News from the Past in Memory of Harry A. Sturges

By Melanie Lekocevic

Capital Region Independent Media

RAVENA-COEYMANS-SELKIRK — With tail wagging and ready to snuggle, Archie the facility dog has joined RCS High School this year.

Archie, a black Labrador retriever, is the district’s first facility dog, District Superintendent Dr. Brian Bailey announced at the board of education’s Sept. 14 meeting.

“He is a black Lab and he is about four-and-a-half months old now,” Bailey said. “He was in school the last day of school when teachers were here in June and he started doing his work here in the high school this week.”

A facility dog is different from a therapy dog, which comes in periodically to work with students, Bailey said. The district has a therapy dog who visits with classes at times.

“A therapy dog like Rocket is a dog that comes in sporadically and visits a school for a couple of hours because it’s a lot of work for the dog — it’s a lot of emotion and a lot of excitement and they come in a few days a week for a couple of hours,” Bailey explained.

A facility dog is a greater commitment on the dog’s and the handler’s part.

“A facility dog is a dog that this is their home — they happen to go home somewhere else at night, but the school, this high school, is their home,” the district superintendent said. “The training for him is for him to behave as if this is his home and he relates to people as though this is his home.”

The high school is the first school in the district to get a facility dog, but others are in the works.

“We are close to starting the program in some of our other buildings as well,” Bailey said.

For Archie, there is a team of five teachers who act as his handlers and have undergone training to learn how to best work with the dog. And Archie makes the rounds in the high school every day.

“They trade off his ownership over the course of a day so he might be in a special ed class for one period, he might be in a social studies class the next, or in a science class after that,” Bailey said. “He has diversity in his day and he has downtime. That’s really important because he’s a dog.”

So far, the program has been highly successful, Bailey said.

“The reactions of the students and the staff have been really so touching,” he said. “Most everybody loves to see a dog, but to be able to work with him in a professional way — I was just talking to a teacher today who said she had him in her science class and there was a child who had been attacked by a dog when he was young and bitten on the face and he was afraid of dogs, so the introduction was very, very slow for him. But Archie went over and he laid down and he slept behind that boy’s seat the entire class, and by the end of that class, they had a relationship.”

Having a facility dog in the school building daily is hoped to assist with some of the challenges students have been facing during the past two-and-a-half years of COVID-related shutdowns, quarantines and other measures, Bailey said.

“We hope this helps bridge the gap for some of the social and emotional things that have happened to our children and staff over the last couple of years, and as we build the program in each of the buildings, that the seed will grow,” he said. “We do expect to continue to build the program over the next two years.”

The district is aiming to eventually have eight facility dogs, with two in each school building. The canines are bred specifically for this type of work, he said.

Board member Michael Deyo asked if the dogs live with their handlers. Bailey responded that they do.

“The primary handler, that teacher was in a program that would be an excellent place to have a dog that would help comfort and calm the students, but was unable to have a dog at her home because of where she is in the city,” Bailey said. “Another teacher stepped up and agreed to be the person who would adopt the dog in their home. He brings the dog to school every day and he’s in training as well.”

Archie lived with that teacher all summer.

Board of Education President Teddy Reville asked when the next dogs are expected to join the district. In late August the consultants the district is working with had an available litter, but with school staff on vacation, the timing wasn’t right.

“But we are working with three different breeders and they do have a plan for when the next litter will be,” Bailey said. “They’re expecting another potential litter in late October, so if the dogs are good for the work, we might have one or two dogs come from there. We are on our way.”

For the elementary schools and perhaps the middle school, the district may instead opt for Labradoodles — a cross between a Labrador and a poodle, he added.

“We do have our eyes set on Labradoodles because of their hypoallergenic quality,” Bailey noted. “The reason we chose Archie at the high school was because he’s a Lab and there are fewer alert allergy issues at this age level, plus we know that students can self-regulate at this age level. There’s a lot of movement and they can be near, or not near. At the elementary school, you’re in one place all day, so we are focused on Labradoodles in the elementary schools and possibly the middle school.”