PUPPY LOVE: 9/11 Dogs Ten Years On

10 years ago today, the world changed. Big time.

As George 'dubbleya' Bush said in a rare moment of sincerity & depth, at yesterday's memorial for Flight 93 in Pennsylvania ...

“When the sun rose in the Pennsylvania sky 10 years ago, it was a peaceful September morning,” he said, “By the time it set, nearly 3,000 people had lost their lives."

Even a decade on, whenever I look at the images from that day, my brain still struggles to process that what I'm seeing is not a movie still or some angry computer game. Today we want to honour the bravery of all involved in the rescue operation at Ground Zero, the Pentagon and those heroes of Flight 93 who really were the first to stand in the 'War on Terror' or whatever the politicians term it. To us, they just fought back and triumphed against pure evil.

Of course, it wouldn't be Puppy Love if we didn't move on to the heroes of the furry variety... and we can't believe that somehow we missed this story over the last ten years! Maybe it has something to with the leaky eyes of grief and outrage but at last we have discovered the story of Michael Hingson and his guide dog Roselle who were working on the 78th floor of Tower One of the World Trade Center when the first plane hit Tower Two. Together, beautiful yellow lab Roselle leading the way, they began the evacuation and ended up just 100 yards away when Tower Two collapsed. And her fellow guide dog Salty also did the same for his owner in another area. I never have words for the loyalty of dogs, just a big lump in my throat. Roselle, like so many of the rescue dogs who worked on 9/11, has now crossed the Rainbow Bridge but just like the thousands who lost their lives that day, and in the resulting conflicts and attacks around the world, they will never be forgotten.

Over 350 dogs worked at Ground zero and Boston journalisist Laurel Sweet worked with vet Dr Cynthia Otto who was treating their injuries from searching through the debris ... "I think the dogs were the only thing that kept people going at Ground Zero," Sweet quotes Otto as saying. "You'd actually see their faces change when a dog walked by."

Dutch photogrpapher Charlotte Dumas has tracked down the 15 still living FEMA doggies and complied a beautiful book called 'Retrieved' which is available now...

If you don't want the leaky eyes, and believe me they'll come big stylee, click away now, as here are some of those doggie-heroes :

From the NY Times: Bailey, age 14, Thompson Station, Tenn. She went to the Pentagon following the attacks of 9/11.

Bretagne from Cypress, Texas, arrived at the site in New York on September 17, remaining there for ten days

Moxie, 13, from Winthrop, Massachusetts, arrived with her handler, Mark Aliberti, at the World Trade Center on the evening of September 11 and searched the site for eight days

Tara, 16, from Ipswich, Massachusetts who stayed for 8 days from Sept 11th

Kaiser, 12, pictured at home in Indianapolis, Indiana, was deployed to the World Trade Center on September 11 and searched tirelessly for people in the rubble