Clara Strong || STAFF WRITER

Maggie is an Australian cobberdog, about a year and a half old. Although there is no formal certification that she needs as a comfort dog-in-training, she is already quite well-behaved in a school environment. In addition, much of her training happens naturally during the school day, as she encounters new environments and unfamiliar people.

According to her handler and trainer, School Resource Officer Thomas Paolera, Maggie’s training is not nearly as conventional and structured as that of a patrol dog. “A lot of our training is just introducing her to new things, to new situations.” He went on to say training can be as simple as putting on police sirens or testing his taser to get Maggie accustomed to the loud noises.

This year will be Maggie’s first full year at AHS. Last year, she was not well-behaved enough to come until February. “We just had to work on some obedience,” explains Paolera. 

Although Maggie is owned by the town, she is with Paolera all the time. As much as half of the school day can be used for training of some sort.

“If you ever see her off leash, she’s most likely training,” Paolera explained, saying school lunch is a daily training session filled with stimuli.

While Officer Maggie is Andover’s only comfort dog, there is another trained dog in Andover, a German shepherd patrol dog named Rex. You may have met him; he regularly comes to health classes and shows off what he can do. His handler, Officer Joe Lamagna, can also be helpful with Maggie’s training.

“Sometimes I’ll get some tips from our other canine officer,” said Paolera.“He’ll tell me some things he does with his dog, I’ll tell him some things I do with my dog, and we’ll share our dog training experience.”

Paolera has been very impressed with Maggie’s progress over the course of the year. He said, “I think just introducing her to a ton of different things in little amounts early on in life has really helped her keep her cool.”

Follow Officer Maggie on Instagram @maggie_andovermasspd.