CLEVELAND — They are the faces with the power to compel a smile out of just about anyone inside the Cuyahoga County Courthouse.
News 5 first noticed the abundance of dogs present at the courthouse earlier this year, when Judge Timothy McCormick's rescue, Jackie, made an appearance during a sentencing.
"She lightens up the atmosphere when it can be somewhat depressing," McCormick said. "I have people come up all the time, 'Where’s the dog?'"
Some further digging quickly uncovered Jackie was not the only dog stealing the spotlight in these halls of justice.
For years, Judge Nancy Margaret Russo brought her two dogs, Angel and Maggie, to her chambers and quickly noticed they had gathered quite the following.
"Maggie had such a great personality that I thought 'I think she would be good for me during the day and for other people during the day' and she became her own little celebrity," Russo said.
Whether it's the Mayo Clinic, the University of Southern California, or Forbes, all sorts of studies show there are benefits to welcoming dogs into the office.
Benefits could include reducing anxiety, keeping active, or combating loneliness and stress.
"There’s a lot of secondary trauma for everybody who works in and around this building and we don’t really address it," Russo said. "But I think anytime you have a sweet dog people can sit with, pet, decompress with, all the science shows it helps."
Some judges point to a changing tide when it comes to the perception of dogs in the workplace.
"When I was in private practice, I’d be down here and you would never see a dog down here," McCormick, who is serving his 29th year on the bench, said.
"The courthouse is a tense place and a dog goes a long way to diffusing some of that tension," Judge David Matia, whose dog, Duncan, makes frequent visits to the courthouse, said. "Duncan is our drug court mascot. It’s like you’re bringing the calmness of home to work and that helps with the job."
Matia admits he's seen firsthand the benefits of bringing Duncan to work.
"I think it makes people more productive," he said. "I think just the mere fact of having me take him outside once a day gets me away from my desk and there's a health benefit there."
In the case of Duncan and Jackie, they can sometimes be spotted sitting quietly in the courtroom, while others like Maggie and Judge Joan Synenberg's puppy, daisy! (spelled that way), tends to stay in the judge's chambers.
"We see what’s going on in the community and she is just the happiest girl in the whole USA," Synenberg said. "Everybody is happy to see daisy!. They may not be happy to see everybody else here, but they’re always happy to see daisy!."
Every judge News 5 spoke with said that their dogs do not visit every day, but rather a few times a week at most.
"When I bring daisy! in, it would be a Friday morning if we know we’re not going to be on the record or don’t expect to be on the record," Synenberg said.
"Anything that I think benefits everyone’s wellness is something we should try to incorporate," Matia said.
Clay LePard is a special projects reporter and lover of dogs at News 5 Cleveland. Follow him on Twitter @ClayLePard or on Facebook Clay LePard News 5.
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