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Irv,
I find myself agreeing with most of your posts on this subject, but I did want to clarify one thing: Tampa Fire-Rescue does not have full-time dedicated dog handlers. We have paid FFs that also serve as K9 handlers in addition to other functions. We are a disaster dog strike team consisting of 5 handlers and a training director employed by the fire academy. I am the unit OIC and also serve as the shift comander for the hazmat unit. Another handler is a Lieutenant in charge of a rescue, and the other three are firefighters with regular engine company assignments. I hold the rank of Captain, but also handle a K9 as well. We do have the privilege of training while on duty, or on overtime when staffing is tight and enjoy a great deal of support from our agency. Our canines accompany us to the station, so a lot of our day to day maintenance training gets done on the job too. We have just constructed a large rubble pile of about 7000 sq. ft. and have a first class training facility for which we are very grateful. But even with all the support, all of us have had to make many of the same sacrifices made by dog handlers of any type, including spending an awful lot of our own money, especially in the beginning.
We have had an interesting time in our first year of existence and have learned that some of the volunteers can be as anti-paid as some of the paid people can be anti-volunteer. We were hammered pretty hard over legislation protecting fire/sar dogs in the same statutory fashion as police dogs. We supported the legislation as did the two largest and most competent volunteer SAR Dog groups in the state. The legislation passed, but the bad feelings lingered, even though it protects the volunteer dogs as well. It was perceived as the beginning of a conspiracy to drive out the volunteers, but nothing could be further from the truth. It is truly as shame too, because we had opened our facility to all volunteer groups and also offerred, at no cost, the use of our trainer to help them in the development of their dogs. We still enjoy a very good relationship with Southeast SAR out of Gainesville (trained with them today, in fact) as well as Special Response Team-A out of South Florida. The volunteers from these groups have proven to be an invaluable resource and are a factor in why we have chosen to cross-train our dogs as wilderness dogs as well as disaster dogs. We have also allied with the Search and Rescue Cooperative of Florida (SARCO) which is mainly composed of volunteer groups as well as some compensated handlers and find this cooperative to be a healthy forum for the exchange of training as well as an excellent mutual-aid vehicle. I have taught classes in your part of the country and have observed first-hand many of the top-shelf volunteer resources that exist in the north east. They truly demonstrate the fact that professionalism does not have a thing to do with compensation. Unfortunately, some of the volunteer organizations in our area have not demostrated this same degree of dedication and professionalism, and in the end, we all suffer. By the same token, one need only look at the shameful display by IAFF members in Kansas City at the IAFC sponsored combat challenge to know that volunteers have no monoploy on showing one's backside.
We are NOT a stand alone Wilderness SAR resource and have no intention of becoming one, unless these services are no longer adequately provided by the volunteer community and the citizens voice a desire for that service. Our canine unit was formed specifically for disaster response and the wilderness mission came to be because we were asked to provide that service. Our canines are part of the Tampa Bay Regional USAR Task Force, a state resource, and my older K9 and I are part of FEMA Fl TF2. Sometimes I get weary of having to "justify" our existence to those that perceive us as some kind of threat. We are not; we are just here to make a difference in victim/patient outcomes when we are called upon to serve.
Thank you for the forum.
David G. Costello
813 681-3193
pager 813 887-8117
fax 813 242-5390
email DavidTFD@aol.com
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About TFD's Dogs 
professional attitude
(irv lichtenstein)
not one specific group but an overall feeling
(irv lichtenstein)
no threat perceived
, 1997, May 05
PLEASE
by clmankin@p3.net, 1997, May 18
