Canine Compassion: Miami-Dade Fire Rescue's K9 Initiative

Addressing the benefits of human-animal interaction in a recent webinar, Miami-Dade (Florida) Fire Rescue Captain Shawn Campana educated attendees about K9 crisis response and support programs.

“There are so many studies and documented benefits of therapy dogs,” says Campana. “There are reasons to use them in peer support, deployment, and non-judgmental social support. Everybody loves dogs because they don't judge.  All they see is a human.”

For the past six of her 27 years with MDFR, Campana has been the peer support K9 coordinator to build the department’s K9 program in its health and safety division.

Her goals for the program include setting training and certifications standards, writing program policy – including K9 crisis response; therapy dogs for a system, team, response, and station; dog etiquette and training, and service dog training to support firefighters struggling with mental health challenges.

Campana started the program with her late service dog Charlie after losing friends and coworkers to suicide and going through her own PTSD battle. She became a certified dog trainer from Animal Behavior College, specializing in service therapy and crisis response K9s.

“She has seen the value, benefits, and healing working with K9s can provide,” says Brandy Carlson Moore, deputy director of the 2nd Alarm Project, which helps sponsor K9 programs.

Campana notes if a first responder is going to develop PTSD, the dog can be a bridge to that peer. Dogs can create a safe space where it's okay to share in a group setting, according to Campana.

“Everybody's heard about the chemical release – serotonin, dopamine – when a dog gazes into your eyes,” she says. “Or when we do friendly petting and get our fingertips into their fur, our bodies start to release those chemicals and their bodies do as well.”

Campana notes dogs can start lowering walls put up by those experiencing trauma and open people up to relationships, connection, short-term resilience, and grounding – because of dopamine.

“When we experience trauma, we're susceptible to short-term and long-term emotional reactions,” she says. “At the Surfside (condo collapse), many people including myself were walking around. I was disconnected. I felt numb. Some people were ruminating. It’s hard to get out of your head.”

Campana says one first responder who spent 10 minutes with one of the dogs on site ‘reset the circuit breaker’, enabling her to get back to work.

Administration & Key Considerations

Campana notes the administrative side of building a K9 program focuses on setup, structure, standards, and policy as well as the handler and the dog.

Departments should start slow, do research, and reach out to nearby departments with established programs for more information, she adds.

The first consideration is the program type.

“The mission of our Miami-Dade Fire Rescue team is to mitigate and manage the damaging effects of occupational stressors such as burnout, compassion fatigue, PTSD, suicide ideation, moral injury, and more,” she says.

Structure the program to achieve an established goal.

“You want your program to be safe and effective,” says Campana. “Part of the reason some struggle is because there's not a clear definition right off the bat.”

At MDFR, the primary use of K9s is for peer support.

“Our handlers are allowed to ask for permission to be a chain of command after they get the initial certification of a therapy dog to bring their dogs to the station so it can serve as the station therapy dog while they're on duty,” Campana says.

“We also do station and dispatcher visits. We use the dog for training and do community service events. These are great training opportunities for the handler, good socialization for the dog, and it's good to make your department look good every now and again.”

There are local and statewide programs. Several Florida K9 teams are now on deployment for a post-hurricane mission. 

“My department has 80 fire stations. My program is going to look very different than yours,” Campana says of local programs. “At the end of the day, you're going to build something that works for your department, depending on resources.”

Campana recommends departments immediately set standards for structure, training, certification, deployment, and defined behaviors of the K9 considered acceptable to protect the organization, the K9, the handler, and the end user.

Policy standards can be sourced from such organizations as Animal Assisted Intervention International (AAII), which offers national crisis response standards based on best practices and proves a level of safety, says Campana.

Campana recommends certification over a certificate of achievement.

Organizations such as the Alliance of Therapy Dogs and Pet Partner offer a variety of benefits, including insurance, says Campana.

“People don't realize the bylaws and rules are actually the standard,” says Campana. “If you compare them to the AAII standards, they're pretty much the same. You have to know those in case of an incident.”

Those joining the state team must produce a nationally-registered certified therapy dog certification for the dog and handler. Industry professionals conduct ongoing evaluations. Veterinarian care is part of certification and recertification.

Ongoing Operant Training

Ongoing training is important if the K9 is going to be used as peer support, Campana notes. Training starts with basic obedience. The American Kennel Club’s Canine Good Citizen is a good tool, Campana notes.

She does ongoing training for the K9 teams, including nursing home or hospital visits or a call-out to maintain their skills of going to people, and identifying people hurting or in crisis.

