• Monticello gets ready to descend to the first floor.

MERIDIAN TOWNSHIP - It was a bustling morning full of rubble, dust and treats. The Meridian, Lansing and East Lansing fire departments gathered in Okemos with their four legged teammates for training.

The scenario mimicked a second floor collapse with a victim mannequin trapped beneath the rubble. The dogs and their handlers were suited up in harnesses and lowered together from the second floor by ropes and carabiners while firefighters below secured the area by reinforcing the ceilings. As soon as their paws hit the floor, it was time to work. Within minutes the dogs had located and notified their handlers that the victim had been found.

Just like there are different types of disasters, there are different types of search dogs. Some dogs do tracking, helpful for finding people who have wandered off. Some dogs are trained to find live victims who are trapped beneath rubble and others have the ability to find deceased victims or human remains. The dog's sense of smell is so incredible that if humans had the dog's ability, when they smelled chocolate chip cookies baking, they would know exactly how much flour, sugar, egg, vanilla and salt had been used in the recipe.