s being done this weekend is what people will see when, unfortunately, the inevitable happens and there’s a disaster that happens either close to home or that someone sees on the news.

– Get it.

Good job.

That’s it, Rosie.

– We work in very dangerous scenarios, – A desperate search for life today in Mexico City.

– I’m from Tijuana, Mexico.

We had a chance to be in the Mexico City earthquake.

– The official death toll rose to 223 today and the nation’s president warned every minute counts to save lives.

– I’m part of Florida Task Force One.

Our primary deployments are hurricanes and tornadoes.

– Buildings and trees ripped apart.

Irma’s death toll expected to rise.

– I’ve been with California Task Force Two for about six years, deployed to Montecito for the mudslide.

– The debris field from the deadly Montecito mudslides covers 30 square miles.

– At Montecito we learned a lot, pulling a lot of handlers outta mud.

– Search dogs are assisting in the ongoing rescue effort, but for responders, time is running out.

– We had 18 teams that responded to Montecito.

They searched for about a week and were able to let the responders know that there were no survivors there.

And though that is a devastating thing to stop and think about.

At the same time, those dogs, by not alerting, serve just as important a purpose as they would alerting on a survivor.

Being able to say there’s no one here allows the families that are waiting to hear about their loved ones, to start the closure process in the process of grieving.

– Unfortunately, during the Mexico City earthquake, most of the finds that we did were victims that had already been deceased But Rosie is my partner.

She takes care of me and I take care of her.

And the bond that we have is very strong.

There aren’t words to express how connected Rosie and I are.

– Sit.

Climb.

Get up.

Sit.

Sit.

Good.

Climb.

Sit.

Go through.

Go through.

Uh uh.

Winnie.

– We never know what we’re going to run into as far as obstacles go on a deployment.

That’s why we do this agility training.

I got Winnie in September of 2017.

– Wait – Winnie came from a family in Utah that took her to a shelter.

She was adopted out and returned several times and eventually they labeled her with the euthanasia behavior because she was too much to handle.

She never gets tired so they couldn’t exercise her.

People just couldn’t control her.

And she looks so nice and calm and then once she gets a toy, it’s game over.

Just in time, a rescue from Wyoming found her and realized her potential, and contacted the Search Dog Foundation and the rest is history.

– Hey, hey, hey.

– I do love her.

She’s awesome.

– Yes.

Good girl.

Winnie, come on.

Come here.

Come here Winnie.

Hey Winnie.

– She teaches me a lot.

I have a nine month old daughter and having Winnie before having my daughter really helped me to be ready to be a dad.

– Drop it.

Drop.

– She definitely taught me a lot about patience.

– Winnie you ready?

Climb.

Easy, easy.

– We certified as a canine search team ever since January of 2018 and we’ve been waiting for a deployment.

– Good girl.

Get it.

Get it Winnie.

Good girl.

– So we’re getting a look at the next exercise.

I would say it’s about as close to a deployment as you can get.

– Tomorrow morning is going to be really unique in that this is a deployment simulation, so everything’s gonna be set up to mimic a real deployment.

– It’s up to you to come tomorrow morning with a plan.

– Thank you.

In terms of gear and preparation, anything different from any other time?

– No.

Nope.

If you got rain gear, you might want to bring it.

It’s pretty muddy down there.

So you know the dogs will kind of get muddied up and so will you.

– They’ll enjoy it.

I will.

– Alright, thanks.

– Thanks.

I’m excited.

It’s not gonna be easy, but you have handlers who have been doing this for 20 years they’re some of the best in the world.

– Put your dog away, you jump in and you bam, boom, boom.

– We’re all from different fire departments throughout the nation.

There’s a couple of dogs out there that are pretty strong, pretty fast, but Winnie is super fast, super accurate.

I think she’s the best.

– You guys all ready for today?

– Yeah.

– You know we have to be in charge of just gauging how much energy our dog has left and to be able to save that so we have it throughout the day.

– Quite a challenge.

– Oh, good morning you guys.

How are you?

You slept really well.

How did you sleep?

– Good.