“Fire stations can be tricky because there's trucks, there's lights and sirens going off,” says Campana of training. “There's a way to acclimate them correctly to that, but exposing your dog out in public to places like Home Depot and Lowes that allow dogs is a great idea. Allowing people to come up and pet your dog is as well.”

MDFR works with other agencies such as the Miami-Dade Police Department, taking its dogs through the Port of Miami and Miami International Airport.

“It creates a good bond between you and your dog. It's great training and socialization,” says Campana. “When your K9 is a little stressed out because they're experiencing something new and you reassure them, then you overcome that together.”

The preferred training style is operant conditioning.

“The theory behind that training style is dogs are born wanting to please us,” she adds. “You don't have to dominate the dog to get it to do what you want it to do – prong collars, choke collars, and e-collars are not permitted from the certifying agencies.”

“Every department's going to do what works for them. With us and the state, you have to live with or own your dog. The handler has to be certified. We have come across on deployments when people grab someone else's dog to go to call-out or deployment with it. They're renting dogs from somewhere. Usually, this creates behavior problems, especially on a deployment.”

Deployments are non-controlled environments and therapy dog work is a controlled environment, with a lower stress level and a lower level of resilience needed from the dog.

“The bond is 100 percent trust,” says Campana. “As you go forward with your dog, that develops. You get closer with the certification. Your dog has to be a year old to get certified. You have to own the dog for at least six months.”

Part of certification is to ensure the dog and handler bond well, making it easier for the dog to connect with people and recognize somebody in distress, says Campana.

Dogs can be sourced from organizations that provide them at no cost, a local Humane Society, or breeders, Campana says.

Campana notes no matter what the choice, there are no guarantees of the outcome. Some dogs may not turn out to be suited for such work.

The temperament for a dog most suited for this work is confident, social, enjoys going to people, is not skittish, and exhibits a calm presence, Campana says.

Breed Preferences & Restrictions

Campana says she likes low-energy dogs such as Labrador Retrievers, Greyhounds, Sighthounds, and standard Poodles, adding “a lot of the Doodles do very well.”

“We have everything on our team from Maltese to German Shepherd. Because the higher energy breeds like Belgian Malinois and Catahoula Leopard Dogs need to be working a lot, they will struggle.”

A dog for crisis response should possess all the traits of a therapy dog, plus demonstrate resilience to chaotic environments and intense emotions; is able to self-soothe when stressed or triggered; tolerate routine changes; be able to work on trains, planes, and boats; work closely with strange dogs; be alert, and easily diffuse people.

“You’re using your dog for work with your organization,” Campana notes. “Is your dog resilient to different environments? How about the weather? If you think about deploying like these guys on deployment right now with the hurricane, what if another thunderstorm comes in? That’s a big trigger for a lot of dogs.”

Campana suggests taking a dog to a bowling alley or a shooting range to acclimate it to noises.

“Unlike dealing with depression and anxiety, we're taking these dogs into very emotionally intense environments – anguish, despair, and anger is a lot of the things that we deal with – so you don't want your dog to retract or get scared,” says Campana. “The handler has to ensure that dog is safe no matter what.”

The right handler is dedicated, committed to putting the time in, and very open to learning, says Campana, adding she is “always in the learning process.”

Campana says dogs should not be allowed in every area of the house, such as the bathroom, adding if a dog never gets used to spending time apart from its owner, it can create separation anxiety.

Campana disagrees with those who believe the use of crates is ‘cruel.’

“If they’re used to going in a crate, keep that going,” she says. “All of our dogs have to be crate-trained because when we go out on calls, the handler puts the dog in the crate.”

Campana points out “Dolphins, humans, and dogs all have the same type of mirror neurons. When your dog is connected with someone, your dog will mirror them.”

If a dog starts exhibiting behavior issues, find out why, Campana notes.

“With insecurity and stress, you’re trying to tell them to go to somebody; they're just not going to do it. They're going to look away, trying to let you know they don’t want to,” Campana says. “You're trying to give your dog cues and they're not listening to you at all. They're not engaged. They may be skittish or pull back.

“Overstimulation can be barking, whining, nipping, jumping, destruction – those are all coping mechanisms, just not good ones. When your dog does a nice shake-off, reinforce that. That's a great coping mechanism.”

Campana advises to learn K9 body language and communication.

“We teach this course because of the amount of stress we're going to take our dogs into,” says Campana. “Dogs are talking to us all the time. They're using their ears, the shape of their muzzle, shape of their eyes, their stance, their body posture, and their tail."

“They're communicating to us that how they feel on the inside is what we see on the outside: overworked, overstressed, overheated. Unfortunately, we see this a lot, especially on deployments. Your dog will need a break. They get cortisol spikes, just like we do after deployment. There's a time to work. There's a time to be a dog.”