Search dogs team up with their two-legged partners

SANTA PAULA, Calif. – Some four-legged friends are ready to save lives.

The National Disaster Search Dog Foundation is celebrating its newest search teams.

The non-profit, based in Santa Paula, is dedicated to strengthening disaster response by rescuing and recruiting dogs and partnering them with first responders. Together they find people buried alive or missing.

Five new search teams were partnered according to Search Dog Foundation Director Denise Sanders. Three will go to the Los Angeles County Fire Department and California Task Force and the other are going to be part of a Task Force in Utah.

"We are just so happy to have passed the leash from our trainers to the new handlers and have them be going home and starting their careers together," Sanders said. "We can't wait to see what they can do."

The search dogs have responded to areas throughout the nation, including in Santa Barbara County during the Montecito mudslides.

The foundation relies on donations. For more information, click here.