Ximena Solorzano, Head Photography Editor

Around 50 members of the Yale community and over a dozen dogs, including Harvard’s police dog, gathered to celebrate the retirement of Yale’s public safety dog, Heidi, on Monday afternoon. 

The six-year-old yellow lab arrived at Yale in early September 2020, according to her biography. Originally brought to the University to improve relations between Yale police officers and the broader community, she quickly became a fixture in mental health and legal support services for Yale students and community members.

“To the wide majority of people, she’s kind of just feel-good, nice-to-have,” Margaret Kuo SOM ’25 said. “She shows up at large events and just spreads smiles. But Heidi does incredible work individually that a lot of people don’t see because it is so vulnerable and it’s so private.”

Heidi was trained by Puppies Behind Bars, a Manhattan-based organization that “trains incarcerated individuals to raise service dogs for wounded war veterans and first responders, facility dogs for police departments, and explosive-detection canines for law enforcement,” according to the organization’s website. 

She was reared in prison by incarcerated workers from the time she was eight weeks old, the organization’s founder Gloria Gilbert Stoga said. The process, according to the organization, costs about $50,000 per dog.

Following her arrival to campus, Heidi became a public personality, currently boasting over 15,000 followers on Instagram and often being sighted as a frequent companion of Handsome Dan, the University’s mascot.

“Heidi was his first friend,” Kassandra Haro ’18, Handsome Dan’s handler, said at the event. “That’s the first dog he met.”

She also became a valuable resource and a source of support in a bogged-down mental health support landscape, according to community members.

Ella King ’28 is a student in Silliman College who struggles with somatic post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, which involves the physical manifestation of emotional distress, she said. During her first year, she began to meet with Heidi on a weekly basis.

“I found a little bit of difficulty working with Yale’s mental health services,” King said. “Getting weekly therapy, for whatever reason, wasn’t available to me in my first year. But it was available with Team Heidi, which was awesome.”

King described Heidi as a valuable mental wellness resource, pointing to both the dog’s training with deescalation for those struggling with PTSD and the willingness of Officer Rich Simons — Heidi’s handler and owner — to make on-call visits. 

Kuo added that Heidi, along with Simons, would meet with medical students after the anatomy lab — an exercise when medical students practice skills on cadavers — and sexual assault victims testifying against their perpetrators in court. Kuo, who met Heidi after a particularly difficult midterm, credited Heidi’s “calming” presence with bringing community members together during adverse circumstances.

Stoga lauded Simons’ personality and close relationship with Heidi as instrumental factors in the pair’s success.

“They’re a perfect team because Rich’s whole persona is just to make somebody’s day better,” Stoga said in an interview at the event. “People in crisis’ lives have been changed because of that dog. She’s a rockstar at Yale.”

Simons declined to speak to the News, citing concerns about facing discipline for speaking to the press amid ongoing contract negotiations between the University and the Yale Police union.

His wife, Michelle Eligio, highlighted the 27 years Simons spent convincing the department to hire Heidi and the dog’s subsequent success.

“He’s taken the program very far from its inception,” Eligio said. “It’s a credit not only to him but also to the dog, Heidi. Out of all the dogs, she’s very unique. She’s very friendly, happy and loves to greet everybody.”

According to King, Heidi is set to continue her service with Simons at New Haven schools  after her retirement. The University has not announced any arrangements to replace Heidi or adopt a similar public safety dog.

Heidi has received several accolades during her tenure as Yale’s public safety dog, including the Linda Lorimer Award for Distinguished Service. The award was presented to both Heidi — its first canine recipient — and Simons in 2022.