AMHERST — At just 9 weeks old, Wilson the comfort dog was sworn in as a member of the Amherst Fire Department this week and took an oath to “offer a warm heart, tender companionship, and unconditional love” to his new community.

Wilson is now free to clock in and provide comfort to first responders after they go on tough calls, said his handler, firefighter Allison Cote. She said when he’s not at work, Wilson will be at home with her, but will learn to make the distinction between home and work.

Amherst firefighter Monica Aldrich said she looks forward to Wilson being around as he will bring “a sense of calm.”

Among the crowd of firefighters, police officers, paramedics and community members at Tuesday’s swearing-in ceremony was Valerie Austin of the Belchertown Police Department, and Oliver, that department’s 2-year-old comfort dog.

Austin said that having a comfort dog helps with department members’ mental health, whether they’re petting him, sitting with him or just in the same building as him.

“It just brings presence,” she said.

Comfort dogs Wilson and Oliver are from the same breeder, Boonefield Labradors in Rindge, New Hampshire.

In 2022, Peggi and David Brogan of Boonefield Labradors started focusing directly on breeding litters of comfort and therapy dogs. The dogs spend the first eight weeks with the litters as they take them through early phases of desensitization training.

The early stages of training consist of putting the dogs in ball pits, on skateboards and surrounding them with sirens and sounds from gun ranges, Cote explained.

Peggi Brogan described it as “exposing them to as much as possible environmentally,” in order to build their confidence.

Brogan said they brought comfort dogs to the Amherst Fire Department last fall after the Olympia Place fire.

“We just fell in love, it just seemed like the right place to have a dog,” she said.

After planning Wilson’s litter for the department, it was clear to them that Wilson was the standout dog as he remained calm during training.

“He reacted so neutrally to all of the sounds, we knew he could go anywhere,” she said.

Fire Chief Lindsay Stromgren said that in the fall of 2024, he originally rejected the idea of bringing a dog into the station due to a lack of bandwidth in the department at the time.

One year later when Cote, Assistant Chief Steven Chandler and other fire station members came into work with a clear plan of how they would bring in the dog, he had to say yes, he explained.

“They put it all together, they put it in writing, they vetted everything,” Stromgren said.

All of Wilson’s starting costs were paid by donor Claire Hebert Dow, the author of the book “Saving Mama” that follows a woman navigating “uncharted territory” with the help of her pets. Herbert Dow uses sales from her books to connect first responders with comfort dogs.

“Its really been a huge team effort just to get us where we are today,” Stromgren said.