Pioneering comfort dog in Sonoma County DA’s office now passing torch to her niece

Just off the entrance to the Sonoma County District Attorney’s office complex is a small waiting room. It’s a close, anxious place, where victims and witnesses of crimes sit before going into court, conferring with attorneys and meeting with victim advocates.

On the wall is a poster of a black lab with kind, expressive eyes. “Need a visit while you wait?” asks the caption. “Miranda, our Comfort Dog, is available.”

Miranda and her niece, Darla, are graduates of the Forestville-based nonprofit PALS (Paws As Loving Support) Assistance. They’re trained by founder Nancy Pierson and her staff to recognize people who are upset and to comfort them. The dogs do that by placing their head in the lap of the distressed person or laying across their feet.

Even that slight pressure can be a comfort to the survivor of a violent crime, says Pierson. The simple knowledge that they could take the stand with one of these dogs has given many victims and witnesses the courage to testify.

The photo in the waiting room is not recent. These days, Miranda sports a touch of gray on her muzzle and paws. She’ll be 9 in September. That’s 63 in dog years, crowding up against retirement age.

Indeed, Miranda, the first comfort dog to grace the DA’s office, is now semi-retired, having exhibited in recent months increasing reluctance to enter the courtroom. Some in the office recall with amusement the sight of victim advocate Elizabeth Garcia, who had interrupted the dog’s naptime, sliding and pulling Miranda along the floor into Department 3.

“She’s pretty much established her position here,” explained Deputy District Attorney Jessalee Mills, who is Miranda’s human, and takes the dog home at the end of each workday. “So she kind of just does what she wants.”

As victim advocate Alex Perry put it, “She’s tenured.”

At this point in her career, “Miranda definitely seems to prefer her bed and her snacks here in the office,” said District Attorney Carla Rodriguez, whose close bond with the dog is partly transactional: “She doesn’t seem to visit me when I’m not eating my lunch.”

Filling her aunt’s paw prints

Bounding into the breach is Darla, Miranda’s niece, who responds more swiftly to commands and relishes working in the courtroom.

While many assume Miranda is named after the landmark 1966 Supreme Court ruling, that’s not the case. Part of PALS’ “country music litter,” she’s named after the performer Miranda Lambert. Her brother, Rascal Flatts, sired the so-called “Little Rascals” litter, which included Darla.

Darla came to live with Perry, his wife and their son, when the dog was just six months old. Having attended PALS’ exacting training sessions, he was qualified to train her to be a comfort dog.

She’ll be 2 in June, and is full of energy. “She wants to be full throttle,” he said. “Once she takes off the vest, she gets to be a normal dog” — within certain parameters. “I practice calmness with her. That helps carry through to when she puts on her vest and knows she’s supposed to be working.”

Often overlooked is how important that work is.

“Kissing the tears away”

Even if you’re not a criminal, the Sonoma County Hall of Justice, which includes the DA’s offices, can feel intimidating, with its echoing hallways, uniformed bailiffs and framed pictures of unsmiling judges.

“It’s not very warm and fuzzy,” said Mills, who recalled the day she brought Miranda to a rape victim, who “as soon as she saw her melted onto the floor with the dog.”

This was before the DA’s office had come up with a plan to allow comfort animals in court.

The victim would testify and become very emotional. Then she would take a break, “run outside the courtroom, sit with Miranda for a few minutes, then go back on the stand,” said Mills.

Without the dog, said Mills, “I don’t think she would’ve made it” through her testimony.

Garcia, the victim advocate, recalled in an email a child sexual assault trial where Darla sat with the victim throughout the young person’s testimony.

“When the line of questioning grew intense, Darla could sense the emotions from the victim. She placed one paw on top of the victim’s shoe and nestled her head into the side of the victim’s shin. It looked as though she was hugging the victim. When the victim wiped away tears and put their hand down, Darla licked their hand as if she was ‘kissing’ the tears away.”

That victim, and many others, said Garcia, “commented that having Darla with them during testimony helped them feel grounded and comforted.”

Perry remembers Darla’s work during a different rape trial. Compounding that trauma, the victim came from a culture in which that crime was believed to bring shame on the family.

The victim “immediately attached” to Darla, and kept her hand on the dog’s head while testifying about the crime.

Afterward, said Perry, “it was expressed to me, through her husband, that the only way she made it through was because she had the dog right there.”

While Miranda may no longer deign to enter courtrooms, her work in the DA’s office is not done. Such dogs provide stress relief for everyone who works in the DA’s office, not just victim-survivors and their families, said Pierson, of PALS. “Just to be able to have some downtime with the dog, or take her for a walk, or cuddle with for a while, that’s huge.”

These days, there’s a strict schedule for who walks the dogs and on what days. That wasn’t always the case.

High “drogma“

Around seven years ago, when then-DA Jill Ravitch called to offer her a job, Mills was driving to the vet with her dog, a 15-year-old with a spleen tumor. The dog was about to be euthanized.

When Ravitch mentioned the idea of starting a comfort dog program, Mills said, “I may actually have an opening at my house, for a dog.

“So when I got hired, it was like, ‘OK, you get a job and a dog.”

In the beginning, recalled Mills, “there was so much unknown. I’d bring her into work and we had no idea who was going to walk her, or whose office she would stay in. There was a lot of doggy drama that came with it.” Or, as she calls it, “drogma.”

There was certainly high drogma the Monday morning Ravitch entered her office, only to find an unwelcome souvenir left by an unknown canine.

Ravitch assumed the culprit was Miranda. The DA was unaware that Rodriguez, then a chief deputy DA, had worked the previous Saturday, Joining her that morning was her family dog, Rosie the pound puppy. At some point, unbeknownst to Rodriguez, Rosie paid a visit to Ravitch’s office.

“Upon advice of counsel,” Rodriguez recently replied, when asked about the incident, “I can neither confirm nor deny that my dog inadvertently framed Miranda.”

Considering her abundance of empathy and generosity, Miranda was no doubt happy to take the fall for Rosie.

Perry marvels at the dogs’ breeding and bloodlines. “They have so much natural empathy, picking up on distress and knowing to go be there for that person,” he said.

The criminal justice system often results in survivors being retraumatized, he said.

“This helps them get through it.”

Said Rodriguez, “It’s kind of magic.”

You can reach Staff Writer Austin Murphy at austin.murphy@pressdemocrat.com or on Twitter @ausmurph88.