The National Search Dog Foundation team of handler Andrea Sutcliffe and Skye, sponsored in part by the Julie Brandau Community Service Memorial Project, was one of four teams sent into Garland, Texas, after an EF-4 tornado in December that left hundreds homeless. Sutcliffe and Sky, a border collie, were deployed with the Texas Task Force 2 unit based in Dallas. The dogs and their handlers searched for survivors of the storm for 20 hours straight, clearing 953 structures. All the town’s residents were accounted for.
The Julie Brandau Community Service Memorial Project was established by the court reporting community in honor of the late court reporter who was murdered in an Atlanta, Ga., courtroom in 2005. The Search Dog Foundation rescues high-energy dogs and trains them to become search and rescue canines for firefighters and other first responders at no cost to their agencies. Sutcliffe and Skye are one of a number of teams sponsored by the Brandau project.