– The majority of our handlers have their day job, if you will, of saving lives as firefighters.

But the training that they put in and the hours that they spend doing the search dog work is actually on a volunteer basis.

– It’s all teamwork.

– Being at the foundation here, the culture’s the same as any other firehouse.

So, as I’m trying to clean dishes and get early start on the morning, I’ve got no less than four people trying to bump me out of the way and and get in there to help.

No fireman wants to be seen sitting around while other people are working.

So it just takes one person to get in there and everybody else jumps in and does their part.

– Almost time to go play.

Huh?

– All the first responders are the same.

Very proud.

We all approach things the same way as the dogs do.

High drive, high energy, want to get our job done and no sleep is not unheard of.

That’s why you weren’t snoring from six o’clock.

– We have fun but we are always ready to roll.

– This isn’t gonna be your typical dog training today.

– So when we receive a call for a deployment, we keep our bags packed and with us.

So we are operational at all times, 24 7.

– We had an event happen here this morning around seven o’clock, we had a large earthquake that caused quite a bit of significant damage.

We don’t really know how many people are out there that are missing.

We’re still getting intel from that.

I’m trying to figure out exactly how many victims there are out there.

Everything within this area on your map is in bounds and is fair game.

We have told the victims not to make it that easy on you.

– This is the hole.

So you go feet first I think.

– I’m gonna go ahead of you.

So I can show you where every- thing is.

– You can come to me.

– All right.

– There you are.

We’re gonna put you here because there’s a little hole right here where we, we think that the dogs will probably be able to smell you.

There’s that and then there’s this.

All right.

Thank you.

– Group One will go to A first.

Group Two will go to B.

– Okay.

So go ahead and break out into your groups and come up with your plan.

– Good boy Jake.

– Ready?

Winnie you ready?

– The scenario is that we don’t know anything.

We just know this is a area of … a metropolitan area where there could be people.

We don’t have any estimates, any numbers.

– We’re just kind of figuring out like hit the ground running and talk on the way.

– So this is the only area where I’m kind of nervous about.

We don’t have any control of the high speed car.

– When we go on real deployments, you never quite know who you’re gonna be working with.

When we went to Katrina, I worked with Ohio and Jersey.

When I went to Hurricane Michael, I was with New York, California.

So it’s very important that we’re all on the same game plan and this training center gives us that.

– This is so awesome.

– My name is Wilma Melville and I’m the founder of the Search Dog Foundation.

– Tell me how they’re doing so far today.

How’s it going?

– It’s actually going really well.

So we have ’em split into four teams and they’re starting at all different areas here at the NTC, which is great.

– Do you mean we are using almost the entire facility?

– Yeah, we’re using everything from the front gate all the way up to the top of the canyon.

– Wow.

– Wilma Melville had the idea to begin this organization when she responded to the Oklahoma City bombing on April 19th, 1995 with her search dog Murphy.

And she realized as they were searching the remains of the Murrah Building, that there were not enough certified disaster search dogs in the country to respond to a disaster of that magnitude, which had never occurred before on American soil.

And when she came home, she made it her life’s mission to change that.

– Wilma has started something that was greatly missing.

– Hello.

– We didn’t have the process to choose dogs, to train dogs to exactly what our goals are, which are buried people in disaster, still alive.

– How many do you think are acting as victims today?

– I think we probably have between 10 and 12 victims out across the entire campus.

– Alright, closing it up.

– They’re in rubble, they’re in buildings, they’re all over the place.

– It sounds like things are well underway.

– Wait.

Dog on.

– Oh, he is way off there.

Jakey this way.

This way.

That a boy, Jake, you get somebody?

Firefighter search rescue.

Haul out if you can.

Yeah.

Good, good boy.

Come here, come here.

Oh, good job.

– Good job.

I know.

Oh, good job.

– Right now I’m flagging that this was a hit by a dog.

Jake did really well and he covered the entire wood pile.

He was downwind of that area, but he blew over that rubble and so he’s not paying attention.

This is a very typical quirk of his.

His first search on the first day of something like this.

He goes a little too fast.

