Courthouse Dogs Foundation

The Courthouse Dogs® Foundation’s mission is to promote justice with compassion via professionally trained facility dogs who provide support to everyone they reach in the justice system. We strive to accomplish our mission by: • Facilitating and leading scientific research on the use of courthouse facility dogs. • Infusing compassion and support into the judicial process including: courtrooms, forensic interviews, medical exams, and into Child Advocacy Centers and Family Justice Centers. • Offering humanity and compassion to victims’ experiences (victims who are often youth)—paradoxically using NON-humans, i.e. dogs. • Educating the public and legal professionals about the benefits of courthouse facility dogs assisting vulnerable people in the legal system. • Guiding governmental agencies (prosecutor offices and law enforcement agencies) and nonprofit organizations (child advocacy centers and victim advocacy groups) in program development using a best-practices model. • Supporting members of Assistance Dogs International (ADI), who train and place facility dogs with legal professionals. These legal professionals then work with victims, witnesses and other vulnerable people who are caught up in stressful legal proceedings. Our innovative model which harnesses the unique co-evolutionary journey humans and dogs have been on for tens of thousands of years, and utilizing the calming effect this deep human-dog bond affords, is a true and impactful shift in a very traditional judicial system.