On September 12, 2001, Trakr, the German Shepherd, and his handler, James Symington, a retired Canadian police officer, arrived on the scene of the New York 9/11 attacks to assist in any way they could.
After Trakr led rescue workers to the last survivor in the pile of rubble and debris, he was hailed as one of the most heroic animals in history. Even before this most extraordinary feat, it was clear that Trakr was a special dog.
In 1995, Trakr moved from the Czech Republic and joined the K-9 unit at the Halifax Regional Police Department when he was just 14 months old.
It was where he first met Symington, who had served at the department for 13 years. Trakr served for six years, and in that time, he sniffed out more than $1 million in contraband and helped make numerous arrests.
Trakr had only been retired from the K-9 unit for four months when the 9/11 attacks occurred. He and Symington drove overnight from Canada to help with search and rescue efforts. On the morning of September 12, Trakr was digging through the rubble when he detected the last survivor.
The firefighters pulled Genelle Guzman from the wreckage. She was an office worker who was 31 years old at the time.
When the first plane struck, she was on the 64th floor of the north tower. She managed to get down to the 13th floor when the skyscraper collapsed.
She landed on top of a dead firefighter and was pinned down by a concrete pillar for about 26 hours before she was discovered. She was the last of 20 survivors.
Trakr died in April 2009 at the age of 16. But his memory has lived on in the form of five cloned puppies.
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In a competition called the “Golden Clone Giveaway,” Symington convinced BioArts International, one of the largest biotech companies in the world that offers pet cloning, to clone Trakr because of his wonderful personality and great skill.
He claimed that no other dog could compare and that Trakr was the “most clone-worthy.” He ended up beating 200 other entrants.
The clones—Trustt, Solace, Deja Vu, Valor, and Prodigy—came two months after Trakr’s death.
They showed similar personality traits to Trakr, including high intelligence and confidence. Symington had planned to train them as search and rescue dogs.
The clonings were carried out by a team led by Hwang Woo-Suk, a South Korean scientist who was disgraced in 2006 when it was revealed that his creation of the first cloned human embryo was all a hoax. Despite the controversy, Hwang became the world’s first scientist to clone a dog successfully.
Overall, the actions of Trakr, the four-legged hero, will never be forgotten. His impact reached far and wide, bringing hope in a dark time of despair.
By Emily Chan
Emily Chan is a writer who covers lifestyle and news content. She graduated from Michigan State University with a degree in... More about Emily Chan
