Nancy VanWinkle, director of the center, proposed the idea to employees about getting a dog.
“I had seen, and my assistant had seen, different agencies using dogs for dispatch,” she said. VanWinkle added that she doesn’t know of another 911 center in Arkansas with an emotional-support dog.
“When we answer the phone, 80 percent of our calls are not somebody having a good day,” VanWinkle said. “We hear people take their last breaths. We hear moms screaming because their children aren’t breathing, or people who hear noises outside of their houses and are scared — they don’t know if someone is coming in.