His brain’s not on, but his muscles are and his nerves are.

And so something like this, I typically come back and we’ll rework an area.

– Search.

– When a handler is paired with a dog, the beginning of a lifelong bond starts.

They go home with them, they get to know each other’s behavioral traits and you start to see them really grow as a team.

– Work it out.

Work it out.

Yes.

That a boy.

– He immediately went for the strong scent, which was over there in the rubble.

So now I’m confident that he’s got that whole area.

– All done?

No?

All right.

Whenever you’re ready.

– You see the spark in the chemistry between a human and dog.

And that is a centuries-old phenomenon.

We call them man’s best friend for a reason, and it really is true.

When a dog is partnered with a handler, they spend more time together than they do with their own families.

They go to the fire station with them every single day.

– Everyone at the fire station absolutely loves Winnie.

They love having her at the station more than myself.

Sometimes it hurts my feelings, but it’s life.

– Are you about ready, Brandon?

Winnie, you ready?

Search.

– Dog on.

– Without canines, it would take us one month to clear that two acre pile.

We have to delayer everything.

We would have to remove rubble and then check the next layer and the next layer and the next layer.

Humans can’t smell people.

We look for them.

And the dogs are trained not to use their eyes.

They just use their nose, which is 30 times more sensitive than a human’s.

– In the very, very, very beginning, we used to try and clear people off the pile.

Don’t put your scent here, but the dog captures that scent and she knows she’s not looking for us.

– The dog gets up onto the rubble.

They can smell each person individually and identify them and know you’re not it.

’cause I can see you, you’re not it.

’cause I can see you.

– She’s never been rewarded for finding somebody out in the open, but when she locates a scent that is hidden, then she says, this is it.

This is it.

– Oh, good girl, Winnie.

Good girl.

– One of the victims that Winnie found was about 15 feet down through however many layers.

10 layers.

– Yeah.

A real deployment.

People are literally maybe taking their last breath or bleeding to death and we don’t have time.

So we need to have hustle.

And she’s got the hustle.

Either crushed rubble or crushed buildings.

All she needs to do is use her nose.

– Search.

Lila is a pocket rocket.

She is my wild child, is what I call her.

She is nonstop energy.

She just flies over the area.

– This way.

I know you got something there.

Let’s clear this first.

Search.

– She’s gonna be doing a lot of hasty searches out here, narrowing down an interest area.

– She’s showing interest here.

I’m gonna slow down for a minute.

Let her work it out.

– And then we’ll put the four methodical dogs in to either verify or to detail a search out.

Lila came from the Sacramento pound.

She’s a pound puppy, she’s nine years old.

But we never stop training these dogs.

You always want to encourage them and challenge them.

This is part of their enjoyment in life and their purpose for being.

– Lila, this way.

– You know this is what they live to do.

So we wanna give that to ’em.

And you’re always trying to think of that next scenario to put that in their toolbox.

– Coming to you – Behind me, we have the tilted house.

Who would go to the trouble of building a house that has been blown off its foundation?

Well we need that here because in tornadoes in the Midwest, hurricanes on the East Coast, earthquakes on the West Coast, houses often tilt.

When our handlers and dogs go into a tilted house, a kind of a vertigo happens.

Not much to the dog, but to the handler.

– Lila.

– We need our handlers prepared for that.

– Good girl.

– She’s just telling me, I have human scent, but she’s not committed because it’s not there.

– She is not pinpointed or not committed.

– When you hear that two barks up there, that’s a dog that’s excited.

But it’s not the focused bark that we want to hear.

Now we’re getting closer to it.

Let’s wait.

Now the dog is becoming more confident, more barks.

This is it.

This is it.

– And the handlers know the difference between… – Oh yeah.

Well that’s why they’re here.

– You’ll hear the growl is different.

Over there it was bark.

This is, I’m gonna kill you.

So gimme that.

Yes.

Good girl.

Yeah.

Good job Monkey.

Yeah.

– If I were buried, I would want you to come hunting for me.

I would rest easy under there waiting for you.

– I appreciate that thought.

