A four-month-old Australian Labradoodle named Daisy has become the Arizona Department of Public Safety's first-ever crisis response canine, and she's already proven her worth on the job. Assigned to the agency's Crisis Negotiations Team, Daisy is trained to calm victims, survivors, family members, and witnesses during high-stress or traumatic incidents across the state.
According to the Arizona Department of Public Safety, Daisy was donated to the agency through a partnership between two organizations dedicated to first-responder wellness. Breeder Blue Line Doodles of Arizona, based in Sun City and operated by April Wallace, raises multigenerational Australian Labradoodles specifically socialized for service and first-responder roles, according to the dog's Good Dog breeder profile. Two nonprofits also contributed to placing Daisy with the department: Post Incident Stress & Trauma in Law Enforcement – Public Safety, a Tempe-based 501(c)(3) that provides peer support and trauma advocacy for Arizona law enforcement, and Pups and Warriors Side by Side, a Chandler nonprofit co-founded by U.S. Army combat veteran Ryan Newman and his wife Janna Newman to train service dogs for veterans and first responders, per the organization's own description on its website.
A Tense Search Warrant in Tucson
Daisy's first real test came on July 24, when the Crisis Negotiations Team deployed her during the service of a high-risk search warrant in Tucson, marking her second call for service and her first operational deployment, per the department's announcement. An uninvolved adult resident at the scene experienced significant emotional stress during the operation, and medics evaluated that resident as a precaution.
Detectives Carpenter and Villela, who handle Daisy for the Crisis Negotiations Team, brought her in to help. Daisy provided steady comfort by crawling onto the resident's lap during the encounter, an intervention the department says demonstrated the value of crisis response canines in stressful public-safety situations. The Crisis Negotiations Team more broadly responds to high-pressure situations where communication and de-escalation are critical, and the department says Daisy will continue deploying her support across the state.
Why Agencies Are Turning to Therapy Dogs
Arizona DPS's move fits a wider pattern among the state's law enforcement agencies. The Mesa Police Department became one of the first Valley agencies to adopt a therapy dog in 2018, adding an English Labrador named Macy to its Special Victims Unit to comfort traumatized crime victims and child witnesses, according to KTAR News. The Gilbert Police Department followed in June 2023, introducing a Goldendoodle named Finley to its Peer Support and Wellness unit through a donation from the Fetch Foundation, the Town of Gilbert announced.
The Phoenix Police Department also relied on a therapy dog named Spirit for six years to support 911 dispatchers and communications personnel before the dog passed away in March, as reported by 12News. Nationally, the trend is accelerating: a 2024 survey of 2,833 law enforcement officers by Police1 found that 14% of departments across the country have implemented therapy animal programs to support officer mental health and community relations, the outlet reported.
The Science Behind the Comfort
The push toward canine intervention is backed by research into how it affects the body under stress. Research published by Boston University in August 2025 found that brief, structured interactions with therapy animals reduce cortisol, a key stress hormone, while raising oxytocin levels that foster bonding and emotional calming during crisis debriefings. That matters because first responders face outsized psychological risk: research published in the Human-Animal Interaction Bulletin found that PTSD is disclosed by law enforcement personnel at a rate of 8.8%, more than double the 3.5% rate found in the general population, according to the CABI Digital Library.
That elevated risk lands against a backdrop of strained staffing at the state level. Arizona DPS reported nearly 270 state trooper vacancies and roughly 200 additional professional staff vacancies across its crime lab and dispatch operations in department announcements last year, a shortfall that adds to the workload and stress facing troopers and support staff who remain on the job.
Daisy is assigned full-time to Detectives Carpenter and Villela with the Crisis Negotiations Team, and the department says it intends to keep deploying her across Arizona wherever high-stress incidents call for de-escalation and comfort. Her Tucson deployment, department officials say, offered an early demonstration of what a crisis response canine can add to operations that otherwise depend entirely on human negotiators and medics.
