Her Name Was Pronounced "Brit-nee"

A Hero Dog Story

These stories aren’t just about hero dogs, but the histories surrounding their heroic endeavors. This one involves reliving a difficult time.

I didn’t see the second tower get hit on September 11—not a live feed of it. I got in my car at 7 a.m. like I did every other weekday to get a jump on the rush-hour traffic. It was 9 a.m. New York time. The radio coverage was all about how a plane had crashed into one of the World Trade Center towers. In my mind, I thought a little Cessna got lost in the fog or something.

Minutes later the DJ spoke of another plane crashing into the second tower, and that’s when I knew what was happening without having actually seen anything. My master’s in history focused a lot on terrorism and insurgency, and I knew of Al Qaeda’s loathing for the towers as symbols of American imperialism. I arrived at work and watched them fall in real time, standing next to my coworkers in the breakroom, all of us aghast.

In the aftermath, many heroes came to help. Several had four legs. One was named Bretagne, pronounced “Brit-nee.” Bretagne later became the last surviving rescue dog from 9/11.

Denise Corliss, while working as an electrical engineer in Texas as well as a volunteer firefighter, became interested in the work of rescue dogs and their volunteer handlers. Handlers not only didn’t get paid, but had to pay their own way to participate in rescue operations. What’s more, the training for acceptance into the program was rigorous, the failure rate high. But Corliss was determined, and so, in November of 1999, she brought home a two-month-old golden retriever and named her Bretagne.

When she wasn’t working as an engineer, Corliss spent at least 20 hours a week in rigorous training with Bretagne in the hopes that the two of them would be among the few to make the cut as a rescue team. The following year, the pair was accepted into Texas A&M Task Force 1, an urban search and rescue team that was formed in the wake of the Oklahoma City Federal Building terrorist bombing in 1995.

9/11 was their first deployment.

There were 2,977 deaths on September 11, 2001, resulting directly from the attack. I didn’t include the terrorists in that number, because screw them. Most of the deaths were at the World Trade Center and included 343 firefighters and 71 law enforcement officers. What’s more, more than 1,400 rescue workers at the WTC died in the 13 years following the attack, many from cancers resulting from exposure to toxins. Those who rushed to the scene to help risked their lives, and many lost them.

But Bretagne didn’t lose her life and neither did her human.

The twisted wreckage of the WTC was a brutal assignment even for the most seasoned rescue workers. And devastatingly, there were no happy stories of survivors being found, just bodies, or parts of bodies.

For two weeks Bretagne and Corliss worked twelve hours a day. During that time, she wasn’t just a rescue dog, but a comfort dog. Corliss told a story of a distraught firefighter sitting on the ground, emotionally broken from the carnage he witnessed. Bretagne went over and lay beside him, placing her head in his lap as if to say, “You’re going to be okay.” She brought cheer to many rescue workers who needed it during those harrowing two weeks.

There were approximately 300 dogs that worked the site. Bretagne was only two years old at the time of the attacks. But it was not her only deployment.

In September of 2004, Bretagne was involved in rescue efforts for Hurricane Ivan, which spread devastation across the Caribbean and cost over a hundred lives. The following year, in August, Bretagne worked Hurricane Katrina, one of the most destructive hurricanes in history that led to almost 2,000 deaths. Only a month later she worked Hurricane Rita.

Bretagne retired from rescue work at the age of nine, but continued to be a dog with a job by helping young children with special needs learn to read. Often, those who struggle with reading are anxious about learning the skill, and having a nice puppy like Bretagne snuggled up to them relaxes them so they can practice reading aloud.

An interesting fact is that rescue dogs tend to live longer than most other dogs. They have a sense of purpose, a close bond with their handlers, and they get lots of exercise.

Bretagne lived to be almost 17. On June 6, 2016, Bretagne was suffering from kidney failure. In Cypress, Texas, the city’s firefighters and search and rescue workers lined up outside the animal hospital and saluted her as she went inside for her final deployment.

Denise Corliss still works with rescue dogs and continues to go on deployments. She has a pendant that contains some of Bretagne’s ashes around her neck that she said she never takes off. And that’s not the only memory of her beloved dog that she has. Bretagne’s breeders kept a supply of her father’s sperm frozen and continued to breed puppies from him. In 2020, Corliss was given one of Bretagne’s little sisters.

Her name is Finn.

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