Published: August 01, 2009 12:04 am      

New ‘boss’ at the fire house

Elementary students have chance to name pup mascot

CANNONSBURG — There’s a new boss at the Cannonsburg fire house.

He’s a good bit smaller than the other firefighters, and none of the turnout gear fits him.

Also, this new head honcho is a little wobbly on his feet — all four of them. And he has spots.

He certainly gets the attention of the firefighters, however. They bring him food, take him outside when he gets restless and introduce him to visitors. He has the run of the firehouse, as long as he doesn’t get underneath the trucks when they’re about to make a run.

On Friday morning he was curled up on an old T-shirt snoozing the morning away. He doesn’t have a name yet because he was just born June 13 to a Dalmatian breeder in Hardyville, in south central Kentucky.

His new fire department family loves him already, in part because, well, who wouldn’t? But also there’s still a hole in their hearts left by his predecessor, a Dalmatian named Candy, who died in May.

Candy had been a fixture at the firehouse since she came there as a pup early in 1998. She lounged her days away on a couch and at night slept in her bed in the truck bays.

Between naps, Candy accompanied firefighters to fire prevention presentations at neighborhood schools.

As much as they missed her after she succumbed to cancer, firefighters knew how important her job was, and they started looking for a new dog.

That’s where Deborah Bishop came in. Breeding Dalmatians is a labor of love for her; she’s owned them since she was a child.

For several years, she’d gotten requests from fire departments all over the country asking for one of her pups. Bishop was sympathetic. Dalmatians have long been closely associated with firefighting since the days when they helped guide the horse-drawn engines.

But a breeder who donated all her stock soon would be out of business. So instead, Bishop made an offer.

Three years ago she started giving away one pup each year to a deserving fire department in Kentucky through a contest. The rules were pretty simple; the departments would send her an application saying why they needed a puppy and she’d choose among them.

She received 82 entries this year, including Cannonsburg’s. “The second I read it, I knew,” she said in a telephone interview.

In part it was assistant chief Alan Hood’s moving description of Candy’s life at the station and her fight with cancer. Hood’s application ended on this wistful note: “We are still sitting here talking about hearing her tail wag and hit against a couch cushion or (how) no matter what you were working on you could count on her nose nudging you for a reminder to give her a few pats to her head.”

The application included pictures of Candy — Candy riding in parades, Candy visiting schools, Candy surrounded by children.

That sealed it. “They were the ones the most involved with children,” Bishop said. She delivered the pup Thursday, driving personally to Cannonsburg to hand him over.

The department hasn’t named him yet. They’ll be asking principals at Cannonsburg and Ponderosa elementaries to work with them on a contest to choose an appropriate name, Hood said.

They’ll take the pup to the schools to show him off. Bonding with children will be his chief job. Kids always loved Candy, even more than they loved the bright red fire trucks, Hood said. “Kids would walk right past the trucks looking for Candy. No matter where we went, kids knew her.”

In fact, when they picked the new dog out, they looked for one with markings that best approximated Candy’s, said assistant chief Jonathan Ferguson. They wanted them to see a familiar sight, he explained.

But not an identical sight, he added hastily. That would be impossible. “She was one of a kind.”