OLD LYME–One of the latest graduates of the Connecticut State Police Comfort K9 program is a Labrador Retriever named Viera who, in four short months, has been there for traumatized children, shell-shocked First Responders, and her own partner, when they most needed a helping paw.
Viera had spent most of her life in training for the New York-based Guiding Eyes for the Blind program when the two-year-old was reassigned to Old Lyme Resident State Trooper Matthew Weber in November.
Weber said she wasn’t cut out for life as a Seeing Eye dog.
“I think she has a little bit too much energy for that,” he said from the Old Lyme Police Department earlier this week as Viera padded around with a huge stuffed cow in her mouth. “That’s why we wanted her.”
Viera and Trey, another Labrador retriever and Guiding Eyes dropout, who works alongside Trooper Stephanie Cortes, comprised the most recent Comfort K9 class. A month of obedience training from the state’s K9 instructors honed the dogs’ ability to remain calm, companionable and compliant in a wide range of situations.
“Viera is just a rock steady dog in all sorts of environments, around different types of people,” Weber said.
Her role as a therapy animal has had her snuggling up to young victims of violence during forensic interviews. She’s gravitated toward the tears of otherwise stoic First Responders gathered to debrief after difficult calls.
She laid by the side of Weber’s wife, Donna Bennett, at Smilow Cancer Center in New Haven.
“Viera also met with numerous other patients, and did the same cheering up the nurses and doctors,” Weber said.
Bennett died earlier this year.
The couple shared a love of dogs, including the Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retrievers bred by Bennett. Now it’s Viera and five Tollers, who live at home with Weber in Old Lyme.
He said he can’t imagine a life without dogs.
“They’re your best buddies, your confidants,” he said. “You can go and unwind and relax with them. If you’ve had a stressful day at work, you forget about everything for a while.”
It’s gratifying to be able to share her with the wider community, according to the state trooper.
He described a recent meeting Viera attended during which Emergency Services personnel discussed their response to a quadruple-fatal car crash in Newington.
“Nobody wants to talk and open up, and then when Viera or the other dogs start playing, it kind of brings a smile to people’s faces, and it loosens the room up a little bit, and then they can talk,” he said. “So that’s pretty rewarding, knowing the power that she has.”
Weber said his work across the state is done in addition to his regular duties as the Old Lyme Resident State Trooper.
Besides responding to critical incidents, assisting crime victims and providing support to first responders and their families, state police comfort dogs are charged with helping to improve the relationship between law enforcement and the community.
Old Lyme Police Department Corporal Dominic Solari said Viera breaks down barriers in a landscape where distrust of law enforcement is rampant.
“Even if you have a personal relationship with somebody that you may have dealt with on positive terms as a police officer, a lot of times there’s still that little bit of a wall there,” he said. “And she helps to break down the wall.”
A lot of that work is done in schools, according to Weber and Solari.
“Viera can sit there in the middle of the room with 15 kids crawling all over her,” Solari said. “You don’t have to worry about the dog snapping or anybody getting upset over the dog’s actions.”
Weber said traditional police K9s used for jobs like search and tracking are separate from their comfort cousins.
Weber explained he had been a member of the State Police K9 unit for nine years when his German Shepherd, Tazz, died at the age of 10 in late 2023. Weber had retired his four-legged partner just two weeks earlier.
He said Viera is a different breed from the highly-skilled working dog, who’d been by his side for so long.
“You always have to be cognizant when you have a Shepherd of what they’re capable of, and even though they’re highly trained, you still have to make sure you don’t put them in a situation where they could fail,” he said. “With Viera, all she knows how to do is lick and get pets.”
Weber and Viera start out every morning in a rotation of the Lyme-Old Lyme School District’s five buildings. She attracts attention from the youngest students to the oldest, he said.
Mile Creek School Principal Kelly Enoch in a phone interview this week said elementary students and teachers alike enjoy meeting Viera in the front vestibule as students stream in from cars and buses at the start of the day.
The six-year principal said students are more likely to approach a police officer if there’s a dog nearby. And as they’re petting the dog, they’re more likely to start asking questions.
“We just feel really strongly that we want the children to see police officers as friends and people that help them,” she said. “They’re not people to be afraid of.”
The district also feels strongly about therapy dogs, with at least one certified pup working alongside a teacher or school psychologist in each building. Mile Creek’s therapy dog, a Goldendoodle named Isla, is entrusted to Enoch. She said she brings her to school two or three times per week.
At the secondary level, Weber has found that students’ affection for dogs remains evident.
“The high school kids that otherwise wouldn’t talk to you, they come over and pet your dog,” he said.
Weber and Solari said the department is looking to rejuvenate its dormant Cop Club as another way to break down those barriers between police officers and the community.
The program had been popular with high school students before it was interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Solari.
A collaborative project between the Old Lyme Police and the Lymes’ Youth Service Bureau, it began in 2011 with the goal of bringing together cops and kids through a series of monthly planned activities. The group mixes students, who’ve had difficult upbringings, with more privileged members of the student body.
Weber said that when Cop Club starts up again, Viera will be there.
“Anywhere I go, she goes,” he said.
