Fire Rescue’s first therapy dog is ‘a good listener’
Cooper will stimulate positive mental health in the department
The name Carl Andriano is permanently listed on the duties wall of Orange County Fire Station No. 30 as the “Can Man,” also known as the extinguisher.
Friday marked the passage of five years since Andriano’s death after a battle with cancer. It’s an emotional wound that still feels fresh for his former colleagues.
This year, they had some help coping with what otherwise would be a grim day for the station — a 9-year-old golden lab named Cooper that walked to each firefighter in the station, gently putting his head on laps and giving kisses.
This month, Cooper became Orange County Fire Rescue’s first therapy dog.
“He came on a good day,” said Lt. Michael Blattner of Station 30. “It’s just another great tool to overcome potential mental hazards. Everyone conveys their feelings differently. I can’t call a hotline and describe something I’ve seen that may have been tough to deal with. But with a dog, there’s a physical touch there that hits you on all levels.”
Cooper’s handler, Amy Morton, was hoping to help firefighters in exactly that way. Morton worked in OCFR for 24 years and retired last year. However, she wanted to give back to the department to which she devoted a third of her life.
“We used to run 40,000 calls a year,” Morton said. “Now they have something like 140,000 calls. And you know it’s going to keep growing. … I wanted to bring Cooper and help drop the stress level of the job.”
Morton has been raising therapy dogs for 20 years and visiting hospitals and nursing facilities to stimulate mental health. She’s been been working with Cooper for the last eight years. The two worked together every week after the mass shooting at Pulse nightclub in 2016, visiting the survivors and their families.
“You see the smiles that Cooper can bring them, and I thought he might be able to do the same [at OCFR,]” Morton said.
She approached Fire Chief Otto Drozd with a plan to bring Cooper around to the men and women working in the stations and at dispatch. He was on board with the
idea almost immediately.
“Our firefighters and dispatchers do a lot of good. Unfortunately, they also see a lot of bad,” Drozd said. “While we can’t undo what they’ve seen or heard, we can help them as they process those experiences. Cooper is an incredible addition to the team. I look forward to seeing him around the fire houses and comm center. He’s now part of our family.”
After a lengthy review by Orange County Risk Management and Orange County Administration, Cooper and Morton joined the department’s Critical Incident Stress Management Team as active reserve members.
Their role is to help firefighters cope with whatever they may encounter in the field, said Battalion Chief Antonio Demings.
“Mental health is a big problem in fire service in general through out the country,” Demings said. “We can’t eliminate the exposure our firefighters will encounter. … We can address how proactive we assure our own mental health.”
The team is already looking forward to adding more therapy dogs.
“Our goal is to one establish our own set of therapy dogs that would be part of (and raised in) our own fire department,” Demings said.
In the mean time, Morton is happy that she and Cooper can help firefighters manage their mental health, which is important to Morton, as she knows personally the hardships that come with the job.
Morton’s first pediatric call for the county came on Thanksgiving 24 years ago, after a man fell asleep and smothered an infant.
“There’s so many things that I still see when I close my eyes at night,” Morton said. “I remember coming back to the station and I could still smell [the baby’s] formula on my shirt. … I just I bawled my eyes out.”
Prior to her retirement, she used to look forward to cuddles from Cooper after a tough day.
“I think he knows when someone is down,” Morton said. “He’s a good listener... and he’s never going to turn down a pet.”