'Facility dogs' help bring relaxation to law enforcement agencies, victims of crimes
PHOENIX - These are not your normal dogs, they are trained to assist officers and victims of crimes who need stress relief.
Meet "facility dog" Hope.
Facility dogs are fairly new to the scene, and police departments are using them because they can truly provide them with so much comfort during their incredibly intense and stressful careers.
Hope is three-months-old. She's a "Goldendoodle" mix and currently in training.
And this isn't just any normal kind of training, she is being built for a purpose.
She'll become the Suprise Police Department's facility dog. A facility dog is trained to assist the officers and victims of crime.
Christy with K-9 Games, a dog and puppy training facility in Peoria is training hope to look for certain stress behaviors like fidgeting and foot tapping. When she sees this, she's trained to help knock the person out of it by hugging them or laying on them.
Hope isn't the only one doing good for law enforcement departments. Christy has trained several facility dogs, including Pepper, a "Bernadoodle" for the Paradise Valley Police Department.