Puppy helping Kahnawà:ke’s first responders deal with ‘ruff’ days

Meet Ononhkwa – she’s part of the Kahnawà:ke Fire Brigade, located south of Montreal, and was hired to help first responders’ deal with ‘ruff’ days.

“She has her moments where she’s a crazy little puppy,” said Tanner Phillips, the paramedic supervisor at the Kahnawà:ke Fire Brigade. “But then, there’s the nice moments where she would walk into my office and just sleep on my feet while I’m working.”

The fire station decided to adopt the four-month-old puppy in hopes of bringing the team back together.

“In the fire station, we limited how many people were in the building at one time,” said Phillips. “People weren’t coming here to hang out and there was a lot of distance created by the pandemic, along with just the stress of being a frontline worker.”

Firefighters and paramedics at the station voted on the name Ononhkwa, a Mohawk word for ‘medicine’.

“She is basically like our medicine,” said Phillips. “She is there to kind of help us de-stress. She’s there to bring us together. She’s that missing puzzle piece.”

Phillips had the idea nearly six years ago, but it only came about recently when the stress of working as a first responder heightened during the pandemic. Phillips suggested having a dog around the office to support the mental health of other first responders after experiencing PTSD from an ambulance accident during the pandemic which left him months unable to work.

“There is a lot of stress that we carry,” said Phillips. With Ononhkwa around, Phillips already feels an improvement to his and the team’s wellbeing at work.

“Even the first week coming in, you’re like just sitting there with her and petting her. Her presence is known right away and you feel it, you feel the stress release when you’re when hanging out with her,” he explained.

“It’s proven to help relieve stress even if it’s not the bad call that we get back from,” said Phillips. “It’s just good to walk in and you have this puppy that greets you and you can just sit there for a minute and pet with her and play with her. That’s all that matters in that one moment.”

Will Ononhkwa be joining the team with fire calls? No. Her job remains at the office where she will be busy with training soon – obedience training to be exact.

“She’s fitting in really well and she’s one of us now.”