How Iggy and fellow courthouse dogs lend a paw to make trials less scary for young witnesses
A slight, redheaded teen in a pink T-shirt sits in a chair in a grey room. Her arms are tightly crossed across her chest and she looks far younger than her actual age of 19. Before she appears via camera on a screen in the downtown Toronto courtroom, the judge notes she has developmental challenges and has trouble reading, so they will skip asking her to spell her name.
She is about to testify about being physically and sexually abused by her father from the age of four.
Lying quietly on the floor by the teen's feet is Iggy, a large black dog wearing a purple vest that says Facility Dog." During pauses in her testimony the teen looks down at Iggy or back at Sierra Robins, Iggy's handler, who is sitting in a chair in the corner of the room holding Iggy's leash. As the teen fidgets and kneads a blue stress ball, Iggy remains relaxed.
Often witnesses like her will tuck their toes under the warm weight of Iggy's body or pet him with socked feet.
He's so calm, it's kind of like mirroring. I've seen kids who are very, very emotional and I remind them to look at Iggy and just keep breathing and they just calm right down," Robins says in an interview later that week.
When court breaks for the morning, the girl leaves the room, followed by Iggy and Robins. Outside the more formal courtroom setting, she can cuddle or play with Iggy, or take him for a little walk.
We are asking a lot of kids to come and talk about the worst moment in their lives in front of adults and be questioned," Robins says.
Having Iggy there is one way to give them a little joy and, most importantly, make the process less traumatizing.
Iggy's presence in the court proceedings was treated as unremarkable - he's really just another member of staff - but it was once unimaginable. Five years after the courthouse dogs program began in Toronto, one of the first in the country, similar programs have expanded worldwide and are gaining popularity across Canada. Earlier this year the Star spent some time with Iggy and his team to understand how dogs have changed the court system for the better.
Iggy is an eight-year-old Labrador retriever with a smidgen of Bernese mountain dog, making him a little bigger and fluffier than a typical Lab. He is one of three accredited facility dogs that make up the Boost Child and Youth Advocacy Centre's BARK program. The others are Jersey, an eight-year-old chocolate Labrador retriever, and Aria, a five-year-old rare black golden retriever with delicate features.
Can we talk about how Barb, at the end of every staff meeting for 15 years, spent the last 15 minutes ... talking about the dream of having dogs in the courthouse with children and everyone would laugh," says Kaye Torrie, Jersey's handler and a Peterborough-based child witness advocate, via Zoom in a meeting room at Boost's Toronto location.
Barb is Barbara McIntyre, the manager of the child victim witness support program at Boost, a non-profit centre that operates as a one-stop shop for kids who report abuse, with a police division on-site along with a Sick Kids medical office, that is intended to be less scary and more child-friendly than a police station.
McIntyre has been working to improve the court process for child witnesses for 35 years. In the early days, children would testify sitting on her lap. With her husband's help she created a detailed dollhouse-like model of a courtroom to help familiarize kids with how it would look, and developed kits to explain the court process.
Then she heard about a program in Seattle that was using trained dogs in courthouses to support accused people and victims, and became obsessed with the idea. The concept was catching hold in western Canada where, in 2015, Kim Gramlich and her Pacific Assistance Dogs Society-trained golden Labrador retriever, Caber, started working in Vancouver courthouses.
After persuading the Ministry of the Attorney General to get on board, McIntyre and Torrie applied for two dogs from the National Service Dogs training centre in Waterloo. Three years later, in April 2017, they got Iggy and Jersey.
The program is not about getting convictions, though the calming presence of the dogs can help witnesses open up and give the best possible statements or testimony, McIntyre says.
It's about not traumatizing the child further through the court process," she says.
As she explains how the process works, Iggy lays by her feet and Aria curls up nearby.
People don't realize but he's working really hard right now," McIntyre says. It takes effort for the dogs to be still and quiet during testimony, just like anyone else in the courtroom.
The only problem - helpfully demonstrated by Aria suddenly letting out a loud snore - is that they sometimes fall asleep. For that, they need a little nudge.
One of the things I underestimated when we started is how the dogs affect everyone in the office," McIntyre says. There is an overall morale boost. Now, after a staff member has a particularly tough session, there can be Iggy time."
The dogs don't just go to court to support children testifying, McIntyre says. They are considered staff members and are often involved from the point that a child comes into Boost to make a police report. Iggy might cuddle on the couch with a child as they give a police statement. His leash might be clutched by a child during a rape kit collection. The first interaction might start with Iggy being told to visit" - gently resting his head on the knee of the child to get them comfortable with him.