– All right.

Come on out.

– I was confined underneath the stairwell.

It was, you can hear ’em initially when they came in, the dogs were barking, talking back and forth with their handler and they went through the house sniffing.

And then when they got closer to the door, they would kind of scratch on the door.

And then the dog barked.

You could tell it was wagging his tail.

It was happy it found me.

This is the first time I’ve done this with this group, but I do know the importance of dogs and searching victims in during natural disasters.

– It was the height of rush hour when a commuter train and freight train collided.

The force derailed train cars and scattered passengers.

– It is different being a victim where you know you’re gonna get saved, but while you’re in there, your mind goes to different places.

– The first train crash in Chatsworth.

I had friends that were actually on that train.

You have no idea what they went through trying to rescue those people.

– Rescuers aided by dogs, searched through the night hoping for signs of life.

– You think you’re safe on a train.

Our handlers have been to train wrecks and they have been gruesome and difficult places to search – Our train wreck props are the most challenging that we have and the pinnacle of what our handlers do here at the National Training Center.

– This is the real deal.

There’s some new props that I haven’t been here for and didn’t know my way around them and I had to trust Winnie.

– One of the most important things that a handler learns when they first come here is to trust your dog.

Dogs have no agenda, they have no ulterior motive.

And when that dog doesn’t alert or if the dog does alert, we trust what that dog is essentially saying that either there is no one here and we can move on and search elsewhere.

– I think we’re done Winnie.

– Or there is someone buried here and we need to extricate them from the rubble.

– Yes.

Good boy.

Good job.

Good job.

– He alerted for the ceiling.

– Alright, we’re done here.

The last few hours were a little bit long, but they saved me.

– It was really exciting when you hear the dog and they push on the door and you can just, and it took ’em a while to just really make sure, I guess.

And then it was, oh, you’re here.

You’re right here.

I do this because it’s just for a good cause.

If I’m ever in a disaster, even if it’s not me, if it’s someone else, you know, whatever part I can play to help them train to save lives.

That’s what it’s all about.

– It’s a pretty good one, bud.

I think you look pretty good.

Little brushing tonight.

That’ll be it.

– This weekend was incredible.

It was about nine hours straight of searching for these guys.

– You’re a good boy.

– And they did great.

It was fun to watch.

– I’m really proud of Winnie.

She didn’t miss anybody.

She didn’t false alert.

She really is at the top of her game.

I’ll give her a hundred percent for the weekend.

– Overall, all the dogs did really well.

As far as communication goes, you guys covered the area very quickly, very well.

– You guys did a good job of, of looking at the strengths and the weaknesses of the dogs that you had and deploying them out where they needed to be deployed.

– So I thought you guys did an excellent job strategizing how you were gonna run the rubble pile as well as the wide area search.

I just was really impressed with all of you and how well you read your dogs.

– I hope you had a good day working your dogs and, you guys are free.

– Thank you.

– Bye little girl.

We’ll see you later.

– Good to see.

We’ll see you soon.

– Really appreciate everything.

– We are always looking for the next search dog because we know they’re out there in the shelters and it’s just a matter of finding them and getting to them in time.

These dogs are absolutely amazing.

They just don’t know it yet.

When they’re sitting in the shelter.

Seeing that transformation from shelter dog to search dog, from rescue to rescuer, it doesn’t get old.

And there is nothing better in this world.

To see a dog come through our gates, not really having a place in life, not knowing its purpose in life, and us being able to help guide that dog into that, and then see them deploy to a disaster and save lives.

It doesn’t get any better than that.

– I’m pretty happy as I look around here, very happy.

Over the years handlers and dogs retire and the time has passed for me to run on rubble piles.

But it, it doesn’t matter.

Ask any handler that has been on a significant deployment and if they tell the truth, they’ll say, the deployments never leave me.

You know, age is just a number.

Each age or phase that one enters one can make a difference.

– Dogs are incredible.

Their true talent is giving unconditional love.

You’re going to see a beautiful story about a woman and her dog.

Together they are bringing something quite extraordinary to their community.

