Scientists: Dogs Not Injured by WTC Work

Construction at the site of the attacks on the World Trade Center is seen from the office of Silverstein Properties on the 25th floor of 7 World Trade Center, Thursday in this May file photo in New York. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer, FILE) (Mary Altaffer - AP)

Joaquin Guerrero, a police officer in Saginaw, Mich., took two dogs, Felony and Rookie, to ground zero for 10 days after the attacks. While Felony remains healthy, Rookie died at age 9 in 2004 of cancer of the mouth. Guerrero believes his death was caused by exposure to ground zero.

"If the people are getting it, you know dogs are showing signs of it," Guerrero said.

Scott Shields' golden retriever, Bear, located the body of a fire chief and many other victims at ground zero. The 11-year-old dog died a year after the attacks of several types of cancer.

"He had never been sick a day in his life" before going to the site, where he sustained a wound to his back from steel debris, Shields said.

Shields, who heads a search-and-rescue dog foundation named after Bear, said Bear "died from bad government" and the toxic air at ground zero. He said that studies under way should have included every dog that worked at the site, and that the Penn study is flawed because it tries to compare dogs that worked at the Pentagon as well as in New York.

Otto said that some of the dogs that worked at the sites could not be found and other dogs' owners were not willing to subject their pets to annual blood tests and X-rays.

Mary Flood, whose 11 1/2-year-old black Labrador, Jake, is completely healthy five years after working at ground zero, said that dogs' much shorter life span may also make it harder to track long-term illness.

"Maybe there's not enough time to develop these things before they're no longer with us," she said.

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