Originally published 2019-12-04. Dates, ages and announcements in this article refer to December 2019.
Titan is a golden retriever who works for the Ministerio Público Tutelar (MPT), the public body that protects the rights of children in the City of Buenos Aires, Argentina. His job is to keep children and teenagers company before and after they give testimony about abuse and other crimes. He joined in October 2019, when he was five years old, and the MPT says that made it the first organisation in Argentina to add a judicial therapy dog to its team.
Viral posts at the time called Titan the world’s first therapy dog for abused children or the first to work in a courtroom. That part is not accurate. Dogs have supported child witnesses in the United States since the early 2000s. What Titan represented was a first for Argentina, and an example of an idea that is spreading through justice systems in many countries.
What Titan actually does
When a child in Buenos Aires has to describe abuse for an investigation, the interview usually takes place in a Cámara Gesell, a specially designed room with a one-way mirror. A trained psychologist talks with the child while judges, prosecutors and defence lawyers watch from the other side, so the child only has to tell the story once and never has to face the accused.
Titan does not go into that room. According to La Nación, he meets the child beforehand, in a space set aside for them, where they can stroke him, play with him or simply sit together. After the interview he is waiting at the door. Yael Bendel, the city’s chief tutelary advisor, told the newspaper that his presence matters at both moments: first to lower the child’s stress, then to help soften the emotional impact of having just recalled something painful.
Titan works with a handler, Carlos Agudo, who stays with him throughout the day. The dog began his training at two months old. Part of that training was learning to treat rough handling, such as tight hugs, tail pulling or being stepped on, as play and to respond calmly and affectionately. That temperament matters with young children, who may be anxious, restless or very small.
How the programme grew
The MPT runs the scheme as its Therapy Dog for Judicial Assistance programme. By July 2020 Titan had taken part in about 120 sessions. That month he was joined by Brownie, an Australian labradoodle whose low-shedding coat suits children with allergies and whose smaller size helps with very young children.
During Argentina’s strict COVID-19 lockdown, the MPT carried out 168 interviews with children and adolescents, aged 5 to 17, in its specialised room. The dogs were present before and after 121 of them. About 77 per cent of those interviewed were girls, and roughly nine in ten cases involved sexual abuse; the rest concerned mistreatment, threats or injuries. By mid-2021, the ministry said its dogs had accompanied 464 children since the programme began.
Where the idea came from
The use of dogs to support witnesses is usually traced to Seattle. In 2003 Ellen O’Neill-Stephens, a senior deputy prosecutor in King County, Washington, began bringing an off-duty service dog to drug court, forensic interviews and court hearings, and noticed how much calmer people became. In 2008 she and veterinarian Celeste Walsen coined the term “courthouse dogs”, and in 2012 they set up the Courthouse Dogs Foundation to promote the practice.
Since then, courthouse dogs have spread across the United States, where some states have passed laws allowing a certified facility dog to accompany a child witness, and similar schemes have appeared in other countries, in child advocacy centres, police interview suites and courtrooms. Some places allow a dog to sit near a child while they testify; others, like the Buenos Aires programme, keep the dog outside the interview itself.
Therapy dog or facility dog?
The terms are often mixed up, but they describe different things:
- Therapy dogs are usually pets, often with volunteer owners, that visit hospitals, schools or care homes to offer comfort. Standards for screening and training vary.
- Facility dogs (or courthouse facility dogs) are trained to assistance-dog standards and handled by a professional who works in the legal or care system, such as a prosecutor’s staff member, psychologist or victim advocate. They are expected to stay calm for long periods in stressful settings.
Argentine reports call Titan a therapy dog, but his role, with a dedicated handler inside a public institution, is closer to what is elsewhere called a facility dog.
What the evidence says, and the safeguards that matter
People who run these programmes, including psychologists at the MPT, report that children arrive more relaxed and give clearer accounts when a dog has been with them. Research on animal-assisted support for child witnesses is still fairly limited, though, and most of it measures stress and comfort rather than long-term outcomes. A friendly dog is a source of support, not a form of therapy on its own, and it cannot judge whether a child is telling the truth.
Good programmes build in several protections:
- The child chooses whether to interact with the dog. Some children are afraid of dogs, allergic, or simply not interested.
- A trained handler stays in control at all times, and the dog’s welfare, rest and workload are monitored.
- The dog is never used as a reward for saying something, so there is no suggestion that a child’s testimony was influenced.
- In jurisdictions where a dog may be visible during testimony, courts consider whether its presence could unfairly sway a jury, and judges set rules accordingly.
Some of the material from 2019 described the dog as a way to assess a child’s engagement or abilities before an interview. That should be read with care. Assessment of a child is a job for trained professionals; the dog’s role is to make the setting less frightening.
Why stories like Titan’s resonate
Giving testimony about abuse can be one of the hardest experiences a child faces after the abuse itself. Long waits, unfamiliar buildings and the knowledge that adults are listening closely can all add to the fear. A calm, friendly dog offers something simple: a moment of normality and a reason to smile in a place that is otherwise serious and strange.
(The video originally embedded here is no longer available on YouTube.)
If you are worried that a child is being harmed, contact your local child protection services or police. If a child tells you about abuse, listen calmly, reassure them they were right to tell you, and pass the information to professionals rather than investigating yourself.
Sources: La Nación (8 October 2019); La Nación (18 December 2020); Diario Judicial (June 2021); Wikipedia: Courthouse Dogs Foundation.
COMMENTS