Dogs in the Court Room?

By Amy Fernandez

Everyone experiences truly awful days, days we dread and suffer through. Of course, we always have the consolation of going home and grabbing a dog for comfort. No matter how miserable things get, our dogs are always there with unconditional support when we need them. Better yet, we never need to explain anything–they just know. Therefore, it’s hard to understand why modern science has taken so long to come around to what has been common knowledge to so many for so long.

It took a few hundred years, but academia and society have finally caught up to reality. Dogs provide essential mental and emotional support at times when all else fails. In recent decades research has dipped into this weird physiological and psychosocial interspecies phenomenon. Mainly, that’s because technology now offers a means to identify and measure the results. We now have clear empirical evidence of improved physical and psychological health through this interaction. Dogs can and do alleviate anxiety, fear, depression, and loneliness. The upshot has been variously labeled as animal-assisted activities (AAA) and animal-assisted therapy (AAT).  Those protocols have been adapted to an ever-growing range of situations.

At the moment, it’s playing out in real time in a Fort Lauderdale courtroom as the infamous Parkland shooter faces the penalty phase of his trial. Florida is a death penalty state, so as you might expect, every aspect of this proceeding has been an ugly, shocking ordeal. Actually, it has nothing to do with guilt or innocence–that ship sailed long ago. The primary purpose of this judicial nightmare is an attempt to provide some semblance of justice for the victims of this crime.  There is no good ending and no good way to have a positive outcome.

Ostensibly, this courtroom spectacle is presented for 12 jurors tasked with the life or death decision. In reality, its purpose is to provide some shred of closure to the grieving friends and family members. It is their opportunity to share their loss, which means recounting and reliving the worst thing ever, complete with graphic crime scene images. The trial is expected to last 4-6 months and, so far, their victim impact statements leave no doubt about one thing.  Although it happened in 2018, this kind of horror never goes away.

So, as weeks of this play out in a public courtroom the survivors have been provided with the most direct, basic form of emotional comfort. Yes, they have permitted dogs in the courthouse.

Although the idea seems basic to us, it represents a real breakthrough because although service dogs have long been permitted in public settings in accordance with Title II and Title III of the ADA, emotional support dogs and therapy dogs don’t enjoy quite the same legal status

By definition, a service animal must be specifically trained to perform certain functions directly related to a particular disability. Seeing Eye and Hearing Ear dogs remain the primary references in popular culture, but service dogs are trained to perform every imaginable task in response to physical, sensory, psychiatric, and intellectual disabilities. These specialized fields come with specific certifications and titles such as Psychiatric Service Dog, SSigDOG (sensory signal dogs or social signal dog) and Seizure Response Dog. The key point is that a service dog must be specifically trained and certified to perform work directly related to that individual’s disability.

As implied by the myriad labels attached to them–emotional support dog, comfort dog, therapy dogs, etc. are more much more broadly defined–and regulated. Needless to say, that imprecise status has led to systemic abuse of a valid concept. Airlines especially, have cracked down in the wake of rampant abuse by passengers seeking free air travel for pets. At this point, traveling with an emotional support dog has become a big ball of red tape.

Scamming aside, the role of support dogs continues to expand as evidence mounts. In this instance, a non-profit group, Canine Assisted Therapy, has been providing the canine comfort. Based in Oakland Park, Florida,  Canine Assisted Therapy currently has 100 dog/handler teams on call. The dogs represent every age and breed ranging from Maltese and Frenchies to Labs and Standard Poodles. Dogs must be calm and affable, at least a year old and pass the AKC Canine Good Citizen test to qualify.

Many of these traumatized Parkland survivors and family members are already familiar with many of the dogs in this program. They have participated in the crisis counseling and therapy sessions to help them cope with the tragedy. Not surprisingly, many survivors and witnesses actually required counseling prior to this trial simply to prepare for the ordeal ahead. So, it was a natural progression to have these familiar dogs there for the actual trial. Mostly, the dogs and handlers spend the days in the witness rooms and roaming the hallways providing a welcome distraction from the mental stress. But the judge has also permitted them in the courtroom if witnesses request their comfort while they testify.

To legal experts, it’s a drastic breach of protocol. To us, it’s just another example of society finally coming around to reality.

Short URL: https://caninechronicle.com/?p=255506

Posted by Liz on Jan 18 2023. Filed under Current Articles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.