A calm, trained presence through the hardest parts of a case
A courthouse facility dog is typically handled by a professional working within the justice system, often a victim advocate or a prosecutor's office employee, and the dog accompanies vulnerable witnesses, most often children, through forensic interviews, depositions, and sometimes courtroom testimony itself. The dog does not perform any legal function. Its role is to provide a calm, familiar physical presence during what is often the most frightening and difficult experience of a young witness's life, sitting or lying near the witness, sometimes within physical reach so the child can touch the dog for comfort during questioning.
Some genuine evidence, and honest limits to it
One frequently cited figure comes from field work reported by Jessie Holton in 2015, which looked at children's disclosures of abuse when a therapy dog team was present during an interview. Children disclosed abuse in 18 of 22 cases (81.8 percent) where a therapy dog team was involved, compared with 33 of 98 cases (33.7 percent) where one was not. The material describing these findings calls them preliminary and says more research is needed. This is relevant background evidence for dog-assisted support of child witnesses, but it is worth being precise that this particular study concerns therapy dogs in an interview setting, not courthouse facility dogs specifically, so it is not direct evidence that courthouse facility dogs themselves increase disclosure. It is also worth noting that this comparison came from real cases rather than a randomised experiment, which means it can show a strong association without proving that the dog caused the difference, since cases where a dog was involved may also have differed in other ways from cases where one was not.
A separate, more controlled line of research has looked specifically at the legal objection courthouse facility dogs face most often: that a dog's presence might unfairly bias a jury in favour of the witness, or against the defendant. A 2019 study by Burd and McQuiston used two mock trial experiments, presenting jurors with a case involving a child witness accompanied by either a facility dog, a teddy bear, or no accommodation. Across these experiments, the study reported that facility dogs did not produce a prejudicial effect against the defendant, and that jurors' perceptions of the child witness were not affected by which accommodation, if any, was present. In one of the two experiments, a teddy bear was associated with greater perceived guilt of the defendant, while the facility dog was not. This is a genuinely useful finding for a legal debate that has real stakes, since it speaks directly to the central objection raised against the practice, though it comes from mock trial conditions rather than real courtrooms, and further research continues in this area.
Courts have allowed some uses, but not without challenge
Defence attorneys have repeatedly challenged the use of courthouse facility dogs, arguing that a dog's calming presence could unfairly increase a witness's perceived credibility or generate sympathy that biases the outcome. Courts in several US jurisdictions have considered these arguments, and many have permitted courthouse dogs subject to safeguards intended to protect the fairness of proceedings, such as the ability to remove a disruptive dog. Some US states and courts have adopted statutes, court rules or programme policies addressing courthouse facility dogs, and the specific rules and the level of judicial discretion vary considerably by state and case.
The role has expanded into family and dependency courts too
Courthouse facility dogs are not limited to criminal trials involving child sexual abuse, the context where the practice first became well known. The role has also been reported in family and dependency courts in at least some jurisdictions, recognising that vulnerable witnesses and parties, including children in custody or abuse proceedings, face similar stress in those settings. This reflects the broader point we made in our earlier piece on facility dogs generally: the role is defined by the professional and institutional context the dog is embedded in, not by a single narrow application.
The legal scaffolding exists. The dog does not.
India's law already accepts that child witnesses need protection. The Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, 2012 makes trial in camera mandatory (Section 37), provides for Special Courts (Section 28), and says the child should not see the accused, using video conferencing, curtains or one-way mirrors (Section 36). It bars aggressive questioning and character assassination of the child (Section 33(6)), requires the child's evidence to be recorded within 30 days of the Special Court taking cognisance, with reasons recorded for any delay, and says the trial should be completed, as far as possible, within one year (Section 35). It also says the child's statement should be recorded at home or a place of their choice, in a non-threatening setting and without police uniform (Section 24). Under the POCSO Rules, 2020, the Child Welfare Committee can appoint a support person. Earlier, in Sakshi v. Union of India (2004), the Supreme Court said screens or similar arrangements may be used so a child does not see the accused, that certain cross-examination questions can be given in writing to the presiding officer to put in suitable language, and that the child should be allowed sufficient breaks.
The Supreme Court has also pushed for physical spaces to match. In State of Maharashtra v. Bandu (2017), it recommended that High Courts adopt appropriate guidelines for vulnerable witness deposition centres, with at least two in each High Court's jurisdiction within three months and more to follow in phases. It was still reviewing compliance in 2021. Some courts have built child-friendly rooms, and press reports from 2017 describe a child-friendly courtroom at the Madras High Court, welcoming rooms with colouring activities in Goa, and a Hyderabad waiting area with toys and colourful furniture. These are the practical ways Indian courts have tried to lower the pressure on a child so far.
What we have not found is any dog. In our search, we did not identify reports of facility dogs or therapy dogs working in Indian courts, or Indian guidance on how they would be used. A dog would not replace the support person or the safeguards above. At most it could add one more calming presence for a child during the parts of the process the law already treats as sensitive.
There is a second difference worth naming. The legal debate and the Burd and McQuiston research above are about jury bias. India does not use juries in criminal trials, so that research does not map across neatly. Here the questions would be about judges and about fairness to the accused, and we have not identified research on either. Any pilot would need the court's permission and clear rules on what the dog may and may not do. It would also need honest attention to the dog's welfare, since court buildings can be crowded and noisy.
POCSO child-friendly procedure overview · LiveLaw on the Supreme Court and vulnerable witness courtrooms, 2021 · Bar & Bench on the Madras High Court courtroom, 2017
The dog's own experience in a stressful environment
Courtrooms and forensic interview settings are emotionally heavy, unpredictable environments, and a facility dog working in this context is repeatedly exposed to real distress, tension and unfamiliar procedural demands. The Courthouse Dogs Foundation describes facility dogs as chosen for a calm demeanour and the ability to work in high-stress settings, as graduates of accredited assistance dog organisations, handled by trained legal-field professionals, and off duty at home with their handler at the end of the day. Its page does not set out specific work-hour limits or other welfare standards, so what rest, recovery time and monitoring a programme builds in is left to each programme. Any programme considering this kind of work should weigh the dog's wellbeing as seriously as the benefit to the witness, not as an afterthought to it. (Courthouse Dogs Foundation on facility dogs)
Why this is a meaningful long term direction for us
Courthouse facility dog work is one of the more established and extensively examined applications within the broader facility dog category we discussed in our earlier piece, and it is a genuinely significant potential direction for us in India, where we have not identified any structured courthouse facility dog programme, even though the child-friendly court framework is already in place. This is not a direction we are pursuing yet. It would require partnership with the justice system itself, rigorous dog and handler training specific to legal proceedings, and the kind of institutional trust that takes real time to build.
We think it is worth naming as a long term goal precisely because this particular facility dog role has been used, studied and legally tested elsewhere, even though the evidence for its effects is still limited. When the time is right to explore it seriously, we would rather build on that existing research and legal precedent than treat it as an untested idea.
