By Cris Villalonga-Vivoni
New Haven Register, Conn.
NEW HAVEN, Conn. — No one attracts attention on Yale University’s campus like Heidi, the yellow lab, and her fabulous blue-and-white flower collar.
Dressed in a university police vest with her name, she walks around campus with owner and partner, Officer Rich Simons, to bring joy and comfort to students, faculty and community members alike. She’s one of 14 dogs working with local police officers in Connecticut through Puppies Behind Bars, a program that also bridges the gap between police and those incarcerated.
“Because of her I’m able to talk about their life, their dog,” Simons said. “My goal was to make someone smile once, sometimes, hundreds of times.”
Heidi is a trained facility dog, who can provide emotional support in health care, police or educational settings.
More law enforcement agencies are using dogs as part of their community approach, including Middletown, Southern Connecticut State University, Colchester, Hartford, Milford, Hartford University and Farmington.
The newest addition to the cohort is John, a yellow lab, and his handler Officer Stephanie Masella of Meriden police, who is also helping address first responders’ mental health needs.
John is already impacting the community. Masella said they’ve helped comfort the family of a homicide victim, attended a service for a person who died by suicide and helped conduct follow-up interviews after a fatal accident.
They’ve also visited a local summer camp to connect with children and help them develop trust with law enforcement. Masella said she plans to soften her uniform with an embroidered police polo and give out John baseball cards and stickers.
On a recent August day while Simons and Heidi were on campus, Khalil Mumtaz, a third-year student saw Heidi and immediately got misty-eyed as his emotions came to the surface.
When he sat on the floor, Simons directed Heidi to “tell me a story.” She slowly crawled onto Mumtaz’s lap and laid her head on his chest. Her large brown eyes stared at Mumtaz as he pet and hugged her.
“She’s always been a source of happiness for everybody,” Mumtaz said while cuddling her.
Puppies Behind Bars
Simons has been a part of the Yale University police department for 34 years. He was hired as part of the community-based detail for the university and surrounding community but quickly noticed how standoffish students were despite being friendly. He said being in uniform, with a gun and badge and marked police care made people uncomfortable and hard to connect with all the students and staff.
One day, after clearing it with his boss, he decided to bring his two six-month-old rottweilers, Bonnie and Clyde, to campus. Within minutes they were swamped by excited students wanting to connect with the dogs and Simons, he said. Although the visit was successful, he said Yale only hired a police facility dog during the pandemic, almost 27 years after the first visit.
While researching, he said he found Puppies Behind Bars, a nonprofit started 25 years ago where incarcerated individuals train service and facility dogsare at one of seven prisons throughout New York. The puppies become service dogs for wounded war veterans and first responders, facility dogs for police, fire and campus police departments, and explosive-detection canines for law enforcement.
About 150 incarcerated individuals participate as puppy raisers, according to its website. Puppies and their incarcerated handlers spend almost all their time together, socializing and training while giving each other lots of love and support.
After training is complete, the dogs are matched with their new handlers, who are also trained by the incarcerated handler to use the dog’s commands. The dogs are placed in new homes and departments for free. Since starting in 1977, Puppies Behind Bars has trained more than 3,000 dogs.
Connecting with students
Heidi joined Yale’s police force in 2020.
Simons said most of their work involves walking around campus, greeting strangers and showing off tricks.
Outside of Yale, Simons said Heidi visits hospitals, day cares, public schools, and police funerals, as well as helps victims of traumatic crimes while in court. During the pandemic Heidi was a regular at the vaccine clinics, providing comfort to anyone who needed help while getting their COVID-19 vaccine.
Simons also said he’s regularly invited to the different events students and faculty host around campus, including dinner parties and summer camps. Last year, he said Heidi did more than 990 visits.
Not only is working with Heidi the highlight of his career, Simons said having her on campus has been the best way to build connections with a community once too intimidated to talk to him. He said she naturally gravitates toward the people who need her most. Her presence is all that’s needed to make someone feel comforted or bring them a smile on a difficult day, especially among children at schools and college students.
“She’s so in tune to them and how they’re feeling,” he said.
In the few minutes of conversations with strangers petting Heidi, Simons introduces himself, his role as a police officer and Heidi’s purpose on campus. People tell him about their day, recall memories of their own dogs, and ask questions about Heidi and himself. Simons then hands out stickers and business cards with Heidi’s face and an email to request a visit to anyone wanting one. Last year, they went through more than 7,000 stickers, he said.
Unlike in typical police work, Simons gets up-close and personal with people’s everyday troubles. As they pet Heidi, he said people begin to divulge aspects of their lives and stories they wouldn’t usually share.
“I’m able to reach people that we as police officers never would have been able to reach,” he said. “People see the commonality with myself and them. They forget that I have a gun. They forget that I’m a police officer.”
When he was in full uniform, Simons said people would hesitate to interact with him and Heidi because they assumed she was a crime-fighting K9, not an emotional support animal.
So, Simons “softened” his day-to-day uniform to be more approachable to students. Although he still carries a gun and badge, Simons walks around in khaki pants and a customized polo shirt with “Team Heidi” and “Yale Public Safety” embroidered on it.
He also often dresses Heidi up in fun collars and costumes created by the university’s drama students, including a chef’s apron and hat, a cheerleading uniform for games and a hot pink look inspired by Barbie. Simons keeps them in the back of his unmarked police car, along with a variety of gifts for people, including yellow lab plushies, lanyards, bracelets and a Heidi police coin.
In the past, Simons said he tried connecting with the community by going to them with bike giveaways. Now, Heidi brings the community to him. Simons said he often gets stopped by graduating students who want one last chance to say goodbye. Some people even suffer from allergies the rest of the day to get the opportunity to pet Heidi, he said.
“This is his most successful community-based program in Yale public safety history,” he said. “It’s the best thing that we’ve ever done.”
Bridging gaps inside police and prisons
Masella has seen the mental toll the job takes on her co-workers these past four years. So, when Meriden PD started a peer-to-peer program to help officers support each other and combat stigma, she quickly became involved. She was looking around for supplemental programs, like therapy dogs, and came across Puppies Behind Bars.
“There’s a lot of people in law enforcement that feel like they have to put up this protective wall and act like they don’t have emotions,” she said. “When you bring a dog into the room it is a total game changer. The dog can sense who needs him the most. The dog can turn a big tough guy into a big melting popsicle.”
Masella met John less than a month ago at her two-week handler training inside an all-men’s maximum security facility, where she learned learned 40 to 60 commands for him and picked up on his fun quirks, like his tendency to be a “sleepy mush ball” when off work. She said it was immediately clear that John and his incarcerated trainer shared a special bond.
She said the training period was intense but rewarding.
Masella said she stays connected with John’s original trainer by sending photos and postcards of John’s progress. Because of the program, she said they learned to see each other’s humanity outside of the labels.
“At one point, that incarcerated person was put away by law enforcement and yet here we are coming together, forming a bond,” she said.
On the force, Masella said she’s watched toughened veteran officers get on the ground to pet and play with John, completely changing their attitudes. She said an officer may never actually speak about their mental health, but John’s presence can bring joy and comfort and change the direction of their day in a simple interaction.
Masella said she even noticed changes in herself since meeting John and how her own mental health has improved by working with him.
“My goal was always to go out and try to show people that not all police are bad and I am here to help and I will help you in any way I can,” she said. “Having (John) and knowing that’s basically all we do now is life-changing. I’m out here every day, with him, trying to create smiles trying to bring happiness, trying to help people.”
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