Meet The First Therapy Dog For Winnebago County Firefighters

There's a new recruit at North Park Fire Department that will be working with firefighters all over the state line.

Meet Truckie Barker, a one-year-old yellow lab training to be a therapy dog. Soon he'll be meeting Rockford-area firefighters that are putting their lives on the line day, sometimes seeing the unimaginable.

North Park Fire Chief Joel Hallstrom told WREX, "We’re not a huge department, we don’t run 20,000 calls a year, but it doesn’t mean we don’t see bad things. anytime you can lighten a situation on a particular bad day, I think that’s what we need."

Becca Sprague explained the pup's name.

Anyone who rides on the truck for the fire service is called a Truckie, so that’s where his name came from.

Truckie's training is paid for through the Greg Lindmark Foundation, which is always accepting donations.

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[H/T WREX]