BLOOMFIELD, NJ — A township couple has started a nonprofit organization with the hope of saving family pets caught in house fires.
“We obviously love animals,” David Tucker Jr. said of himself and his wife, Elaina Unnasch, in the living room of their Mill Street home Sunday, Jan. 21. “We wanted to do something to help animals.”
Breaths for Pets donates oxygen masks that could be attached to the muzzle of the family pet, if rescued from a burning house.
Several family cats prowled around as the couple described Breaths for Pets. The felines were named Emilia, Yuniko and Cannoli, who was possibly hiding under a chair in an adjoining room.
Tucker said his wife donates food to animal shelters, but they wanted to do something not ordinarily considered by animal lovers. Then, they learned that fire departments usually do not bring pet oxygen masks to a fire because they do not have them. While Tucker admitted that he and his wife sometimes go a little overboard about animals and thought others might not share their concerns about pets and fire, they discovered they were wrong.
“The biggest problem for animals is smoke inhalation because animals would be rescued after people,” Tucker said.
After gauging reactions about the fate of pets in a house fire, the couple realized others feel as they do and so they started a fundraising campaign in 2014 to purchase pet oxygen masks.
“We had an outpouring of support,” Tucker said. “Some people gave what they could and others gave $200. We had more money than we knew what to do with.”
“We received $900,” Unnasch said. “Our goal was $500.”
With the support came the idea to start Breaths for Pets. They found a company that made oxygen mask kits. The $90 kits contained three masks, small, medium and large; tubing to attach to an oxygen source; a carrying bag; a kennel lead to control the animal; and decals and training material, including a DVD.
Unnasch began calling local fire departments to find out if they had oxygen masks for pets. “A lot of times they thought we were selling things,” she said. “But we put it out pretty quickly that we were donating the masks.”
“The biggest problem was getting our foot in the door,” Tucker said. “People didn’t want to sign up for something they didn’t understand. It’s a lot of leg work.”
Part of the difficulty of getting their message across was that Tucker and Unnasch both work during the day, as do the fire chiefs responsible for deciding whether to accept the free masks.
They learned that the Montclair, Morristown and Morris Plains fire departments already had the masks, but a number of departments did not. The Bloomfield Fire Department took four kits. Nutley and Belleville took two each. Other N.J. fire departments provided with the masks are Fairfield, Glen Gardner and Little Falls. And Bethlehem, Pa. ordered four last month. Little Falls received nine, Tucker said, because that fire department services a number of communities. The masks will be delivered in March.
BFD Capt. Anthony Minervino, in a telephone interview earlier this week, said a mask provided by Breaths for Pets had been used by the department.
“I did personally use one and saved a pit bull at Brookdale Gardens a few years ago,” he said.
Minervino saw the dog after it had been taken from the building. Firemen were trying everything to revive it.
“They didn’t know what they were doing,” he said. “I ran back to the rig and got the mask. It fit right over the dog’s snout.”
According to Tucker, in the event of a house fire, the pet must be found and taken outside to receive the oxygen, which is not administered inside a burning building because it supports combustion. He also acknowledged it requires considerable luck to find a terrified pet inside a burning home.
“A lot of people don’t have an evacuation plan,” he said. “It seems common sense to know where the exits are. But people don’t have an evacuation plan.”
But pets, especially cats,in the event of a fire would not run for a door but to a familiar shelter inside the house, he said.
“We kind of know where our cats’ hiding spots are,” Tucker said, looking over to the chair that sheltered Cannoli.
To learn more about Breathes for Pets, visit www.breathsforpets.org.
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