There 麻豆精品 S檚 a paw-some new addition to the UCF Police Department, and her name is Paisley.
Paisley is a two-year-old Treeing Walker Coonhound who is UCFPD 麻豆精品 S檚 first-ever therapy dog. She will help ease stress and comfort victims of violent crime during interviews and interactions with police.
Paisley, who is paired with UCFPD Detective Matt Scott, is the department 麻豆精品 S檚 latest effort to create an environment where victims of crimes such as sexual assault and stalking feel comfortable reporting to law enforcement. UCFPD believes that it is among the first campus police departments in the country with an in-house therapy dog.
麻豆精品 S淧aisley is going to be able to provide unconditional love, and victims will hopefully be able to get to a level of ease where they 麻豆精品 S檙e able to just disclose what occurred to them. Then we can go out and do our jobs, 麻豆精品 S� Det. Scott said.
Paisley and Det. Scott are graduates of the Brevard County Sheriff 麻豆精品 S檚 Office 麻豆精品 S檚 Paws & Stripes College.
The idea for the program came from three-time UCF alumnus Jessie Holton, formerly a Special Victims Unit Agent with BCSO. The Marine veteran drew from his personal experience with a therapy dog for a doctoral class project and proposed the idea of a therapy dog program to assist child-abuse victims to his boss, Brevard County Sheriff Wayne Ivey.
That successful model evolved into Paws & Stripes, which now pairs shelter rescue dogs with trained inmates who teach them basic obedience and commands. 聽After that socialization, dogs are paired with law enforcement officers, and the dog-human teams complete a 40-hour course about the do 麻豆精品 S檚 and don 麻豆精品 S檛s of using a therapy dog in police interviews.
To date, more than 300 dogs have graduated and been saved by Paws & Stripes. The dogs go on to serve their communities and provide support to people who have experienced trauma.
Next up for Paisley and Det. Scott is completing the requirements for becoming a nationally-registered therapy dog team. Once the team receives that certification, Paisley will start to be deployed to help Knights in need.