In the 20 years since the 9/11 terror attacks, retired NYPD K-9 Handler Frank Vollaro said he’d never wanted to share his story publicly before.

A week before the 20th anniversary, Vollaro changed his mind when NY1 reached out to him about sharing his experience as an NYPD K-9 handler on 9/11 and the weeks that followed.  

Vollaro said that he specifically wanted to highlight the work of the 35 NYPD K-9 handlers and their dogs who, at the time, led and then wrapped up the search and recovery efforts in Lower Manhattan.

Roughly 300 search and rescue K-9s from across the country took part in the recovery effort in NYC.  

Vollaro and his K-9 partner Sampson were among those teams.  

“I’m proud of what he did. He was a good dog,” Vollaro said of the German Shepherd who was only two years old at the time.

The day of the terror attacks, he and Sampson were scheduled to work an afternoon shift.

Instead, the partners raced toward the Twin Towers that morning.

Initially, without any official orders, he and two other NYPD K-9 teams rushed to where the World Trade Center once stood.

Vollaro said that it wouldn’t be until a few hours after the Twin Towers fell that an official count and roll call of first responders was done to determine who’d responded to the tragedy.

Vollaro went to the scene hoping that he and Sampson could find survivors.

Instead, what they found were streets blanketed in rubble.

Roadways were also filled with twisted metal and the atmosphere thick with dust.

“You couldn’t really see really further than 10 or 15 feet in front of you,” Vollaro said.

As the rescue efforts took shape, each of the NYPD’s 35 K-9 teams were assigned to different duties.

Vollaro and Sampson were one of only three teams in the department at the time with experience in cadaver recovery.

Their training kept the pair in demand and eventually Vollaro would share his knowledge with other K-9 teams in order to expedite the effort to find as many people as possible and as quickly possible.

“We basically gave the other dogs a crash course on the basics,” Vollaro said.

The hero dogs of 9/11 have been recognized over the years with documentaries, books and an exhibit at the 9/11 Memorial and Museum.

Now their work is also being highlighted in an exhibit on display at the American Kennel Club’s Museum of the Dog in Manhattan.

“Not only is 9/11 remembered here, we have paintings and DOG NY sculptures and photographs, but we also have the whole history of search and rescue dogs,” said Alan Fausel of the AKC Museum of the Dog

Vollaro told NY1 that while he appreciates the various types of recognition that 9/11 rescue dogs have received over the years, he is still holding out hope that the NYPD’s K-9s will be honored in their own way.

“We were there from the time the site opened to the time it closed 8 months later,” Vollaro said.

Officials have said previously that without the search and rescue dogs that took part in the recovery efforts, it would have taken crews far longer to locate or find victims who’d been killed during the terrorist attacks.