By Cris Villalonga-Vivoni
New Haven Register, Connecticut.
NEW HAVEN, Connecticut – No one stands out on the Yale University campus like Heidi, the yellow Labrador with her fairytale blue and white flower collar.
Wearing a police vest with her name on it, she walks around campus with her owner and partner, Officer Rich Simons, bringing joy and comfort to students, faculty and community members. She is one of 14 dogs who work with local police officers in Connecticut as part of Puppies Behind Bars, a program that also bridges the gap between police and inmates.
“Thanks to her, I can talk about her life and her dog,” Simons said. “My goal was to make someone smile once, sometimes, a hundred times.”
Heidi is a trained facility dog who can provide emotional support in healthcare, police or educational settings.
More and more law enforcement agencies are using dogs as part of their community-based approach, including Middletown, Southern Connecticut State University, Colchester, Hartford, Milford, Hartford University and Farmington.
The newest members of the group are John, a yellow Labrador, and his handler, Officer Stephanie Masella of the Meriden Police Department, who also serves the mental health needs of first responders.
John is already making an impact on the community. Masella said they have comforted the family of a murder victim, attended a service for a suicide victim and helped conduct follow-up interviews after a fatal accident.
They have also visited a local summer camp to connect with children and help them build trust with the police force. Masella said she plans to jazz up her uniform with an embroidered police polo shirt and hand out John baseball cards and stickers.
On a recent August day, Simons and Heidi were on campus when Khalil Mumtaz, a third-year student, saw Heidi and his emotions immediately flooded through his eyes.
Sitting on the floor, Simons asked Heidi to “tell him a story.” She slowly crawled onto Mumtaz’s lap and laid her head on his chest. Her big brown eyes stared at Mumtaz as he caressed and hugged her.
“She was always a source of joy for everyone,” said Mumtaz as she petted her.
Puppies behind bars
Simons has been part of the Yale University Police Department for 34 years. He was hired as part of the community-based task force for the university and surrounding community, but quickly noticed how aloof the students were despite their friendliness. He said the uniforms, gun and badge, and marked police signs made people uncomfortable and made it difficult to connect with all students and staff.
One day, after discussing it with his boss, he decided to bring his two six-month-old Rottweilers, Bonnie and Clyde, to campus. Within minutes, they were swarmed by excited students wanting to make contact with the dogs and Simons, he said. Although the visit was successful, he said Yale did not hire a police dog until the pandemic, nearly 27 years after the first visit.
During his research, he came across Puppies Behind Bars, a nonprofit organization founded 25 years ago that trains inmates to be service dogs in one of seven New York City prisons. The puppies become service dogs for wounded veterans and first responders, service dogs for police, fire and campus police, and explosive detection dogs for law enforcement.
According to the website, about 150 inmates participate as puppy raisers. Puppies and their incarcerated handlers spend almost all of their time together, bonding and training while giving each other lots of love and support.
After completing training, the dogs are assigned to their new handlers, who are also trained by the incarcerated handler in the use of the dog commands. The dogs are placed in new homes and units free of charge. Since its founding in 1977, Puppies Behind Bars has trained more than 3,000 dogs.
Contact with students
Heidi joined the Yale Police Department in 2020.
Simons said her job mostly involves walking around campus, greeting strangers and performing tricks.
Outside of Yale, Simons says Heidi visits hospitals, daycares, public schools, police funerals, and helps victims of traumatic crimes in court. During the pandemic, Heidi has been a regular at vaccination clinics, providing comfort to anyone who needed help while receiving their COVID-19 vaccination.
Simons also said he is regularly invited to the various events that students and faculty host on campus, including dinner parties and summer camps. Last year, Heidi visited him more than 990 times, he said.
Not only is working with Heidi the highlight of his career, but Simons said her presence on campus has been the best way to build connections with a community that was once too intimidated to talk to him. He said she is naturally drawn to the people who need her most. Her presence is all that is needed to comfort someone on a difficult day or bring a smile to their face, especially among school children and college students.
“She is so attuned to them and knows how they feel,” he said.
In the few minutes he spends chatting with strangers who pet Heidi, Simons introduces himself, talks about his role as a police officer and about Heidi’s role on campus. People tell him about their day, remember their own dogs and ask questions about Heidi and him. Simons then hands out stickers and business cards with Heidi’s face and an email address requesting a visit to anyone who wants one. Last year they went through more than 7,000 stickers, he says.
Unlike traditional police work, Simons gets very close to people’s everyday problems. As they stroke Heidi, he says, people begin to reveal aspects of their lives and stories that they would not otherwise tell.
“I can reach people we never could as police officers,” he said. “People see the similarities between me 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 were hesitant to interact with him and Heidi because they assumed she was a police dog and not an emotional support animal.
So Simons “softened” his everyday uniform to be more accessible to students. Although he still carries a gun and a badge, Simons walks around in khakis and a custom polo shirt with “Team Heidi” and “Yale Public Safety” embroidered on it.
He also often dresses Heidi in fun collars and costumes designed by the university’s theater students, including a chef’s apron and hat, a cheerleading uniform for games, and a pink Barbie-inspired look. Simons keeps them in the back seat of his plainclothes police car, along with a variety of gifts for others, including yellow Labrador plush toys, lanyards, bracelets, and a Heidi police coin.
In the past, he tried to build a connection with the community by giving away bicycles, Simons said. Now, Heidi brings the community to him. Simons said he is often stopped by graduates who want to say goodbye one last time. Some people even suffer through allergies for the rest of the day so they can pet Heidi, he said.
“This is his most successful community-based program in the history of public safety at Yale,” he said. “It’s the best thing we’ve ever done.”
Closing gaps in police and prisons
Masella has witnessed the psychological toll her work takes on her colleagues over the past four years. When the Meriden Police Department launched a peer-to-peer program to help officers support each other and combat stigma, she quickly got involved. She looked into additional programs like therapy dogs and found Puppies Behind Bars.
“A lot of people in the police force feel like they have to put up a protective wall and pretend they don’t have feelings,” she said. “When you bring a dog into the room, it changes everything. The dog senses who needs it the most. The dog can turn a big, tough guy into a big, melting popsicle.”
Masella met John less than a month ago during her two-week dog handler training at a maximum security prison, where she learned 40 to 60 commands for him and discovered his funny quirks, such as his tendency to act like a “sleepy mush” in his free time. She said it was immediately clear that John and his incarcerated trainer had a special bond.
She said the training period was intense but rewarding.
Masella said she stays in touch with John’s original trainer by sending him photos and postcards of John’s progress. Through the program, she said, they have learned to see each other’s humanity beyond the labels.
“At some point this detainee was taken away by the police, and yet here we come together and form a bond,” she said.
Masella said she witnessed hardened, experienced officers on the force get down on the ground to pet and play with John, which completely changed her outlook. She said a police officer may never really talk about their mental health, but John’s presence can bring joy and comfort and, in a simple interaction, change the course of their day.
Masella said she has even noticed changes in herself since meeting John, and her own mental health has improved as a result of working with him.
“My goal has always been to go out and show people that not all cops are bad, and I’m here to help, and I’ll help you in any way I can,” she said. “Having John and knowing that’s basically all we do now has changed my life. I’m out here every day, with him, trying to put a smile on faces, bring joy and help people.”
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