Hodgson's COVID-sniffing dogs add therapy to their resumés; BCSO trying to form coalition

DARTMOUTH — When the public sees an officer in uniform holding the lead of a working K-9, most know not to interfere regardless of any dog-loving tendencies a person may have. But naturally, when students around Bristol County started seeing Huntah and Duke — the sheriff department's two COVID-detecting labrador retrievers — frequenting their schools, it was only a matter of time before it was asked: Can we pet them?

"I'm not gonna tell the kids no," said Captain Paul Douglas of the Bristol County Sheriff's Office, handler of Huntah, as he spoke about what led to the May 19 addition of therapy certification to the two dogs' resumés.

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Huntah and Duke were picked up by the BCSO in April 2021 from a breeder of working labrador retrievers in Maine to become the nation's first COVID sniffing dogs in law enforcement — a job Douglas says they've excelled at over the past year of combing through 28 schools between the districts of Acushnet, Fairhaven, Freetown-Lakeville Regional, Norton and Attleboro, as well as other locations like Coastline Elderly Services and the spaces used for Portuguese School twice a week at the DeMello International Center in New Bedford.

According to Douglas, it soon became apparent that helping to stop potential COVID spread was not the only impact the dogs were having.

"Not to take away from the working shepherd or Malinois — they're great dogs and they make people feel safe — but when you walk into a place with a lab, there's just a different effect," Douglas said. "During this process of looking for COVID, after we were done working, the kids, of course, would all want to pet the dog, and before you know it, you've got 25 kids around her (Huntah) and she's laying on her back getting belly rubs."

Other times, the dogs' therapeutic impact has taken on more personalized form, Douglas said, as he recounted what he calls one of a growing number of like-instances.

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"If a kid is upset, my thing is, I hand them the lead and let them walk around with my dog," Douglas said while recalling the recent case of a third-grader who was distraught about the death of a frog that had gotten stepped on in the school yard. "We just walked Huntah around the school, we went to the classroom and he was just as proud as a peacock; from a state of complete emotional distress to being calm, happy and back to normal."

Acushnet Elementary School kindergarten teacher Catherine Charpentier says for her students — who started the academic year never having experienced a school setting without COVID restrictions — the assigning of Douglas and Huntah to her room for weekly visits has been especially impactful.

"For my students, from day 1 they've been told constantly: you have to keep your mask on, stay six feet apart; and the thing with kindergartners is the way they learn is by being with each other and having experiences together," Charpentier said. "So when they brought these dogs in it literally brought tears to my eyes to see such happiness. ... How could you not get excited for a gorgeous black lab dog wagging its tail?"

And according to Charpentier, the students aren't the only ones to benefit. "I notice even with the adults in the building, we all get excited and the atmosphere just feels great," she said. "There have been times where I've come in not having a great day ... then all of a sudden I hear that knock at my door and it's like the weights on your shoulders just lift."

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From bad guys to belly rubs

Douglas says the work he does with his partner, Officer Teddy Santos, handler of Duke, is a lot different from what he's been accustomed to for the majority of his law enforcement career in K-9 work. "If you were to ask me in July of 2005 when I started if I'd be doing this today, I would have never imagined," he said.

Since his start, Douglas has worked a mix of patrol and narcotics detection dogs, and currently — in addition to Huntah — still handles Storm, a German shorthaired pointer-lab mix trained in friendly-find tracking and electronics detection.

"With my first two patrol dogs, Alfie and Rony, it was go, go, go, being out there at 2 a.m. looking for a bank robber or B&E suspect. ... If you're bringing out those dogs, unfortunately it's because there's unrest," Douglas said. "Now, when I walk in with Huntah, I've got teachers who buy bags of treats to keep in their rooms, they have their own water bowls there — it's like they become part of the family of the schools."

When it comes to personality, Douglas says Huntah — who turns 2 years old on Oct. 26, and whose name is a New England-ized version of "Hunter" — is a bundle of energy. "Duke is a little more mellow but he has a lot of energy, too," Douglas said of his partner's yellow lab who's one month younger than Huntah. "They're goofy. When they hit 3 they start to calm down."

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SouthCoast therapy dogs and the future

Bristol County Sheriff Thomas Hodgson — who credits Jane and Dr. David Askew of Dartmouth Dental for donating the funds to purchase Huntah and Duke — said the decision to move forward with the COVID detection program and then therapy certification is in line with what he views as staying at the forefront of modern public safety needs.

"It's a more comprehensive way for us to address the evolving issues in public safety. I've seen over my 25 years there's always something evolving," Hodgson said. "And it's like anything else: if you can build on something and maximize the potential of it ... to help keep people safe, you do it; and that includes therapy — that's a way of keeping them safe, particularly at this time in our history with all the different stresses people are having."

Douglas said it hadn't even been a week since Huntah and Duke earned their therapy dog certifications when news of the deadly May 24 school shooting in Uvalde, Texas sent a wave of shock and unease through classrooms across the nation. Two days later, the two dogs and their handlers were joining forces with the Somerset Police Department's own therapy dog unit to restore some comfort to the students and faculty of Somerset Public Schools. "We spent four hours there going to every school in Somerset, and for that time, it was just all about the dogs," Douglas said. "And it's great to have help because they are dogs — you don't want to burn them out."

In order to form more collaborative relationships like the one between Somerset police and the BSCO, Douglas and Hodgson say there's something more formal in the works that they hope will optimize the effectiveness of the growing number of therapy dogs employed throughout the region.

"We're trying to form a therapy dog coalition to really get a sense of what resources we all have together in our area and be able to help each other," Hodgson said. "We also want to get the word out that this is something that's available in our county."

The BCSO recently sent out an invitation to various entities throughout the region to a June 26 meeting at the Dartmouth House of Correction about the coalition. According to BCSO Public Information Officer Jonathan Darling, school and police personnel from around Bristol County have RSVP'd to attend.

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Aside from whatever may develop from those efforts, Hodgson and Douglas said expansions of the program already in the works include arrangements with Somerset Public Schools for regularly scheduled visits starting next school year, and discussions with the New Bedford Fire Department around having Huntah and Duke comfort victims after critical incidents.

This article originally appeared on Standard-Times: Bristol County sheriff's COVID-sniffing dogs certified in therapy