LOS ANGELES: While some say school safety
hinges on guns, cameras or alarms in classrooms, Mark Gomer and Kristi Schiller
think specially trained dogs should take point in preventing violence in
schools.
Gomer's for-profit company has sent a gun-
and drug-detecting dog to patrol the halls of an Ohio high school, while
Schiller is launching a nonprofit in Houston to give schools the trained
canines for free. Their programs are still in their infancy, so questions
remain about dogs that can distract, scare or send kids into sneezing fits. But
they think they can cultivate their ideas to help schools across the country
stay safe.
Gomer's first full-time safety dog is a
year-old Dutch shepherd named Atticus, who reported to duty this school year at
Oak Hills High School in Green Township in southwest Ohio.The dog trained at
the school before the summer break, said Gomer, co-owner of American Success
Dog Training in Bridgetown, Ohio. As part of the company's School Protection
Dog program, Atticus learned on the job about marching bands and school bells and
the thunk of books hitting a locker.
Gomer, who has trained about 8,000 dogs
over 20 years and has three children in the school district, suggested the dog
after 20 students and six teachers were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School
in Newtown, Conn. Atticus has won over students, parents, teachers and district
Superintendent Todd Yohey, who initially worried what people would think of him
spending $10,000 on a dog. Gomer has talked to a lot of parents and faculty,
and they are saying it was money well-spent, he said. Atticus spends his days
on a leash with two security guards and goes home with Principal John Stoddard
at night.
As the programs get up and running,
questions remain about possible health problems and distractions the dogs can
cause.But Gomer said that fear and allergies are nothing new. He said police
departments have been bringing dogs into schools for years, and some children
with disabilities use them, too."If a child is allergic or extremely
fearful, the (safety) dog will steer clear," he said.
A school safety expert said those are
concerns parents and schools will have to work out. Ken Trump, president of the
Cleveland-based National School Safety and Security Services consulting firm,
discussed the issue in general because he was not familiar with either program.
He said the dogs would have to be extremely social to deal with students'
initial excitement. "Kids are going to be all over those dogs," Trump
said. "There are concerns to work around, but with the right dogs and
right handlers and the right policies and procedures, they should be very
beneficial."
He said the dogs encountering a gunman
would be a benefit, but the relationships the kids build with the dogs and
handlers and the sense of well-being they create will probably be more lasting
and life-changing. The dogs might be a distraction in the beginning, but they
will become part of what students expect to see when they go to school, Trump
said.
"There is so much these dogs can do,
and they're always coming up with new ideas," said Ted Dahlin, a Harris
County, Texas, constable's deputy who serves on the K9s4COPs board of
directors. "If I were going to pick a school to make trouble, it would be
one I knew didn't have a dog."
Article Source - The Christian Science
Monitor 2014
