the life and times of billy blaze: Garco

...Dalmatians are still chosen by many firefighters today as pets, in honor of their heroism displayed in the past.

When I acquired my Dalmatian puppy we of course had to
find a fitting name for him, not any name would do, either. We needed to find a really special name for him. Before the days when the hydraulic powered “Jaws of Life” was available to extricate victims from crushed cars, we extricated the injured people the old fashion way—using pry bars, chains, come-a-longs and brute strength. In the bottom of one of our rescue rigs tool compartments we had an unusually shaped pry bar we used for car-extrication's. In raised letters on the side of that tool was printed the word “Garco”. Nobody ever did figure out what that tool’s real name was, but we called it our “Garco Bar.” When we needed an extra strong pry-bar for a difficult job, it was my tool of choice; hence my new Dalmatian puppy was named “Garco”.

After Garco had gotten through his spoiled-rotten puppy months, he and I went to doggie training school. With extensive help from one of our local dog trainers, Garco was taught basic obedience training, but after many additional hours of training, Garco learned how to “Stop, Drop and Roll”. He also learned to listen for my voice commands and to watch for and follow my hand signals. When you took off his everyday goofing-around the house collar and put on his working-collar, he would stand at attention excitedly waiting for my next command.

Back in those days we did a lot of public service (educational) programs in the local elementary schools. There is nothing more exhilarating then standing in front of three or four hundred school-aged children at a school assembly and announce, “My name is Firefighter Billy Blaze and I would like you to meet my best friend”. Hidden towards the back of the large auditoriums, I would signal Garco to “come”. To hear and watch the kids’ reactions as Garco would proudly stride down the center aisle coming to find his rightful place sitting at my side was memorable. The noise in the room would start with quiet, ooohs and ahhhs towards the back of the gym, but it always ended with every child standing and clapping, straining to see this beautiful spotted dog as he sat down at my side. After taking a few minutes to get the kids calmed back down and sitting again in their chairs, all the while reassuring the concerned teachers this is how all groups of children reacted when my fire dog enters a room, we would begin our routine. With a big voice I would announce to my audience, “Does anybody know what you should do if your clothes catch on fire?” and students’ eager hands would shoot up all over the room. I would then ask, “Garco, what would you do if you caught on fire?” Quickly standing up, he would run a couple tight circles around my legs then suddenly Stop, Drop (lay down) and start Rolling over and over till I would signal to him that the pretend fire had been put out. It was a huge crowd pleaser and, again, I would have to settle the children down before taking questions from the audience.

For several years I was invited to many of the parades the surrounding fire departments participated in. The phone would ring at home, the voice on the other end would say, “Hey Bill, what are you doing such and such weekend?” Replying, “I don’t think I have anything particular going on.” I’d hear, “Why don’t you come and join us in our local parade?” They always finished by asking “… ahhh, and could you bring Garco along, too?” They could have cared less if I, personally, was in their parade: they just wanted my spotted firedog to ride on top of, or run next to, their shiny fire engines in the parade. I did manage to get a lot of free lunches out of the deal, back when I was younger and could still run along side the engines with Garco.

Sitting cross-legged on the street curbs of any parade route, there are always hundreds of small children. As Garco and I would make our way along a parade route, we would stop and visit some of the kids and let them see him up close and personal. Sometimes the youngest children would be a bit timid when Garco would boldly approach them so I trained Garco to crawl on his belly the last few feet to them and place his head right in their lap. Within moments Garco would make another life-long friend with that child, that family and that taxpayer. After a particularly long, hot parade in Grants Pass, I noticed Garco at the end of the parade route was walking a bit bowlegged. Sitting him down and looking more closely at his belly, I noticed it was all scratched up and quite red. I had crawled Garco into so many small children’s lives that day, on the hot pavement, I had rubbed poor Garco’s belly almost raw.