PONTIAC (WWJ) – Oakland County Sheriff Mike Bouchard recognizes that our world has been a tough place over the last couple years.
Between the stresses brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, gun violence and other various issues, Bouchard says it's important to find a little comfort where you can.
That's where the Oakland County Sheriff's Office's K9 Comfort Dog Unit comes in.
Bouchard on Monday, introduced the unit, comprised of eight purebred King Charles Cavalier Spaniels and their handlers, including the newest additions, Sadie and Wildcat, who were donated last week.
The comfort dogs are assigned to several school resource deputies and substations throughout communities the OCSO serves, providing a new level of support from the police.
The program started around three years ago prior to the pandemic, Bouchard said.
"I decided that comfort dogs would be an important thing in the increasingly tense and anxious times," Bouchard said during a press conference Monday in Pontiac. "I had no idea of what was coming down the pike, between COVID and then follow on for us, Oxford, and a variety of things. So the comfort dogs have become even more important on so many levels."
As Metro Detroiters grapple with the harsh realities of the real world, Bouchard says the dogs "do amazing things."
"I personally witnessed it. After visiting Oxford, these dogs literally passed out because they were emotionally drained. They slept from exhaustion. But they took that from the kids. You could see the kids almost unwind as they petted and held the dogs," he said.
He saw the dogs in action just last weekend, too. At an event in Pontiac, a young girl came up to pet one of the dogs, Max, and her father was astonished because she's normally "deathly afraid of dogs," he told Bouchard.
Terrance Vails / WWJ
That's one of the reasons Bouchard says he and his team chose Cavaliers – their size.
"There's a lot of comfort dogs that are great that are bigger," he said. "But we can actually put them on the lap of someone in a wheelchair, when we visit a hospital, we can put them up on a bed. We can do a lot of things with the size that these guys are that a bigger dog can't."
They're also less intimidating than big dogs, he said.
Wildcat, who was just ushered into the unit last week after being donated by Clarkston Public Schools, already saw some action, Bouchard said. Police were called to a scene where someone was having a mental health crisis and Wildcat "diffused the situation."
"He calmed down and a situation that was tense became calm," Bouchard said. "And those are the types of outcomes that we look for every day, and if a dog can help us, great, and if it can help relieve the tension, the anxiety of anybody – better."
Officials did not release specific details about that incident.
The comfort dogs' work even goes beyond helping community members. They've also helped members of the sheriff's department. Bouchard said "the last two years have been terrible," noting there have been record numbers of officers dying in the line of duty.
"And the sad fact is more police officers killed themselves than died in the line of duty the last two years," he said.
The department plans on adding at least two more Cavaliers to the unit in the coming weeks, Bouchard said.
