The therapy dog who helped a girl find her words
Doges Editorial · 2026-06-24 · 4 min read
In Portland-area courtrooms, 108 teams of retired guide dogs now sit beside crime victims before and during testimony. One handler's account of what happened with a child who had never spoken about her case explains the whole thing.
The courthouse hallway is one of the worst places a person can sit. Fluorescent light, hard chairs, the low sound of footsteps and professional voices, the awareness of what is waiting on the other side of a door and the knowledge that soon, you will have to say out loud, in front of strangers, the thing that happened to you. Some people arrive ready for that. A lot of people don't.
That is when LisaLu gets called.
LisaLu is a retired guide dog. She and her handler, Kathy Wentworth, are one of 108 canine therapy teams operating across the Portland, Oregon area under DoveLewis Emergency Animal Hospital's program [1]. Their job is to sit beside people who have been through something terrible (crime victims, most of them) and make the next hour a little more bearable.
The program behind the dog
DoveLewis is an emergency veterinary hospital in Portland, and its canine therapy program has become one of the more distinctive features of the regional justice system [1]. Every dog in the program is a retired or career-changed guide dog, selected from birth for temperament and trained from puppyhood for precision work that requires staying calm when everything around them is not. When a guide dog retires or doesn't complete its placement, it often carries more training than almost any other animal in the world. The DoveLewis program gives that training somewhere to go.
When a sensitive case comes up, victim advocates from Multnomah, Washington or Clackamas counties contact Kathy Loter, the program director [1]. She finds a team that can help. Some cases are too distressing for deployment, and the program is careful about what it asks of the dogs. But many teams are deployed, and they show up anywhere from an attorney's office to the witness stand itself.
We are a team, the two of us.
— Kathy Wentworth, handler, DoveLewis canine therapy program
The second member of that team is LisaLu, who weighs perhaps forty pounds and has the unhurried quality of a dog that has been watching humans closely for her entire life. She cannot explain away what happened to the person beside her. She cannot make the legal process shorter or more just. But she can be present.
A child who had never spoken about her case
Wentworth has one case she comes back to when she tries to explain what this work actually does. She and LisaLu were called to sit with a juvenile, a child who had been through something and had never spoken about it, not to anyone [1].
It was a juvenile that we met with that had not talked about her case at all. We had one of these little stuffed dogs. We call her a little Lisa, and this is Big Lisa. And that little girl took this little dog and pretty much went around her little body and played with her. And all of a sudden, with some questions, the little girl was able to describe what she'd seen, what she'd felt, what she experienced.
— Kathy Wentworth, handler
The child held the stuffed dog and sat beside LisaLu. The words came. A case that had gone nowhere moved forward.
Handlers and prosecutors report similar outcomes: a witness who could speak when they otherwise couldn't, a case that moved forward [1].
108 teams and why retired guide dogs specifically
Guide dogs go through some of the most intensive behavioral selection and training available [1]. From birth, they are assessed for temperament: the capacity to remain steady in disorienting, high-pressure situations. They learn to follow close and stay calm beside someone who is anxious or upset, to hold still when everything around them is loud and uncertain. That training was built for traffic and crowded streets. It works in courtrooms too.
They've received so much training from the day they were born. Their temperament is calm and just wonderful. They offer comfort and joy to people.
— Kathy Loter, director, DoveLewis canine therapy teams
What prosecutors and judges see
Multnomah County District Attorney Nathan Vasquez has watched the program work from the other side of the courtroom [1].
I have a great deal of affection for therapy dogs. I've seen firsthand how these amazing dogs bring great comfort to children and adults who have to face the person who harmed them. Their calm and loving presence is a true testament of compassion on all levels and they are an incredible asset to my team.
— Nathan Vasquez, Multnomah County District Attorney
A 2014 study by Krause-Parello and Friedmann placed a certified therapy dog in forensic interviews for children in sexual abuse cases [2]. Children accompanied by the dog had a lower heart rate at the start of the interview than children in a control group, consistent with a calmer physiological state. A separate study conducted in a UK court waiting room found that 96% of participants agreed the dog's presence created a relaxing effect [3]. These effects don't erase trauma or make testifying easy. They reduce the physiological load of an already difficult situation. In a legal setting, that margin can be decisive.
The effect on the whole room
Loter puts it plainly: "They're going to ease the anxiety in the room for everybody." She means not just the person testifying, but the families supporting them and the advocates who do this work day after day and carry its weight home [1].
The program now fields 108 teams and continues to grow. Victim advocates in three Oregon counties can request a team for any sensitive case, from the initial interview through trial [1].
References
[1] "Everyday Heroes: Canine therapy teams make sure crime victims are never alone." KATU News, 2026. https://katu.com/news/local/everyday-heroes-dovelewis-emergency-animal-hospital-kathy-loter-therapy-dog-lisalu-kathy-wentworth-guide-dogs-multnomah-washington-or-clackamas-counties-court-multnomah-county-district-attorney-nathan-vasquez
[2] Krause-Parello CA, Friedmann E. The effects of an animal-assisted intervention on salivary alpha-amylase, salivary immunoglobulin A, and heart rate during forensic interviews in child sexual abuse cases. Anthrozoös. 2014;27(4):581-590. https://doi.org/10.2752/089279314X14072268688005
[3] Spruin E, Mozova K, Franz A, Mitchell S, Fernandez A, Dempster T, Holt N. The Use of Therapy Dogs to Support Court Users in the Waiting Room. International Criminal Justice Review. 2019. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1057567719827063