Pets in Peaceful Rest, LLC

09/22/2026

09/21/2026

Today at Mang Park in Kenmore, the Kenmore Village Improvement Society (KVIS) brought back a popular community event known as The Dog Days of Kenmore. The event has been on hiatus since the pandemic. Once again, Pets in Peaceful Rest was one of the event sponsors hosting a Memorial Chapel booth where pet parents were able to write their beloved pet’s name on a ribbon with anything else they wanted to say. The ribbons, all in the colors of the rainbow, were attached to a memorial wreath to be on display in the community until next years event. Scott Schmidt, owner and President of Pets in Peaceful Rest, LLC was on hand to take in all the sights of the event and to see the Chapel first hand. Also participating today was Niagara Paws, a NEW Veterinary Urgent Care Clinic in Niagara Falls. Niagara Falls is lead in part by Dr. Sarah Lowry of Day Six Veterinary Services. Dr. Lowry has been an integral and trusted partner with Pets in Peaceful Rest since its opening in 2016. A huge and special thank you to Zhi Phua, Executive Director of KVIS, for her hard work organizing and relaunching this spectacular community event and for her help with allowing Pets in Peaceful Rest to sponsor the Memorial Chapel once again! She’s in one of the photos along with a couple of the event ambassadors! THANK YOU ZHI!!!

09/19/2026

🐾 Our pets are family. And caring for them means caring for every part of their journey. 💚

We’re so grateful to Pets in Peaceful Rest, LLC for supporting Dog Days of Kenmore as one of our wonderful sponsors!

Based in Lockport, Pets in Peaceful Rest provides compassionate pet memorial and cremation services for families throughout Western New York. Their team offers private and individual cremation, opportunities for families to say goodbye in their Rainbow Room, and personalized memorial keepsakes to help preserve the memories of a beloved companion. 🌈🐶

Their support of Dog Days is a beautiful reminder of the deep bond we share with our pets and the importance of businesses that care for both animals and the people who love them.

Thank you, Pets in Peaceful Rest, for supporting our community and helping us celebrate the dogs who bring so much love and happiness into our lives! 🐕❤️

📅 Dog Days of Kenmore | September 20
⏰ 12–4 p.m.
📍 Mang Park

09/12/2026

Firefighters lined the sidewalk and raised their hands in salute as Bretagne, a 16-year-old Golden Retriever, made her final walk into the veterinary hospital.

It was a hero’s farewell for a dog who had spent much of her life serving others and who was the oldest surviving 9/11 Ground Zero search dog.

Bretagne and her handler, Denise Corliss, were newly graduated from disaster training when they were deployed to New York following the September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center. Bretagne was just 2 years old.

For two weeks, the pair worked about 12 hours a day searching the rubble for survivors. They never found any, but Bretagne ended up serving in another way that neither she nor Corliss had anticipated.

Rescue workers would approach Bretagne, pet her and sometimes share their personal stories with her. In the middle of unimaginable grief, the gentle Golden Retriever offered them a moment of comfort.

“Dogs can be so comforting, so it makes sense to me now,” Corliss later said. “I just didn’t anticipate that, then.”

Bretagne and Corliss went on to respond to other disasters across the country, including Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. When Bretagne retired from search-and-rescue work at age 9, her service continued in a different form.

She began visiting classrooms once a week, where children could practice their reading skills by reading aloud to her.

Then, on June 6, 2016, it was time for Bretagne’s final journey. Firefighters and rescue workers gathered outside the Fairfield Animal Hospital in Houston to honor her as she entered with Corliss in her final hour.

When she emerged, her casket was draped in an American flag before she was taken to her final resting place. A bronze statue was erected in her honor in her local neighborhood, in remembrance of her special role in history. 🇺🇸🐾

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09/12/2026

🇺🇲 We will never forget. 🇺🇲
❤ Twin Towers 🤍 Shanksville 💙 The Pentagon

We all know where we were 25 years ago and what we were doing on this day that changed our lives forever.

In memory of the all of the people that lost their lives, their Families, friends, and everyone who shares and continues to share in the heartache, we still stand strong and honor each and every one of you.

We also honor those two legged and four legged heros, who risked their lives to save complete strangers.....heroes unlike any other. We are honored to stand by your side.

Never forget......

09/09/2026

In the fall of 1996, a ten month old black Labrador was found abandoned on a street, his leg broken and his hip dislocated. Nobody expected much from a discarded puppy nobody wanted. But Mary Flood saw something else. She took him in, nursed him back to health, and named him Jake.

What happened next defied every odd stacked against him. Flood, a member of Utah Task Force 1, began training Jake for search and rescue work. He earned certification through the Rocky Mountain Rescue Dogs and later became one of fewer than 200 U.S. government certified disaster search dogs in the entire country, qualified for earthquakes, avalanches, building collapses, and water rescues.

In September 2001, Jake and his team were called to New York City. For seventeen straight days, he worked the smoking, unstable wreckage of the World Trade Center, searching for survivors amid heat, dust, and devastation. When his team arrived in the city, grateful New Yorkers welcomed them warmly, and Jake was even treated to a steak dinner at a Manhattan restaurant while still wearing his search and rescue vest.

Four years later, Jake was back at work, this time in Mississippi, digging through the flooded ruins left behind by Hurricane Katrina alongside his handler.

In his later years, Jake gave back in quieter ways. He helped train the next generation of search and rescue dogs, visited burn camps for children, and brought comfort to seniors and hospital patients through therapy work.

Jake was diagnosed with hemangiosarcoma, an aggressive bl*od cancer, and passed away in July 2007 at the age of twelve. His story remains one of the most remarkable in American disaster response history, proof that a dog nobody wanted could become a hero the whole nation would remember.

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