CSAC welcomes newest staff member: Link, the Facility Dog

By Lethbridge Herald on May 16, 2025.

Alejandra Pulido-Guzman
Lethbridge Herald

Community members requiring services from the Chinook Sexual Assault Centre, especially within the Chinook Child and Youth Advocacy Centre, will now have some extra furry help from the newest member of the team. 

Link II, a Labrador-Retriever mix, is the first Accredited Facility Dog to report for duty at the centre, and he will be helping children, youth and families deal with the traumatic effects of abuse. 

Baylee Schmidt, who is the supervisor at the CCYAC and Link II’s handler, says he will provide support during a child’s journey through the investigative and judiciary process. 

“He will do meet-and-greets with children and families before they have an interview, or before a particularly hard meeting they have to attend,” says Schmidt. “He will attend police interviews with them, where he will lay on the couch beside them so they can pet him.” 

Link will also take part of the court process, as he has been trained to do judiciary work. 

“He can both go to the courthouse where he will sit in the witness box, if any children or youth have to testify in the courtroom, or he will assist them in our centre with our remote testimony equipment,” says Schmidt. 

CSAC has been pursuing a facility dog for about three years. They had reached out to different organizations, including the Pacific Assistance Dog Society (PADS), a society which breeds and trains fully Accredited Facility Dogs to support community professionals and promote healthy communities.

Schmidt says CSAC applied to PADS more than three years ago and only learned a few months ado that a dog was available. 

“It was a very lengthy process with different interviews, applications, getting landlords to sign up on things, until we were paired with Link just a few months ago in February.”

At that point, she enrolled in online training for about couple of weeks and last week PADS brought LINK to her, and they took part of extensive training together.

“As I am his primary handler, he gets to come home with me everyday,” says Schmidt. “He gets to take off his vest and be a regular dog, run around and burn all his energy and then in the morning he knows is time to go to work, he puts his vest on and turns into his sweet and calm self.”

Having Link in the centre now was in part inspired by the Lethbridge Police Service, Victim Services Unit facility dogs, which CSAC staff have been lucky to partner with in the past when the situation called for. 

“He will be primarily placed here in the Chinook Child and Youth Advocacy Centre, but because we are lucky enough to be part of the Chinook Sexual Assault Centre, if there is a need up there, he will happily support them,” says Schmidt.