Another Great Day at Work for a Therapy Dog

Prosecutors turn to dogs to put crime victims at ease

The little girl had already confided in a psychologist, a doctor and her family.

At 7 years old, she struggled to recount the trauma of sexual assault again and again, this time for Prince William County prosecutors. But when it came time for trial, the girl was ready. She testified via closed-circuit television and helped lock up her attacker for eight years.

And while it was ultimately the girl’s strength and support from her family that brought her through, she also got help along the way from an unexpected source: an imposing-looking but wholly affable German shepherd named Abby.

The girl began asking for Abby, and when she went to see prosecutors, she would lead the dog around the office on her leash. Simply petting and nuzzling Abby calmed the girl.
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Using service or therapy dogs to assist victims dates to a district attorney’s office in Queens in the 1980s and a Mississippi courthouse in the 1990s. It has expanded nationwide, and in November the National District Attorneys Association’s board of directors passed a resolutionsupporting the use of courthouse dogs.

Since November 2011, the child abuse program at Norfolk’s Children’s Hospital of the King’s Daughters has enlisted Pecos, a golden Lab mix, said Michele Thames, a forensic interviewer there. Elsewhere in Virginia, Suffolk and Albemarle County are working to start dog programs, according to Ellen O’Neill-Stephens, who founded Courthouse Dogs.

More than 40 court-related offices in 16 states use therapy dogs for child abuse and other cases, according to Allie Phillips, who keeps track at the National District Attorneys Association. Other offices use service or facility dogs, which have different certification standards.

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Florida has laws about how many times a child can be interviewed, and the dogs help put victims at ease quickly, said prosecutor Lorene Taylor. “We want to make sure that we can get the most out of the interview that we can with the least amount of trauma,” she said.

Some programs allow dogs in the courtroom, but those have been controversial. A child rape case in New York state is being challenged by defense attorneys who said the courtroom dog swayed the jury, according to a New York Times article from August. Defense attorneys in other places have said they are concerned a dog’s presence could cause a jury to be more sympathetic or unfairly lend credibility to a victim’s account.

“In any jury trial, we would be concerned that the jury would view the court permitting the dog to comfort a witness as an indication from the court that the witness had indeed experienced trauma,” Lisa Daugaard, deputy director of the Defender Association in Seattle, said in an e-mail.

But Daugaard said she didn’t see a problem with using a dog in an interview room. Creating a comfortable environment “has advantages for truth telling,” she said.

(Excerpts from a January 2012 Washington Post article By Jeremy Borden)