West Metro firefighters respond to nearly 40,000 calls each year- that's an average of one call every 13 minutes. Some of those calls are difficult, even for experienced crews. It could be that the patient is the same age as a son or daughter, or the incident ends with a fatality.
First responders see and experience hundreds of traumatic situations during a career which can leave a lasting impact. To help crews with processing some of those tough calls, West Metro has launched a certified therapy dog program.
At Station 3, located at the intersection of Garrison and 1st Avenue, whenever firefighters return from a call, Remmey is waiting at the door. She is a three-year old Irish Setter, and her owner is Captain Reed Norwood.
“She’s our family dog, I’ve also trained her to be a bird dog so she can hunt pheasants and other game birds with me in the fall,” said Norwood. “And her disposition has just kind of led her down this path to becoming a therapy dog. She’s just a very mellow kind of chill dog that does very well at the fire station.”
At West Metro Station 1- near 14th and Lamar- Captain, a two-year-old Golden Doodle, has earned his place with the crew. He often naps in the recliners in the station’s day room and is underfoot in the kitchen while meals are being prepared.
His owner is Firefighter/Paramedic Victoria (Torie) Digiannantonio. She established the fire district’s therapy dog program based on her family’s animal rescue, rehabilitation, and therapy non-profit.
“With the volume of calls and the acuity of calls that we run, it’s really nice having him around,” said Digiannantonio. “We’ve run some difficult pediatric calls that kind of hit home with some of our firefighters- because the children we were running on were the same age, same gender as their own children. And having him around really just kind of diffuses and decompresses the situation.”
There are two other therapy dogs in the program. River, a 16-month-old mini–Golden Doodle, and Zola, a one-year-old German Shepard. The goal is to have three therapy dogs working on every shift- so that they can cover all 17 stations in West Metro’s district. There is no breed restriction, but every dog must be trained and certified to make sure they can handle a high energy and stressful environment.
“I don’t know the science behind it, but there’s no doubt that a dog recognizes when you’re struggling and they’ll sit down and struggle with you,” said Norwood. “They know when you’re happy and they wag their tail and they’re happy with you. They just have a sense of people and what they’re going through and they’re just really good at responding to that.”