Betty, assistance dog at Santa Fe sex assault services nonprofit, helps victims find calm
Though her 90-day orientation period is still underway, the newest staff member at Solace Sexual Assault Services — a black English Labrador named Betty — has already made an impact.
“One of Betty’s superpowers is that she will be nonjudgemental,” said Betty’s handler, Jacquelyn Belinsky, who is also a nurse practitioner and sexual assault nurse examiner. “There’s non-judgement coming from her eyes, and also she emits a sense of safety. And with those two qualities, she helps people — they feel safe, they don’t feel judged, they can just go ahead and tell their stories.”
Solace, a nonprofit facility located on Santa Fe’s south side, serves hundreds of victims of sexual violence in Northern New Mexico each year. Four-year-old Betty — the facility’s first assistance dog — sits with children and teenagers during forensic interviews, and she will soon accompany clients to therapy sessions, too.
She even has an office.
Having an assistance dog was a longtime dream of both Belinsky and Solace’s executive director, María José Rodríguez Cádiz. For Belinsky, the dream dates back two decades — to a day she was in Taos to testify in a case regarding the sexual abuse of a young girl by a family member.
The girl was so terrified she could not enter the courtroom, Belinsky recalled. Then a service dog was brought in. The dog lay down on the ground, the young girl locked eyes with it “and bravely disclosed — while making eye contact with the dog — the whole story of what had happened to her while her perpetrator was in the courtroom,” Belinsky said.
“The dog gave her this sense of safety and decreased intense anxiety,” she added. “And I saw, so long ago, the power of what a dog could do. … That stayed with me.”
A 2018 study published in the Journal of Child Sexual Abuse found a service-trained facility dog at a child advocacy center in Virginia significantly decreased the stress of children participating in forensic interviews.
Assistance dogs provide a new means of healing that traditional therapy — though also effective — does not, Rodríguez Cádiz said.
“It is just a very effective way to help folks regulate while undergoing acute trauma,” she said.
Betty is a product of Assistance Dogs of the West, where Belinksy started volunteering in 2019. The Santa Fe-based nonprofit breeds and trains dogs to work in a variety of settings across the country — courthouses, schools and following mass-casualty events, for example.
As she helped to raise puppies, Belinksy started thinking about her work with Solace and the impact an assistance dog could make there. And after several years of collaboration and discussion, Betty, with her temperament of calmness and peace, “became the ideal candidate,” Belinsky said.
AMAZING EXAMPLE OF BETTY'S TALENTS
So far, Betty’s impact has been “amazing,” Rodríguez Cádiz said, citing a recent example of a child who was set to participate in a forensic interview, but was so nervous the staff did not think they would be able to do it that day. The advocate in the room quickly thought of Betty, and when they brought her in, the child’s demeanor immediately changed.
“It wasn’t seasoned professionals, fully trained, who have done this over and over again that were able to create that shift,” Rodríguez Cádiz said.
It was Betty.
It was the English lab, too, a couple of weeks ago, when a young girl who came in for services was anxious and hyperventilating, Belinsky said. Belinsky brought Betty into the room, and the girl wrapped her arms around the dog and cried into her chest. The pair stayed together for two hours, she said.
“And when she was done and she was going home, she said, ‘I couldn’t have done this without Betty,’ ” Belinsky said.
At the end of her day, Betty goes home with Belinsky and takes off her assistance dog vest. She enjoys chewing on her toys, watching the birds in her backyard and playing with Belinsky’s grandchildren.
“But when I put that vest on her ... she knows she’s on duty,” Belinsky said.
Betty also provides support to Solace’s staff. Belinsky brings her to visit the detectives at the Santa Fe Police Department’s Special Victims Unit, which is housed at Solace.
The pup is also prepared to attend meetings and accompany Rodríguez Cádiz to community events.
“And this is just the beginning,” Rodríguez Cádiz said.
Lily Alexander is a Santa Fe New Mexican reporter through a fellowship with the New Mexico Local News Fund.
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