The men and women of St. Tammany Fire Protection District No.1 have welcomed with open arms and head pats their new Chief Mooney, a 2½ year-old golden retriever specially trained to offer them peer support and provide crisis response in tough situations.
Mooney, his familiar name, is the department’s first such support animal, and his job will be to support the mental health and well-being of his co-workers. Mooney is specially trained to recognize anxiety, stress and PTSD among first responders, and his support will probably matter most when he offers happy, loving distraction to co-workers after critical incidents.
The new crisis response K9 was named in honor of Deputy Sheriff Jason Mooney, who lost his life in the line of duty on Oct. 19, 2007, while responding to an automobile accident.
Chief Training Officer Tim Harrison first discussed the possibility of such a service dog for the department when he met Anjanette Montaño, co-founder and executive director of Thin Line Service Dogs of West Virginia, at a national fire protection conference.
Harrison next contacted Fire Chief Chris Kaufman to discuss the possibility with him, and Kaufman responded, “Why haven’t you done it already?”
Montaño’s business breeds, trains and places service dogs. And when it became clear that this would be the company’s first opportunity to train and place a canine for this specific type of work, the big-hearted businesswoman donated Mooney to the department.
“This is our inaugural crisis response trained canine for Thin Line,” she said. “And you have a chief and department who ‘get it,’ or they would not have welcomed the possibility and carried it through,” she said.
Montaño said she chose Mooney to work with first responders in Slidell because he functions well with multiple people, not just individuals, and is one of the top four dog breeds — Labrador retrievers, golden retrievers, poodles and rough coat collies — for service work.
She expressed confidence in Mooney’s new station in life. “We’re proud to pass on this leash,” said Montaño, who started the company with husband Wayne, a firefighter and military vet. They breed and train service dogs and provide them, at no cost, to first responders and veterans.
Mooney will spend his days on the job with his fellow fire personnel, then relax at home in the evenings and on weekends with his handler, Training Officer/Emergency Medical Technician Tim Dudenhefer, who will keep Mooney with him at the department’s training academy daily to ensure his availability to firefighters.
“His arrival is perfectly timed, with May being Mental Health Awareness Month,” Kaufman said in a statement. “We look forward to welcoming Mooney into our family, where he will be treated as a valued member of our team.”
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