K9 Back On Job At Camp Fire After Injury, Surgery

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA -- Man's best friend has again proven why.

George, a Belgian Malinois, is back in business this week in Paradise as the only fire department K9 in the Federal Emergency Management Agency's Task Force 3 deployed last weekend on the front lines of the deadliest, most destructive wildfire in California history. The dog is also the only K9 in Santa Clara County specifically trained to detect human remains. It's quite a job, as there are 81 fatalities already and hundreds of people on a missing persons list.

While doing so right out of the starting gate, George cut his leg on site. But Dr. Justin Lemieux of Stanford Medicine stitched him up on a picnic table using flashlights after he noticed George's handler Tim Houweling crouching next to him in a culdesac. Lemieux went to work, rinsing the wound, searching for debris and stitching him up. It was an "interesting" experience for the Stanford emergency room physician. He's never performed surgery on a dog before but has cross trained with veterinarians.

Lemieux said these dogs are different from people as they're running around essentially "barefoot" while the crews have steel-toed boots on.

"They won't tell you when they're hurt -- 'oh, I'm hurt I guess I have to lay down and cry.' They have this condition in their head that they have a job to do and just keep working," the Stanford doc told Patch while working in Magalia on Tuesday.

He would've liked to have explained to George what was happening and didn't know what to expect during surgery on Sunday.

"They have to trust you. With a search dog, they're very trustful almost to a fault," he said.

It seems the doctor has a friend for life now. George acts very grateful, as if Lemieux pulled a thorn out of his paw.

"I thought he wouldn't like me, but he jumped on me and licked me. Every time, he sees me he runs over to me," Lemieux said.

Like a soldier, George went back in the war zone of a flattened Paradise with a patched-up leg to help loved ones receive some bit of closure. It's a dilemma no person nor animal would want to deal with.

But this is not George's first assignment with this level of magnitude. He's a professional, trained to acknowledge even the slightest scents of human remains and has a proven record finding fire and flood victims.

Mountain View Fire spokesman Bob Maitland said George is "easy to love" because of the exhausting job he performs amid stressful and difficult conditions. Maitland agreed the department is brimming with pride over the level of response the fire crews including George have maintained day after day on this firestorm that has scorched more than 152,000 acres, displaced thousands of people and destroyed more than 16,000 structures -- the majority of them homes.

"While this is a very sad deployment, we hope George doesn’t find any more fire victims. But if someone needs to be found, we would like to then bring closure to families who are missing loved ones," the department wrote on its Facebook page.

To get a glimpse of the magnitude of the level of devastation this horrendous fire has caused, Cal Fire has created a list and map https://app.box.com where residents may get an assessment of what structures have been damaged and destroyed. More than 5,000 structures remain threatened as the blaze is 75 percent contained.

See also

• When Loss Hits Home: Menlo Park Fire Chief Homestead Destroyed
• Rescuing Animals Job 1 For Silicon Valley Humane Society
  
• San Mateo Co Strikes Camp Fire, Uses New Cal Fire Structure List

--Images courtesy of Menlo Park Fire Protection District, San Mateo County Strike Team and Mountain View Fire Department