President Weinman with Molly, 2-year-old Goldendoodle. Photo by Eliza Benfer, Title IX Outreach Coordinator

Although purple isn't a typical color associated with the autumn season, it makes a resurgence each October to shine light on Domestic Violence Awareness Month. There have been a variety of activities to promote solidarity across campus, such as students painting their nails purple and pinning purple ribbons on their backpacks. On Oct. 19, Marist College brought in therapy dogs through the training organization Positive Paws.

Contrary to popular belief, domestic violence stretches beyond physical hostility. “When people hear ‘domestic violence’, they think about people getting hit,” said Eliza Benfer, Title IX Outreach Coordinator. “There’s sexual abuse, mental and emotional abuse, financial abuse, cyber abuse.”

Benfer continued, “Our main goal was to get those red flags out to people and let them know what to look out for … they might see a family member or friend going through this, or if they're like, ‘Wait hold on a second, I think that I'm actually experiencing it and I didn't even notice.’”

Animals help to provide emotional support and assistance to survivors and those suffering. Title IX and Positive Paws teamed up to bring these service dogs to campus in an effort to help others and raise awareness.

“Positive Paws is a great organization and we love partnering with them for this event,” said Maryellen Guardino, Director of the Office of Accommodations and Accessibility (OAA). “The [OAA] has been bringing therapy dogs to campus for [at least seven years] now during our annual Disability Awareness Week in October. This year, Title IX asked to partner with us and we had the joint therapy dog event.”

Rosie, an almost 4-year-old Saint Berdoodle, received a wealth of attention and treats. “She was always such a sweet dog and people responded really well to her,” said owner Julie Goldfischer. “She did this year-long training and just got certified in May.”

Students were fascinated with Rosie’s responsiveness to commands like sitting, laying down and putting her paw out. Goldfischer added, “My background is as a therapist, so this is a nice combination for us to work together.”

This was also the case for Karen Heron, a former school librarian. “I've always had dogs and the children would read to them.” When she retired, Heron adopted her English Toy Spaniel, Ginger Pye, who also underwent training through Positive Paws. “You get a tag and it identifies the dog and what they can do,” Heron explained.

Although Ginger Pye was the veteran of the group, she was accompanied by Molly, a 2-year-old Goldendoodle. “I'm a retired nurse. I worked with terminal cancer patients,” explains owner Cathy Kalinsky. “We had a therapy dog at the hospital and the patients loved him. So, I said when I retire, that's what I'm going to do.”

While these pups were great in aiding in the spread of domestic violence awareness and offered a boost of serotonin to the Marist campus, Benfer strongly encourages the community to check out Title IX’s social media for more information on the subject (Instagram: @marist_title_ix and TikTok: @maristcollegetitleix). Title IX and the OAA both agreed that the event was a success and plan on having the therapy dogs back for future events.

Dogs Against Domestic Violence

MARIST CIRCLE