sept 29 2011 151 when wilma melville began considering retirement from her job as a physical education teacher in california she focused on two things i wanted to get into horses and learn how to ride she told abc news and i wanted to learn to train a dog to do something special it was personal it was a hobby horses and dogs so at the age of about 54 she started training dogs in disaster search in a disaster you know the confines of where a victim might be and that appealed to me melville said when there is a disaster dogs look for people they might be able to save lives it took four to five years for melville to get the skills and train her first dog click here for help planning your second act every day the learning curve was high she said what i have learned along the way is that first there must be a commitment i mean an allout passionate and personal commitment perseverance is the key today melville heads the national disaster search dog foundation which she started in 1996 the center which is based in ojai calif trains dogs and firefighters in disaster search for free the center is funded by donors grants and donations she said that training the dog takes six months the firefighter about a year the foundation which melville said was the leader in the field of canine disaster search has trained 131 teams 75 of those are now active melville worked during oklahoma city bombing her center also trained 40 percent of the canine search teams with the federal emergency management agency and 83 percent of the teams in california these teams have searched for survivors during a wide range of disasters including 911 and hurricane katrina melville said that she would like to train 168 teams of dogs and handlers the number represents those killed in the 1995 oklahoma city bombing in which melville and her dog murphy conducted search disaster i had never seen evil so obvious she said never seen destruction of that nature i have never seen people suffer the beauty of the dogs is that they give people hope they give people hope that someone may be found alive she said her foundation looks for shelter dogs with traits that dont fit easily into a normal family setting many of these dogs would be euthanized she said because they are tried in various homes but are returned because people dont know how to deal with the energy it has drive it is bold it is able to focus melville said and it has energy it wants a job people dont normally recognize that this dog is a pearl it needs an immense amount of training once that dog has training its able to focus and put its energy into the proper direction and it becomes a delightful dog the rescued dogs become the rescuers she said its