It’s 10 a.m. at Reno Fire Station 4 and firefighters shuffle out of the truck. They’ve just returned from a medical call. When they enter the building, they are often met with an empty kitchen and the sounds of the living room TV playing.
But now, Lambeau waits for them ready for them to scratch his belly as he lays on his side.
Lambeau isn’t just an ordinary station dog. He is a one-and-a-half year-old golden Labrador who supports firefighters after tough and stressful calls.
Katie Nelson, a Reno fire inspector and Lambeau’s handler, said that he is important for the firefighters.
“There's a lot of research that shows that petting a dog lowers your cortisol levels pretty much immediately,” she said. “So, if they get a tough call, like I said, stressed out, they give us a call, we'll respond to the stations, and they just get to hang out with Lambeau.”
Nelson tries to bring Lambeau to one to two stations a week, and will also respond to any calls requesting his presence.
“It's been really fun to go into stations to do our meet and greets, and just watch the guys get on the ground and lay down with him, or pet his belly, or play fetch, but they definitely brighten up,” Nelson said.
Lambeau comes all the way from Assistance Dogs of the West in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The idea to recruit Lambeau came from the Reno Police Department’s (RPD) very own dog Winter, who is primarily used for services from suspect interviews to community events.
The Reno Fire Department (RFD) saw how great Winter was for RPD.
“We already had Boston, and so management was super stoked to have another dog join us,” Nelson said.
Boston is a retired arson dog who helped identify items like accelerants. While his presence is appreciated in the station, he isn’t specifically trained in emotional support.
At work, Lambeau is calm and ready at a moment’s notice, but at home it’s a different story. He gets the zoomies and runs around looking for his favorite snack: string cheese.
Along with peer support programs, Lambeau is a welcomed addition to mental health support for the RFD.
Curt Floyd, a responder technical lead with the National Fire Protection Agency (NFPA), said that such mental health support is not required by state law.
The NFPA has standards for mental health support. However, they don’t have a standard for service dogs like Lambeau.
In fact, Floyd recalls a time where these standards didn’t even exist when he first began as a volunteer firefighter in the 70s. He saw that expressing the need for help meant weakness.
“You had to tough it out, you know, you had to … basically you know put any concerns or mental anguish aside and do the job,” Floyd said.
He also said it was harder to get help with counselors who didn’t understand what firefighters do. It’s not just fire, but also responding to medical calls and a lot of these calls can be traumatic.
“It's just not things that you really are meant to see as a human being, you know,” Floyd said.
Despite that, he’s noticed a significant shift in mental health conversations and programs like having an emotional support dog, a newer concept to Floyd.
“Do I think it was that, you know, advantageous for firefighters? Absolutely, absolutely,” Floyd said.
At the end of the day, he hopes to see firefighters becoming more comfortable to get the support they need.
Although Lambeau is tired of the interviews, he’s excited for a lifetime of pets. After a rough day, he’s ready to go home and rest before another day of cuddles with busy firefighters.
