Butch Williams, owner of Bark Busters, a company that specializes in dog training, donated three animal oxygen mask kits to Newton Fire Department and two kits to Conover Fire Department on Wednesday.  The masks allow firefighters to give animals oxygen to help them recover from smoke inhalation.

Williams said he got the idea to donate masks to the fire departments after reading in Bark Magazine about how H.E.L.P. (Health, Educate, Love, and Protect) Animals, Inc. donated masks to fire departments and rescue units in Florida.  

The article got Williams to thinking about what would happen if his own dogs ever suffered from smoke inhalation in a fire.  Would his local firefighters have what they needed to save them?

When he contacted local fire departments, he learned they didn’t have animals masks and thought that he could help.

“I saw this as an unfulfilled need,” Williams said.

Smoke inhalation can be just as dangerous for animals as it can be for their owners, Deputy Chief Jerry Travis, with the Newton Fire Department, said.

“Animals are very sensitive to smoke,” Travis said.  “They typically smell smoke before humans do.”

The problem, he explained, is that they will hide in the home during a fire and by the time rescuers find them, they have been exposed to smoke and toxins in the air.

Travis said about 40 percent of fire calls are to homes with pets inside the house.  Of those, the department averages about six calls a year when a pet requires oxygen after smoke inhalation.

“People’s pets are like family, and people would be just as devastated about losing their pet as they would a family member,” Travis said.

Williams arranged to buy each of the kits from the company for $50 each, and saved his money up until he could afford to make the purchase.

His first donation was to Hickory Fire Department in the March of 2007 with the addition of seven animal oxygen mask kits.  The animal masks saved the life of one dog pulled from a fire on April 18, 2007, said Terri Byers, Hickory Fire Department fire education coordinator.

Each kit includes three masks — one small mask for animals 6.6 to 22 pounds, a medium mask for pets between 22-55 pounds and a large mask for those more than 55 pounds.  The masks are similar to oxygen masks used on people, except the plastic mouthpiece is elongated to accommodate a dog’s snout.

In the past, the fire department has used adult human masks to revive pets, but they don’t work as well for the animals as they do humans, especially in the case of dogs.  Travis said a dog’s snout prevents the mask from sealing properly around the nose and mouth, allowing most of the oxygen to flow past instead of going into the body.  The animal masks, however, are the proper shape and size to make oxygen delivery to animals more efficient and effective.

Newton Fire Department has already placed an animal oxygen mask kit on each of its three primary trucks.

“We just want the public to know we are thinking about their pet as well as the homeowners’ safety,” Travis said.