Rescuing the Rescuers: Therapy Dogs Offer Support for First Responders

Therapy and emotional support dogs have long been used for veterans with PTSD so it was only natural that therapy dogs - or Peer Support Dogs, as they’re called for first responders - would make the leap to this new field. (photo Adobe Stock)

In the last days of December 2017, California firefighters faced not just the unrelenting exhaustion of fighting the state’s largest-ever wildfire for weeks without a break, but the grief of losing one of their own. Firefighter Cory Iverson, 32, had died two weeks earlier while battling the blaze near Fillmore, California, and his surviving comrades were left to cope as best they could.

When Denise Fitzgerald, a therapy dog provider, heard about the situation, she quickly organized a group of seven therapy dogs and their owners to join her at the firefighters’ base camp to provide a much-needed opportunity for emotional relief. Visiting and playing with these dogs — which included an 8-month-old Irish wolfhound and a 2-year-old English toy spaniel — offered overworked, grieving firefighters a brief spell of normalcy. Many shared photos of their own pets at home with the handlers who accompanied the therapy dogs to base camp. 

 Therapy dogs are a relatively new concept for most fire departments. But with recent research showing the prevalence of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) among firefighters and other first responders, PTSD is finally recognized as a significant issue for first responders across the country.

 Day after day, firefighters, paramedics, emergency medical technicians, and other first responders risk their lives for people they have never met. During any given shift, they may be exposed to all sorts of traumatic events, from house fires to car wrecks to patients they cannot save, no matter how hard they try.  Although these men and women are powerful, sometimes they, too, need to relax and decompress from the horrors they have seen at work. Enter therapy dogs.

 Therapy and emotional support dogs have long been used for veterans with PTSD so it was only natural that therapy dogs - or Peer Support Dogs, as they’re called for first responders - would make the leap to this new field. In fact, the San Francisco Fire Department (SFFD) is currently in the process of getting its first fully trained therapy dog. Once training is completed, the dog will be matched with an SFFD member as a handler and should be available to firefighters in the coming months.   

 And the SFFD already has a second therapy dog in the pipeline. Koa is an 11-month-old Irish Cream Golden Retriever with a perfect disposition for his new job. His focused training will start when he turns a year old, but Koa is already doing basic training and socialization to get used to his new occupation. He’s been frequenting SFFD headquarters, fire stations, and local hospitals for the last five months, where he’s been very well received. Koa is always up for a visit or a friendly ‘hi’ whenever he’s needed.

First responders have some of the toughest jobs in the world, and it's not always easy to leave work life behind at the end of a shift. These everyday heroes deserve all the support they can get - and who better to provide it than a loyal, loving therapist cleverly disguised as a dog?