This truly is the art of kindness.

– He’s very talented.

I gotta say that, Mary.

– It’s beautiful.

I see his work and I mesmerized how he paints.

– My name is Yvonne and our dog’s name is Dagger, AKA Dog Vinci.

And tonight there’s going to be a gallery show with over 40 of his original paintings.

Yes, I have a dog that paints three years ago, I would’ve thought if someone had told me that, I would’ve thought they were just out of their minds.

Dagger has been painting for over two and a half years now.

He has sold a total of over 400 paintings and raised over $45,000 for charity.

It all begins in a home I share here on Long Island with my husband Dennis.

Dagger is five years old.

He’s three quarters lab and 25% golden retriever.

When we adopted Dagger, we had not one clue that he was going to become a famous canine artist.

– Dagger was trained to be a service dog.

He went through a rigorous training program.

A problem happened is that Dagger had some fears that came up in the training.

So he was released from the program and fortunately Yvonne and I were able to adopt him.

We felt that Dagger was an animal that that really could serve people, but in a different way.

– But we were adopting him at the center, the puppy raiser manager said to me, you know, dagger really loves to work.

Let me bring you into the training room and show you what he can do.

It makes him feel very successful.

And it was amazing to me to see that he could open and close drawers and turn on light switches and retrieve things and pick things up off the floor.

And so I promised her that I would take him home and continue utilizing all these neat command words that he knew.

I am a professional fine artist.

I actually got seriously involved in my art career when my children were grown.

Myself, I specialize in pet portraiture.

And one day I was working in my studio, which is now our studio.

And, I felt Dagger nudge me with a snout.

And jokingly I said to him, would you like to paint like mommy?

And his tail started to wag.

– When she told me that she was going to try and train Dagger to paint it sounded bizarre, but I’ve been around the block enough where I think that it, I took it in stride.

The funny part about her is that five minutes after she said that she was gonna try, out came the equipment and the training started.

– When he’s ready to work, his Red Beret goes on.

I’m an artist.

I’m not an animal trainer.

So his advanced trainer, Lauren Farioli came once a week for about two months and she said one day to me, it was about a month and a half in, when do you think you’re gonna be ready to put paint on this dog’s brush?

And I said, tonight.

And she said, yeah, I think we’re gonna do it tonight.

So we did it and he took the brush and he painted his first brush stroke.

So we kept that painting.

But then the next paintings after that, it was an opportunity for Dagger to give back.

His second painting was a painting that, if you made a donation to Canine Companions for Independence, you got a free painting from Dagger.

Okay, Dags.

Dagger, brush.

Oh.

And, paint!

Dagger style is pure true abstract art in every sense of the words.

True, pure abstract art has no representational influence whatsoever.

Yes!

And what we’re going to do is we’re gonna swap out.

We’re gonna take this one off of his easel and we’re going to finish this work of art.

This, this work of art has actually been worked on for like three, three sessions so far.

So Dagger’s gonna finish this one today.

Dagger’s Sessions usually run about 45 minutes.

I am his director.

I load his brush up with paint.

He takes it in his, in his mouth and he begins to create those brush strokes.

Good.

Good job.

He did.

He got into that area that I was kind of hoping he would get into.

I do turn the, the paintings as he’s painting them so that he can get all areas covered with some paint.

Every brushstroke that’s painted on each one of Dagger’s 400 works of art that he has so far created is from Dagger alone.

– Yes.

– Wow!

What a great brush stroke that was.

Oh wow!

And your tail is going in a circle.

That means you’re really, really happy.

It’s not an easy task because I do have three dogs and neither one of the other two have any interest whatsoever in painting.

I created a Facebook page for Dagger.

Then we got some commissions and we decided that all the profits were going to go to charities.

But it wasn’t until a Newsday article came out.

At first I was a little bit curious and a little bit possibly suspicious.

So I went to visit Dagger one day and I sat down and I actually saw him.

I observed him in action – And she wrote this article.

Dagger’s story immediately went viral.

Oh, did this story go viral?

Immediately, overnight TV stations were showing up without even making appointments.

