By M. Daniel Gibbard

Chicago Tribune

CHICAGO – Antioch (Ill.) Fire Chief Dennis Volling has seen it many times, a firefighter emerging from a burning home carrying a beloved family pet, only to have it die from smoke inhalation because there wasn’t a good way to give it oxygen.

“It doesn’t sound like much when you talk about a dog or cat, but it does mean a lot to that family,” said Volling, a 40-year veteran. “You can imagine how these people feel. They’re already losing their house, and then they’re losing part of their family.”

But now, some pet-friendly equipment may help give more of those stories a happy ending.

A special type of oxygen mask long used by veterinarians has begun popping up all over the country in the last year.

The trend started in Florida about a year ago and has spread to well over a dozen states from Connecticut to California. The New York City Fire Department recently ordered the masks as did the Kennedy Space Center Fire Department in Titusville, Fla.

Rescuing people is obviously the top priority, but firefighters “will definitely take a risk” to bring out an animal, said Tom Krueger, medical officer for the Lincolnshire-Riverwoods Fire Protection District in the Chicago area.

“Pets are an important part of people’s families. Some people consider them like their kids,” he said. And so long as a home is not engulfed in flames, “we’re going in to get ‘em.”

Human oxygen masks are often foiled by fur and long noses, leading firefighters to try makeshift methods including, in moments of true dedication, mouth-to-snout resuscitation.

But the cup-shaped pet masks have a rubber ring that creates a seal, allowing rescuers to pump pure oxygen into canine and feline noses. Each set has three masks – small, medium and large – meant to fit all sizes of dogs and cats.

“This little contraption is pretty cool,” said Krueger, whose department got the masks in February and has not yet needed them.

Chances are, however, they will: the Humane Society estimates 60 percent of U.S. homes have pets.

Without the masks, reviving animals was hit-or-miss at best, firefighters say, and losing a pet adds more trauma to a family already dealing with the fallout from fire damage.

“We’ve used regular human adult masks, and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t,” said Lt. Warner Russell of the Wauconda (Ill.) Fire Department. “Being able to create a better seal will enable us to turn the situation around quickly.”

A frightened Rottweiler or pit bull terrier wouldn’t sound like the best patient, but smoke inhalation tends to take the fight out of an animal, and a rescuer is as likely to be greeted with a wagging tail as bared teeth, Volling said.

“Some of them are so glad to be rescued they don’t give you any problem at all,” Volling said.

For paramedics, there’s no real training involved, Russell said. “It’s pretty simple. It just goes over the snout.”

The masks are hooked to a tank that forces pure oxygen into the nose, so they are very effective against smoke inhalation as long as the dog or cat is still breathing, Russell said. Firefighters will bring out other animals, they say, but birds and small animals usually are out of luck.

The oxygen mask trend began in Florida, when the death of a dog from smoke inhalation triggered a local campaign to equip fire departments, said Jeff Baker, vice president and general manager of Smiths Medical Veterinary Division, a Waukesha, Wis., company that makes the masks, traditionally used for anesthesia.

“It has just kind of snowballed since then,” Baker said. “We’ve sold more of these oxygen masks in the last year than in the last 15 years” – 1,500 sets of three with hundreds more on order with most of the recent sales going to fire departments, vets and zoos, he said.

Dr. David Brunson, veterinary anesthesiologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Veterinary Medicine, called it a trend within a trend.

“It’s just part of the maturation and growth of the field of veterinary medicine,” he said, particularly emergency medicine.

“People say, “Who would spend money to try to save a cat who was caught in a house fire?’ But these are giving animals, they’re always giving their affection, they’re always giving love,” Brunson said. “I think it’s just one of those things where you go, yeah, right, this makes sense.”

The money often comes from the private sector, as local humane societies, businesses and other groups donate funds to buy the masks.

Sponsoring the mask program for Lincolnshire-Riverwoods and Wauconda is Best Friends Pet Care, a Norwalk, Conn.-based pet boarding, grooming and training company with a facility in Prairie View, Ill.

The company’s campaign, Cause for Paws, has helped equip 60 fire departments and emergency rescue teams in 10 states with the masks, and more are coming, said spokeswoman Deb Bennetts.

“What we’re finding is virtually none of the fire departments we’ve approached have been equipped with them,” Bennetts said. “It just wasn’t a priority item to spend money on (because) you’re always going to rescue humans first.”

In Wauconda, members of the Explorers program for 14- to 20-year-olds raised $150 to pay half the cost for six sets of masks to equip all the department’s fire and rescue vehicles.

Without the special masks, paramedics and firefighters have been forced to try novel methods to revive pets.

Bennetts told of an enterprising firefighter who poked holes in Styrofoam cups and inserted the air hose in one end to create a makeshift mask.

The trouble, she said, is that unless there’s a Super Big Gulp handy, a Great Dane or St. Bernard is out of luck.

Other times a paramedic would try a “blow-by,” removing the mask and putting the oxygen hose next to the snout, Bennetts said. This, too, was generally ineffective, she said.

Finally, some rescue workers actually used “mouth to snout” resuscitation.

“I’m amazed at some of the tales I’ve heard from firefighters over the past six months, the lengths they’ll go to save a pet,” Bennetts said.

Getting the masks can pay immediate dividends, as firefighters found out in April in the southern Connecticut town of Prospect, population 9010.

A class of 3rd graders raised the $75 needed to equip the department with masks, which they presented to Chief Bob Chatfield on March 16.

Less than two weeks later, there was a kitchen fire. Firefighters found the family dog, a Yorkshire terrier, disoriented and suffering from smoke inhalation, and used the mask.

“It felt pretty good,” said Chatfield, a 40-year firefighter who is also Prospect’s mayor. “I’ve had seven defibrillator saves, but it was just nice to see someone’s pet (revived).”

As a bonus, he went back to the school, still in his protective clothing and smelling of smoke, to tell the kids what happened.

“I told them we had just saved a dog’s life,” he said. “They went crazy; they were ecstatic.

“Now the other departments around here can’t get them fast enough. This is a home run for us and pet lovers.”