SARANAC LAKE - The Saranac Lake Volunteer Fire Department recently purchased a new Dalmatian named Smokey, at least the sixth in a decades-old tradition.
Fire Driver Rick Yorkey said the department acquired Smokey in Catskill on Christmas Day. He said she comes from the same bloodline as the last two Smokeys.
Yorkey said that when he joined the department in 1985, the Smokey at the time was 13 years old and had to be put to sleep shortly thereafter, as he was dragging his legs and having difficulty walking. He said the current Smokey, who turned nine weeks old Sunday, is the third since then.
The last Smokey died at age 10 in late October from kidney failure. She had been blind for about a year before that.
Saranac Lake is the only fire department in the area that still has a Dalmatian. According the department's Web site, the first recorded Smokey was in the 1950s. The second was in the 1960s, and the third, the first one Yorkey was there for, was acquired in 1971. Smokey number four was with the department from 1985 to 1998, and Smokey five was acquired in 1998.
Yorkey said there may have been other Dalmatians with the department in the past who have not been recorded; he said there is a photograph from the 1920s showing a Dalmatian on one of the fire trucks.
Smokey lives at the firehouse.
Yorkey said the volunteers don't take Smokey on calls, although they do take the dog on rides in the truck sometimes. They also take the dog in parades. In years gone by, Yorkey said, the Dalmatian would lead the horse-drawn fire wagons through town, helping to clear a path and guide the wagons to the fire.
Dalmatians are so-named because they are from Dalmatia, on the Adriatic Coast in present-day Slovenia and Croatia. According to several Web sites, they were used for a wide variety of tasks in their homeland and became popular as coach dogs in 17th-, 18th- and 19th-century Britain due to their stamina, speed, eye-catching appearance and lack of fear of the horses. They kept the horses company, and guarded them against theft, according to the Web site of the San Diego Paramedics. Fire departments throughout the U.S. used them as coach and guard dogs until the advent of motorized fire trucks in the late 1910s and early 1920s.
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For more information on the history of Smokeys and of Dalmatians as fire dogs in general, visit www.saranaclakefiredept.com/smokey.html or www.publicsafety.net/dalmatian.htm.
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Contact Nathan Brown at 891-2600 ext. 26 or nbrown@adirondackdailyenterprise.com.
