Free dog oxygen masks helping to save pets in fires

MAHNOMEN - About a year ago, the Mahnomen Volunteer Fire Department was out on a fire call. The family was out of the house, and they had pulled their dog out, but it had a lot of smoke inhalation.
Firefighters tried to give the family pet some oxygen with a regular mask used on humans, but it obviously didn’t fit properly and therefore didn’t help. The dog passed away.
So when Fire Chief Brian Ose received a call from an Invisible Fence Brand representative asking if the fire department was interested in three free pet oxygen masks, he jumped at the offer.
“I thought that would be fantastic,” he said of getting the donation. “We don’t typically do medical stuff on our fire department, we just run the fires and then we have an ambulance here in town. But we can carry one with us.”
So last week, representatives came to Mahnomen and trained the rescue and fire personnel on how to use the masks and what rate of oxygen to give pets versus humans.
The nationwide program is called Project Breathe, and the goal is to get all fire departments equipped to save all lives, even the four-legged family members.
“Back in the day, one of the Invisible Fence owners saw that there was a need,” Invisible Fence Community Outreach Manager Christina Landwehr said. “We noticed that within the U.S. Fire Administration, they don’t keep track of how many animals succumb to smoke inhalation.
‘When there’s a fire in the house, the animals hide. They’re not like people who know to get out of the house, so a lot of times they succumb to smoke inhalation. So on top of a family losing their home, they are ultimately losing a family member, too.”
She said that the purpose of the Invisible Fence business is to keep pets safe in their yards, so the Project Breathe campaign seemed to fit perfectly because it’s just one more way to keep pets safe.
For the Mahnomen demonstration, Ose asked the couple who lost their dog last year in the house fire to bring their new dog to the training so they could practice on the animal. The family complied.
“It’s definitely a rarity,” Ose said of cases where the fire department would need to give pets oxygen, but having the mask would change that. “Coming to that one, it’s pretty heartbreaking to see her sitting there crying on the step with her dog in her lap.”
All it takes is one case like that, he said, to make having the masks worth it.
“These masks will work for any sized dog, and they said it will actually work down to (the size of) a cat, too,” Ose said.
The masks will help pets that need oxygen in other scenarios as well, like a dog that falls through the ice.
Ose said that Mahnomen is the only fire department that he knows of in the area with the pet oxygen masks. In fact, they were new to him until this donation.
“They told me their goal is to get every department in Minnesota to have these,” Ose said of Invisible Fence.            
Landwehr said that’s absolutely correct.
For a fire department to receive these free pet oxygen masks, all they have to do is contact Invisible Fence through their website ( www.invisiblefence.com/o2 ) and request one. From there, wherever the closest dealer is, they will come present the mask to the fire department and give a demonstration on how to use them.
“Ultimately, we just want to thank the fire department for their service and try and provide them this extra kit to be able to do these extra saves,” Landwehr said.
“Really, if you talk to some fire departments, they’ve all had an experience that they’ve had to pull an animal out of the house and had to improvise because the human oxygen masks just don’t fit the animal snout.”
These masks will fit and hopefully save a pet’s life, sparing the family a little less sorrow.
“A lot of people, their pets are just like family,” Ose said.