Sage, The Border Collie Who Searched The Pentagon For Survivors
American Kennel ClubSage was a border collie who searched through the rubble of the Pentagon in the aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001.
Sage was always going to be a hero. She became a Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) rescue dog when she was 18 months old, and like Bretagne, 9/11 was her first real assignment. Unlike Bretagne, though, Sage was deployed at the Pentagon.
Remarkably, as the Washingtonian reported in a 2012 feature, Sage even sniffed out the remains of one of the terrorists who had flown American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon.
It was clear that Sage had a knack for finding people, and she and her handler, Diane Whetsel, put her capabilities to use in a number of instances. For example, in 2005, Sage was sent to Aruba to search for missing teenager Natalee Holloway. Then, from 2007 to 2008, Sage recovered human remains in Iraq in the midst of the war.
“Sage turned out to be the warm fur for soldiers to cry into,” Whetsel said, “or just a playmate.”
Tragically, in August 2012, Sage lost her battle against respiratory cancer that may have been caused by sniffing through toxic debris. A memorial was held for her in Roswell, New Mexico, and Whetsel said at the time that it showed her just how many people Sage really helped.
“It was amazing,” Whetsel told local news channel KOAT at the time. “I lived with her every day since she was 10 weeks old, and I didn’t even realize how many lives she touched.”
