Rhys, is a well-mannered black labrador who’s assigned to Wilmington’s fire station 8. He’s been trained for two years on how to respond to crisis situations. It’s not an easy job. He’s responsible for helping firefighters with the stress of their dangerous and unpredictable work, and providing comfort in emergency situations.
Josh Baltz, is a Master Firefighter at station 8.
“When we come back we’re humans to, so it's kind of hard for us to digest some of the stuff that we have to see, everybody always expects us to be able to show up and make it better. And a lot of times, we can't always do that,” he said
Rhys’s official title is crisis response facility dog. He’s been trained by the Paws4People Foundation specifically for this assignment.
Kyria Whisenhunt is the Executive Director of Paws4People.
“It's not the same as just taking a therapy dog somewhere. They're trained to do these jobs from birth. So he's had several hundreds of hours of training and all types of scenarios, so he's definitely prepared,” she said.
Rhys was named in honor of US Army Sergeant Rhys W. Klasno, who was killed in Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2007 at just 20 years old.
The fire department hopes to expand the program based on Rhys’s hard work and success.
