09/11/2026
Pictured are Shirley Hammond and her dog Sunny. After the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, they were called to New York. The collapse of the towers left hundreds of thousands of tons of debris at the site with victims buried beneath. The affected area became known as Ground Zero and it was the job of Shirley and Sunny, and the many other search and rescue teams called to the site, to find them.
Shirley said: "We did actually locate the body of a fireman, which was a dramatic find for Sunny. Sunny is technically a ‘live’ find dog, but because there were no live victims in the area, he took the search a step further and started locating human remains.”
Shirley continued: “There were four fellows with torches cutting beams. I assumed they were firefighters, searching for one of their own. Sunny kept returning to one area, and finally pawed a spot on the ground. Later, one of the firefighters came up and put a hand on my shoulder. He said, it was our brother.”
The rescue dogs became a welcome presence at Ground Zero lifting the spirits of many workers. Shirley spoke about that importance: “Sunny is a 95-pound male Doberman. The first time people saw him on the pile they sort of walked around him. But then he became sort of an icon, and his job on the pile was almost as important as a therapy dog as it was as a search dog. People would come up and say, ‘I hear this is Sunny. Can I pet him?’ Then they would just pet Sunny, and he would lean into them. The guys just had the need for that warm fuzzy stuff, and the search dogs really provided that.”
Sunny passed away from cancer in November 2003, at age 11. Shirley passed away in October 2024.
Poster credit: Doberman Pride