First Responders and Therapy Dogs

A sobering and insightful inside perspective

It is no secret that I am passionate about therapy dogs, as I have seen the tremendous difference that they make in hospitals, schools, and base camps. When the Los Angeles fires erupted, I asked my friend Christy Warren, author of Flashpoint and a retired fire captain, to write a guest article about the impact of therapy dogs on those who dedicate their lives to serving us. Thank you Christy for this vulnerable and insightful piece. Here you all go:

First Responders and Therapy Dogs

Being a first responder is so complicated. I started my career as a firefighter/paramedic when I was nineteen years old. I LOVED my job. Then after twenty-five years of that job, my life fell apart, and I was diagnosed with PTSD. I had to retire five years early and since then (it’s been ten years) I am still learning just what doing that job does to a person.

Back in my day, there was very little talk of mental health. If you said the word “therapy” out loud, you might as well have said the word “weakness.” Thank goodness times are changing, and therapy isn’t the dirty word it once was.

As first responders, we finally have resources to help us when that job we once loved so very much turns on us. I liken it to having a box in my head. I’d go on a bad call, put the pain in a box, close the lid, and go on to the next call. I just kept filling that box until one day it exploded. They say an average person experiences 2-3 critical incidents in their lifetime. A first responder with a twenty-year career experience near 800. What if a simple way existed to begin to help mitigate the effects of these critical incidents? There is one such way - and that way walks on four legs.

It’s not just based on “Oh look at the cute dog” but rather, it’s based on science. The damage to first responders during a critical incident or even just simply being on duty and ready to respond happens on a physiological level. Cortisol floods our bodies and wreaks havoc. I read a study where the cortisol levels of on-duty firefighters were taken throughout a 24-hour shift. The study found that even when the firefighters were watching a movie while sitting in a recliner and eating ice cream, their cortisol levels were high. Why? Because their brains and nervous systems know that at any second, the alarm can go off sending them into hell. Do you know what has been scientifically proven to reduce cortisol and increase oxytocin? Petting dogs.

Our jobs include regularly making life-and-death decisions with very little information and promise you the second-guessing that happens afterward is tremendous. Do you know who never second-guesses us? Dogs.

Most people (civilians) mean well, but sometimes they ask us dumb questions. Sometimes they are just clueless. Sometimes they say dumb things because they don’t know what else to say and they feel like they need to say something. We’ve all been there. Sometimes, first responders don’t even know what to say to each other. We so often believe we are the only ones who are feeling whatever in the heck it is we are feeling. Sometimes we don’t even know what we are feeling. Our nervous systems have been pegged at the red line and we don’t even know it. We are just doing our jobs.

The divide between those who have walked in our shoes and those who haven’t is wide. So, people can say something that falls flat or worse, causes more harm than good. And you know where I’m going with this—you know who never says anything dumb? Dogs. You know who never tries to fix your pain or your grief or your sadness, but instead, just loves on you without saying a single word? Dogs. Dogs are the very epitome of authenticity. They are 100% unconditional love. They don’t try to fix anything. They don’t care if you had an amazing day or if you were a colossal failure at work or if you saved the person or the house or if you weren’t able to save the kid —they give you the exact same love and it’s pure.

During critical incidents, we are so often caught in between feeling extreme elation as we just kicked some doors in and ran into a burning building (which we actually enjoy), and maybe even saved a life, and the smile on our face stretches ear to ear because the adrenaline dump felt so amazingly good. But inside, our nervous system is a quivering bowl of Jello because oh my God we just ran into a building on that is on fire and that building was someone’s home and that someone just lost everything and that insane dump of adrenaline fried some circuits and our brains don’t know what to do with all of this so it just shoves it into some corner and pulls the rug over it and just keeps moving forward, never slowing down, never stopping, never being present enough to allow what we just felt rise to the surface. (Yes, that was a colossal run-on sentence, but that’s exactly how a shift can feel).

You know what can slow us down? Dogs. Dogs literally make us stop and be present without us even realizing that’s what’s happening. In just about every single photo of a therapy dog visiting first responders, the first responders are kneeling or sitting on the ground while completely present in the moment of petting this furry creature that has a smile on their face and is wagging their tail. The value for the firefighter or cop or paramedic or dispatcher who has lowered their armor and felt loved and safe and had their cortisol lowered for even just a few minutes is monumental.

So please, keep those dogs coming.

Christy Warren is a retired fire captain from the Berkeley Fire Department in California. She has twenty-five years of service as a professional paramedic and eighteen years as a professional firefighter/paramedic. After being diagnosed with PTSD, she retired from the fire service; since then, she completed the Escape from Alcatraz swim six times and wrote the book Flash Point: A Firefighter’s Journey Through PTSD. She is a volunteer Lead Peer at the West Coast Post-Trauma Retreat and hosts the podcast, The Firefighter Deconstructed. She lives in Pleasant Hill with her wife, Lisa, and dog, Harriet.