“It calmed me down a lot.” “They made me feel happier to enter.” “They made me feel good despite what happened to me”. The testimonies are from boys, girls and adolescents who are between 3 and 17 years old and who were accompanied by Brownie, Donna and Titan, the therapy dogs for judicial assistance who are part of the teams of the Guardianship Public Ministry (MPT) of the City of Buenos Aires.
They are not isolated testimonies, but a common denominator among almost all of the boys and girls who were assisted by the Therapy Dogs Program. The Public Guardianship Ministry evaluated for the first time the impact of this program and the results were overwhelming: the company of Titan, Brownie or Donna resulted in the majority of those assisted felt better than before counting on his closeness.
The evaluation reveals its data on a date that is not random: this Sunday the National Dog Day. The commemoration has existed since the late 1990s and arose at the request of journalist Cora Cané, who insisted that there be a date in the vernacular almanac to honor Chonino, a German sheepdog who was part of the Argentine Federal Police and who was injured. in an operation of that force.
The tasks of Brownie, an Australian Labradoodle, and Donna and Titan, who are Golden Retrievers, are very different from those carried out by Chonino, but equally important. Any of them three intervenes in the waiting room where a child or adolescent arrives to have an interview with a psychologist. Before that interview, that psychologist offers each boy the possibility of having a dog specially trained for that type of situation accompany them, and if they say yes, Brownie, Donna or Titan join that room with their instructor. The decision regarding which of the three dogs intervenes has to do with the age of the child and also with the type of intervention that led him to the MPT.
It is common for dogs to share a half an hour with the kids before they have the interview, and another half hour after that interview. And the truth is that their acceptance is largely overwhelming: less than 10% of the children and adolescents who went to the ministry preferred not to have that company.
They are already more than 1,200 boys and girls who had this approach since the MPT formed the first team of Judicial Assistance dogs in Argentina, back in 2019. They are a fundamental part of a deployment in which the epicenter of the boys’ visit to the headquarters of the Public Guardianship Ministry is in the Courtroom of Specialized Interviews, which also has an observation space to follow what happens inside, and which has separate rooms on different floors to avoid contact between victims and perpetrators. Psychologists with training in forensic investigative techniques work there: this prevents children and adolescents from having to repeat their story in several instances, which would imply re-victimization.
In this context, and as explained by the coordinator of the Specialized Interview Room, Denise Benatuil, the presence of the dogs is decisive. “In the case of preschoolers, we see how facilitate separation or detachment from the referent and that undoubtedly contributes to the story,” he details.
For the report prepared by the MPT Research Team on the impact of the implementation of the Therapy Dogs for Legal Assistance Program, surveys were carried out that, with the help of tablets, emojis, animations and clear and brief explanations, could be answered for boys, girls and adolescents. Judicial operators also participated. The research was carried out between May 2023 and March 2024.
“The dogs are a great support for the team of professionals in the task of interviewing girls, boys and adolescents who come to testify as victims of crimes. Our work is focused on ensuring that the children’s passage through the Room, which has the attention of the team of professionals and to which we have added to the dog program, is an instance that avoids re-victimization to give way to a repair stage“said Carolina Stanley, former Minister of the Nation and current General Guardianship Advisor in the City of Buenos Aires.
The survey detected that six out of ten boys, girls and adolescents between 6 and 17 years old assured that their experience in the Public Guardianship Ministry was equal to or better than what they expected, and almost half of those surveyed of that age said they felt nervous when arriving. 21% of respondents said they felt happy, 19% calm, and a minority said they felt anxious or sad.
It is in that scene, the one of arrival at the MPT headquarters, that Titan, Brownie or Donna usually intervene. And it is that intervention that made the majority feel an improvement in their mood after sharing time with the dog, even if they had arrived feeling well.
“It was very good, he is a beautiful little dog who calmed me down a lot,”it made me calm“I felt like I was with my dog,” “I felt much more relaxed, I was able to get rid of that fear and anguish that I had and feel more confident and secure about myself,” said some of the respondents.
They are girls and boys who in 80% of cases must declare in the MPT after having been victims of sexual abuse, and they arrive there loaded with the fear and anguish that traumatic situations entail. Dogs are pure containment so that they feel the confidence necessary to be able to tell what they experienced. The experience of the program is beginning to turn out to be a format that attempts to multiply in other jurisdictions in Argentina.
This Sunday is Dog Day. Titan, Donna and Brownie, among thousands of other canine life companions, have earned the celebration that honors them.
