Buster, one of four Jacksonville Sheriff's Office service dogs, sits during a news conference Tuesday, May 7, 2024. | Dan Scanlan, Jacksonville Today
Published on May 7, 2024 at 3:18 pm
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When a first responder needs support after a grisly day on the job, 17 police and fire departments in Northeast Florida have it covered head to tail.
Back in late 2020, C4 was one of the first station dogs trained by K9s for Warriors and given to the Atlantic Beach Police Department.
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C4 joined Jamie in Jacksonville Beach and Duke in Neptune Beach as the area’s first canine therapy animals for officers, staff and victims of crime. Atlantic Beach Chief Victor Gualillo said some in his department were indifferent about C4 at first.
“But over the course of years that we have had her, the people who were not really dog people really warmed up to her and realized, yeah, I think I like having the dog here,” Gualillo said. “They are bringing her treats and they are making sure they stop by and pet her. And she knows when someone had a bad day or bad call, she will actually find that person and spend time with them. Once they saw that, they understand the power of dogs.”
City and state officials held an event Tuesday to highlight the station dogs as part of Mental Health Awareness Month. Highway Patrol Master Sgt. Dylan Bryan said the department’s dog, Maggie, has been “a tremendous asset to the well-being of our officers.”
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In fact, Maggie — the 17th station dog on the First Coast — is the first in the Florida Highway Patrol, helping out at Jacksonville’s compact Troop G barracks on Normandy Boulevard.
“Her presence alone can really lighten the mood for stressful situations with our officers and their day-to-day activities as a first responder,” Bryan said. “It is a blessing to have her with us. She roams the halls and basically works where she is needed. She has free rein in our station — all stations in Troop G because she visits everybody.”
The nonprofit K9s for Warriors, based in Ponte Vedra, works to end suicide among military veterans by providing service dogs to returning soldiers suffering from post-traumatic stress, traumatic brain injuries or military sexual trauma. It has matched more than 1,000 veterans with service dogs so far, as well as 60 station dogs nationwide. All are retired service dogs or those who received training from K9s For Warriors.
The idea to donate the first trained dogs to the police departments came after Jacksonville Beach Police Cpl. Andy Lavender took his life in 2018, said Greg Wells, the Station Dog Program director for K9s For Warriors. Like dogs help military veterans, a service dog in a station also can help ease other emotional distress for co-workers and crime victims, Wells said.
“You start to see people communicate better, start to see different units working together, or hand in hand with these dogs,” he said. “It all centers around moving the dog from place to place. People start to communicate and listen to each other. Dogs are naturally compassionate animals. They naturally relax humans, and then we do a lot of training with them so the dogs react to specific things, chemicals in your brain that are stress related.”
The event Tuesday was held at the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office’s Fallen Officer Memorial Wall at Vystar Veterans Memorial Arena. Sheriff T.K. Waters and Mayor Donna Deegan stood with dogs and staff from Jacksonville, Clay and St. Johns fire departments, the Highway Patrol, Atlantic Beach Police and Sheriff’s Office members from St. Johns, Clay and Nassau counties.
Buster arrived in the fall of 2021 at the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office, helping officers who have experienced “other people’s worst days,” Waters said. Three more station dogs — Leroy, Sunny and Charley — have since joined Buster.
Waters personally experienced a dog’s help when he said his family found their 18-year-old son dead in 2018, after the young man took his own life.
“I can vividly remember Sam, my dog, lying in front of him,” he said. “And she truly experienced the impact of the loss, but she put that loss aside because she recognized the importance of taking care of us.”
Deegan gathered with the dogs the day after the city kicked off a new initiative, “Mental Health Matters Jax,” to combat mental health issues. She said first responders have difficult jobs that come with high levels of stress that can affect their mental health.
“These wonderful emotional support dogs are trained to be loving companions to our first responders who oftentimes face daily trauma while serving in the line of duty,” Deegan said. “There really is nothing like the unconditional love of a dog.”
You can learn more about the Station Dog Program here.
