Meet Meri, Skokie police department’s comfort dog: ‘cuddly and awesome’

There’s a new addition at the Skokie Police Department, and she is about two years old and weighs 60 pounds.

Meri, short for America, is the Skokie Police Department’s new comfort dog. Her primary handler, Officer Stephany Gonzalez, says Meri’s primary goal is to help comfort victims, police officers and dispatchers who are dealing with stress. Gonzalez said Meri has also participated in a couple of community engagement events and will be going to Skokie’s Backlot Bash and National Night Out.

“She’s very mild-mannered. She doesn’t wander; she’s not the curious type of dog,” Gonzalez said. When Meri was at a training facility earlier, Gonzalez said the dog was given the nickname of “land hippo.”

“She has a hedgehog (toy) that she loves. If you toss it up in the air, she’ll do her best to catch it, because she is quite girthy. She’s got some curves to her,” Gonzalez said.

Gonzalez said studies have shown that when people pet dogs or have a dog near them, their brains release chemicals including serotonin and dopamine, which can help someone keep calm and lower their anxiety. “(Meri’s) purpose is to sit next to you or to be (near) and when you’re ready to pet her at your comfort level, you can start petting her and that’s supposed to help,” she said.

Gonzalez said Meri can help those going through crisis to better communicate, which can help officers with interviews conducted in the department’s counseling room. She said there was an incident in which a three-year-old child on the autism spectrum who had gone missing was found by the department, and Meri was able to comfort the child while the department located the child’s parents.

Sergeant Katarzyna Pore said the police department works with a lot of  trauma victims, and Meri is trained to work with people of all ages. Gonzalez said Meri also helps comfort officers coming back from traumatic calls, and visits the dispatch central in the department to alleviate the high stress in the room.

The department began a co-responder team program in 2021 where one officer and one social worker go to calls that typically involve someone having a mental health crisis. Gonzalez said Meri can also go to those calls, as long as the individual is okay with dogs, she said.

Gonzalez said a resident called the police department to report a wandering dog on July 3, 2022, and the department requested that the resident look after Meri for one day, because of the busy holiday, and rescued her on July 4, 2022. That inspired the department to name her America.

Deputy Chief Denise Franklin said the department knew that Meri would be a good addition as a comfort dog based on her demeanor. “She’s just so relaxed and cuddly and awesome,” she said.

Illinois does not currently have an official designation or standards for comfort dogs in law enforcement, partly because it’s a new concept, according to Gonzalez. She said Meri received seven months of training from a service dog training group in Ava, Illinois named Supporting Independence Through Teamwork, which has also trained comfort dogs for other police departments. Meri received the same training that a service and therapy dog would receive.

Other suburbs, such as Northbrook, Buffalo Grove and Morton Grove also have comfort dogs in their police departments, according to Gonzalez.

When asked if training Meri to be a comfort dog was a challenge because she is an American Stafford Bull Terrier, Gonzalez said she understands that people perceive a stigma against those dogs, but said in the early 1900s they were known as “nanny dogs” because they would be left alone to take care of children.

“The word ‘pitbull’ doesn’t do the dog justice because they’re all different, and she’s clearly different,” she said. “She’s not like any other dog that I’ve experienced (or) that any of us have had.”