– The Brazilian national TV.

– Who can resist a story about a painting dog?

From that point on, he had gotten within two weeks, 150 commissions for paintings.

Get a call from your daughter, are you aware that he’s on the front page of the London Herald?

– And I was.

I said, wow, this is incredible.

– We have seen a lot of very talented animals on our show.

– That’s right.

– But we have never had a dog that’s this creative.

Dagger’s nickname is actually Dog Vinci because he is a painter.

Dog Vinci.

Yeah, Dog Vinci.

So if you’d like your own dog Vinci, go to our website and we’ll link you up.

He loves you, dad.

I love you.

He loves…

He loves and I love you Dad.

Everybody loves Regis.

Thank you to Regis, – Thank you to Dad.

Thank you.

You know, a wonderful element of this whole story is that it’s not just about the painting and all of the attention that that Dagger gets and the money, which is wonderful, that goes to help area charities.

It’s also that Dagger also goes to nursing homes and schools Beyond painting, Dagger and I actually do these workshops, which are educational.

Dagger has done over 50 of them so far, at various local libraries and schools.

Good job.

And he got the brush in his mouth.

Paint.

Come on Dagger.

Yes.

They’re just wonderful workshops.

What happens is, is I teach the children about abstract art.

I love how you, how you’re muting colors together.

They’re so Dog Vinci.

Our message is really to create, to learn, to reach out to others in kindness and love.To keep a positive attitude.

And some of these kids really need to know that they should never, ever give up.

And to always, always create.

I think it’s great ’cause they all get to do one of a kind paintings and really express themselves and really see how creativity can really benefit other people too.

That’s gorgeous.

I Love it.

I think first of all, they have a good time.

Second of all, they see something that they’ve never seen before.

And then if they listen to Yvonne’s message, they come away feeling better about themselves and knowing that they can create, and that whatever they create is fine, because that’s their talent and it is what they want it to be.

– Thank you, Dagger.

(All together) Thank you, Dagger – Yay Dagger.

My husband and I have adopted, rescued, fostered many dogs over the years.

And we’ve always had a place in our hearts for a shelter pet.

I’m hoping that through Dagger’s show, through his gallery show, that it will raise awareness and people will come out and say, wow, I can do that too.

Or, I can be creative and I can think of some other way to bring awareness to shelters.

Well, today is the day.

It’s the big gallery opening.

And right now I’m headed over to the Babylon Animal Shelter.

The reason that we chose the Babylon Animal Shelter was simple.

They need our help.

The Babylon Animal Shelter is right here on Long Island and it’s one small area, but they do house a lot of animals.

And they do need to be adopted out.

Hi, We’re very excited about a painting that is the signature piece for Daggers Gallery Show, gimme Shelter.

The name of the piece is called You Are Our Voice, which is really, really a great name to focus on the fact that we are the voice of the animals in the shelter.

– Well, I’m amazed that Dagger and Yvonne came up with the concept of putting these beautiful paintings, done by a dog, up for sale.

And the proceeds from that sale are going to benefit our Humble Adoption Center.

I think it’s amazing.

– The Babylon Animal Shelter is a wonderful, wonderful shelter.

It’s a municipal shelter which houses about a hundred animals.

– We take in stray dogs and stray cats from our area.

We average about 750 dogs and about 700 cats per year.

We take them in as owner surrender for adoption.

We take them as strays.

We also take them in as part of abuse or neglect cases.

– Look at Joe.

Good girl.

Everybody’s getting ready for this evening.

The volunteers are excited.

They’re taking photographs of all of the animals up for adoption, which is terrific, so that the people that come to the show will be able to adopt a pet and bring the pet home to a loving forever home.

What’s going on?

Oh, she’s beautiful.

Oh, she is so gorgeous.

Good job.

Fendi.

You know it!

And she should, she deserves it.

Beautiful.

Hey, good girl.

– This is something magical that’s happening for us that’s gonna benefit all these animals here in a small way or a large way.

And that’s the kind of stuff that keeps us going.

You know, not only are we raising funds, but we’re also bringing awareness to the municipal shelters.

