Tag archives: Wilma Melville

National Disaster Search Dog Foundation
By Steven Libowitz   |   December 24, 2024

Thirty years ago this coming April, FEMA-Certified Canine Search Specialist Wilma Melville and her black lab Murphy spent a week rummaging through the rubble of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building bombing in Oklahoma. What stood out was just how few other rescue dogs were on site to search for survivors. When Melville realized only […]

From Rescued… To Rescuer
By Lynda Millner   |   November 14, 2019

When the founder of the National Disaster Search Dog Foundation (SDF) Wilma Melville was looking for a place and funding the banks all said, “You’re going to do what?” except Montecito Bank & Trust. It became a $30 million project and was open in 2010 for the business of training dogs to find live people […]