Once Robins, who runs Boost's anti-human trafficking program, was at the Scarborough courthouse with a girl who was so upset about the outcome of the case that she would not come out of the bathroom. It was only when Robins said Iggy really wanted to see her that she would come out and speak to the Crown prosecutor.
Another girl with developmental delays who self-harms will often FaceTime with Iggy - whom she calls her best friend - and Robins.
I'll sit on the ground holding the phone in front of me and she'll tell Iggy how upset she is that day. And I'll say, Well promise Iggy you won't hurt yourself today,'" Robins says.
In police interviews, children may not feel comfortable talking to an officer but will speak to the dog about what happened.
Det. Nancy Mckee, one of the Toronto police officers who works out of the Boost location, says the dogs have been a game-changer for taking statements from child victims. They bring comfort and a sense of home. It's invaluable," she says. Before, it would be hard to get (kids) to open up. Now they relax, their anxiety goes down."
This is backed up by research, which has found that being around support dogs can reduce blood pressure and stress.
Once you see the dog with a child the first few times, it is life-changing. It has changed the whole way we do our jobs," Torrie says.
Though there was initial concern in the U.S. that having a support dog with a witness could prejudice a jury or be disruptive to the court process, the use of support dogs particularly for child witnesses has become accepted in Canada over the past few years.
Robins can only recall one time that she and Iggy were asked to remain off camera so the jury could not see them during testimony via CCTV.
The most difficult thing for Boost is balancing the dogs' needs with the demand. Iggy's calendar is booking into 2024 and it's hard to tell the kids there is no guarantee he can be there when they testify.
Iggy, Jersey and Aria come from the National Service Dogs training centre, which started off training dogs to support children with autism and then began providing dogs to support veterans and first responders with post-traumatic stress disorder. Now there are increasing requests for facility dogs" which, rather than belonging to one person, are more like members of staff at a facility, whether it is a school, hospital or BOOST, the centre's executive director Danielle Forbes says.
There are key qualities that make a good courthouse dog, says Forbes. Low energy so they can be in one place for long periods of time. They must enjoy lots of touching and petting. Sensitive but also resilient enough to shake off - often literally - heavy emotions.
Iggy is a perfect example of all three but also happens to be a particularly intuitive dog. McIntyre recalls once taking him to court for a child witness, but Iggy kept nudging the child's mother and ignoring McIntyre's commands. Then the woman burst into tears. By smelling the hormones that signal stress in humans, he can pick who in a room needs the most support and go to them, she explains.
That skill sometimes embarrasses male police officers because Iggy isn't fooled by a gruff facade, Robins laughs.
The biggest barrier to having a facility dog is that it requires a lot of commitment from the organization - and designated handlers who care for the dog and make sure he or she is being properly cared for, Forbes says.
The dogs live mostly with their primary handlers but can also live with other staff members trained to be secondary handlers. Anyone taking care of the dog needs special training and National Serice Dogs will train the handler's families too.
They might seem like normal dogs without their vests on, but they aren't family pets," Forbes says, which can be really hard for families with children who have to remember this is not their own dog.
The dogs need vacation time too, especially after heavy days. You can tell when they are tired and when they are refreshed, Torrie says. (Iggy got a three-week break over Christmas.)
The idea is catching on globally, says Ellen O'Neil-Stephens, founder of the Courthouse Dogs Foundation in Seattle. She was a long-time prosecutor who started bringing her son's service dog into juvenile drug court in 2003. Then another prosecutor asked to borrow the dog to help get two girls who had been sexually assaulted feel comfortable enough to speak with him. Now the foundation is working with Victim Support Europe to set standards for the use of courthouse dogs in the European Union and has helped other organization start programs in Australia, New Zealand, Japan and Chile among others.
She just heard a story from a handler about a dog who was supporting an eight-year-old girl undergoing a sexual assault examination. The dog was lying next to the girl on the bed and then moved up until she was curled around the girl's head and shoulders like a dog halo."
Not only does the dog help the person get through the process and mitigate the trauma, but it can give them a positive memory," she says. The dog was with me and that's what I remember."
To keep the connection going after the cases are over many of the dogs, including Iggy, Jersey and Aria, now have Instagram pages.
McIntyre is now focused on two things. Finding funds to support caring for the dogs in addition to the generous grants from donor La Fondation Emmanuelle Gattuso, which saw the program as intuitive and innovative, and succession planning" for when Iggy and Jersey retire, likely in the next two years. Maybe a facility dog that could be based out of the new downtown Toronto courthouse.
When asked what her biggest dream is for the program's future, her answer is simple: more dogs.
Alyshah Hasham is a Toronto-based reporter covering city hall and municipal politics for the Star. Reach her via email: ahasham@thestar.ca or follow her on Twitter: @alysanmati