09/11/2026
Although this is a day to remember in loss. I think it’s also important to remember all of the bravery of the two feet and the four.
On the morning of 11 September 2001, two yellow Labrador guide dogs were in Tower 1 of the World Trade Center when the first plane struck. Both were on different floors. Both brought their owners out alive.
Salty was on the 71st floor with his owner Omar Rivera, a blind computer technology manager. When the impact hit, Rivera unclipped Salty's lead, believing the chaos of the evacuation would prevent the dog from helping and that Salty deserved his own chance to escape. Salty refused to go. He stayed at Rivera's side and, alongside Rivera's supervisor Donna Enright, guided him down dozens of flights of stairs through smoke and confusion. When a well-meaning co-worker tried to take the lead halfway down, Salty would not move until Rivera was back on the other end. They were two to three blocks away when Tower 1 came down.
Roselle was asleep under her owner Michael Hingson's desk on the 78th floor when the plane hit 15 floors above them. She woke calmly. She led Hingson to Stairwell B and guided him and approximately 30 other people down 1,463 steps. About halfway down, she paused to lick the hands of firefighters going up. She led Hingson to safety minutes before the tower collapsed.
On 5 March 2002, Salty and Roselle were jointly awarded the Dickin Medal, the highest honour available to an animal, by the UK's People's Dispensary for Sick Animals. It was only the second time in the medal's history that a joint award had been made.
Salty died on 28 March 2008. Roselle died on 26 June 2011 and was posthumously named American Hero Dog of the Year.
