Update on Wilmington Fire Department’s Crisis Response dogs

WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) –The Wilmington Fire Department has been using two Crisis Response dogs for close to a year now. RHYS has been working with the Wilmington Fire Department for about a year and a half. Another dog named HEART was added to the team last summer.
Crisis dogs are used to help firefighters decompress after calls and ease tension. They’re also used with young children and people who may be affected on the scene of a high-stress situation. RHYS and HEART are part of the paws4people program, which gets them ready for this work early in life.

“At paws4people all our dogs begin training at just three days old. So, we’re exposing them to low levels of stress throughout their life. We amp up the training of course as time goes on. When we have a dog that we think would be great to work at the fire department, we start from a very young age from exposing them to all the noises,” said Kaitlin Bellamy, Executive Administration of paws4people.