And that’s, that’s really important, I think.

And, you know, like dogs like Fendi are beautiful.

They’re, they’re just so great.

And we wanna get them loving forever homes.

Shelter life can be really hard at times.

And the stuff that keeps me, keeps all of us going is those bright spots: adoptions, the just right place for a dog that we thought might have no place.

– Love you Tyson.

Bye-bye.

Bye Tyson.

– Things like what’s happening right now with Dagger and Yvonne working hard to benefit, not us, but the animals in our care.

That’s a pretty magical thing.

– Jim Perna is the president and owner of Long Island Picture Frame and Art Gallery.

– Yvonne was a client of ours as an artist.

She started to bring in Dagger’s pieces to have framed.

– When Dagger’s story went viral, and he had over 150 commissions for paintings from people all over the world, we needed help.

So we’ve been partners.

He’s been exclusively representing Dagger for over two years now.

– Yvonne always wanted to do a show that was much bigger and for a bigger cause.

So, you know, with the animal shelter element of it, it just started to fall into place.

I really didn’t know the severity of shelters.

I think we have over 50 dogs and cats on the walls mixed in.

And you stop me, scratch your head and you say to yourself, we’re benefiting the Babylon Animal shelter tonight.

What about all the other shelters that are right here on Long Island?

And then you multiply it by this whole country.

It’s a huge problem.

That’s why I think the show is important for the awareness.

You’ll see these animals that are hanging on the wall that need homes and it, it does, it kind of chokes you up a little bit.

– I’m so excited to see Dagger.

It’s the first time seeing him in person.

– We saw Dagger a couple years ago at a show.

He had an exhibit here a couple years ago.

We wanted to buy one of his pictures, but unfortunately was sold out before we got it.

– I’ve seen him on TV.

He’s pretty good.

When people come in tonight to this show, I know the response that they’re gonna… Oh my God, I love this!

Ladies and gentlemen, I’m excited to announce the arrival of our celebrity artist tonight.

Long Island’s own.

Let’s give a huge Oyster Bay welcome to… – Oh, my goodness.

– I like that one.

I’m very interested in buying one of the paintings.

– And which one you looking at?

I actually really like this one.

The puppy love?

It’s incredible.

I am, I’m speechless.

It’s overwhelming.

It’s, it’s crazy.

It’s wonderful.

It’s exciting.

It’s everything we had visioned it to be and it’s, this is awesome.

– I’ve done shows with artists that they would do anything to have an opening for the first night, the first hour, almost selling half of ’em and three and a half hours into the event selling, I think, every single one.

So if you ask me, was it successful?

Tremendous.

– Done by Dagger.

So that makes it all so special.

Such a pleasure to write about Dagger.

I love writing the story too because we always get to the real serious part about the good that he does in the community and how his efforts are really going to help, in this case, shelter animals.

And in other cases as well, animals who really sometimes are very much overlooked.

And so I love that Dagger is pointing, pointing his nose and his paintbrush at these, at shelters as well.

We probably sold almost every single painting here tonight.

Yay!

Woo!

And you guys raised over $10,000 for the Babylon Animal Shelter.

Yay!

Not only did we have a gallery aspect tonight, we also had online presence with You Are Our Voice.

So we close the auction tonight online at eight eight o’clock.

And this painting, unframed raised $450 alone for the Babylon Animal Shelter, which is awesome.

– We named this piece, you Are Our Voice because the animals in the shelters don’t have a voice.

We are their voices.

– Yvonne, you and Dagger are our voice.

What you’ve done for this shelter, for our animals, for the volunteers, for the people in our community is unbelievably generous.

And we are so grateful for it.

You’re part of our community, and we are ever so grateful.

Thank you.

– Thanks guys.

Alright.

You guys are the greatest.

I was just absolutely touched when all these people came together and they have such enthusiasm to be able to do this for their shelter.

And it, to me, that’s everything.

– Petco Love Lost.

A National Lost and Found pet database can help.

Using image recognition technology so every pet can be back where they belong.

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Petco love Lost.