GUILDERLAND — Catherine Ricchetti believes that every school should have a dog.

A social worker for the Guilderland schools, she has been working with a goldendoodle, a cross between a golden retriever and a poodle, named Miss Siggy, for over a decade and is now leading the way to introduce five more dogs into the schools.

A fundraising gala will be held on March 21 in Troy to help pay to train the dogs.

“Social service dogs are cost effective and emotionally effective,” said Ricchetti. “She makes my job easier,” Ricchetti said of Miss Siggy whose full name is Lily Sigmund — after Sigmund Freud, the father of modern psychology.

“For a $2,500 investment, you get 10 to 12 years of service,” said Ricchetti, which she called “incredibly inexpensive.”

She went on, “It’s a win-win-win…The dog wins; kids clearly win; and staff love it, too.”

Miss Siggy turned 11 this month. Ricchetti originally thought she’d retire her at age 10. “But her vet says she likes working and there’s no reason to,” she reported.

As Ricchetti contemplated her dog’s retirement, she began talking to a colleague, Pine Bush fifth-grade teacher Keith VanWagenen. “I wanted to talk him into getting a puppy to bring to school. He said, ‘Why not expand the program?’” Ricchetti recalled.

So they talked to the superintendent of schools who liked the idea, and Ricchetti applied for a grant to the same not-for-profit that had helped fund Miss Siggy, the Community Foundation of the Greater Capital District. She received a $6,700 grant, and worked out an agreement with Sunny Goodwin of Berkshire Hills Australian Labradoodles.

“We gave her $6,000 to purchase half of a stud dog and for that, she’d give us five puppies,” said Ricchetti.

Puppies with the right temperament for working in schools will be selected by Goodwin and trainer Kathy Stevens over the course of five years. “We want to do it well rather than do it quickly,” said Ricchetti.

Stevens, who trained Miss Siggy, works out of Schoharie and trains both dogs and horses. “I think of her as the dog whisperer,” said Ricchetti.

“They will pick puppies that are friendly, but not clingy to one person,” said Ricchetti.

The first of the five puppies, named Willow, is four months old. Willow lives with VanWagenen and spends her days at Pine Bush Elementary School. “She’s been spending most of her time in the secretary’s office, sleeping, because she’s a baby,” said Ricchetti.

She also said, “Willow looks like she could be Miss Siggy’s daughter.”

The second puppy is expected to be selected in April or May and trained over the summer to start working at school in the fall.

“A big pack”

“The second time around, you think about what worked and what didn’t,” said Ricchetti. “This time, we’ve created teams of educators for each puppy.”

Each of the five dogs will have a primary owner and live at that person’s house as well as having five to 10 secondary handlers, ranging from reading and special-education teachers to social workers and regular teachers.

“They’ll come to the dog-training classes,” said Ricchetti. “When the dogs are comfortable, they do their best work….The dog will work right with people in the environment they’ll be in — with a big pack.”

So far, Ricchetti said on Monday morning, 10 people — coming from all seven of the district’s schools — have applied to be primary owners. A meeting was scheduled for Monday afternoon to begin reviewing the applicants.

“We’ll move slowly so we do it right,” said Ricchetti. “If you don’t get to be a primary owner, you can be a handler.”

Ricchetti makes a point of calling the Guilderland dogs social service dogs rather than therapy dogs. “A social service dog helps anyone with a disability,” she said. Sometimes these are social or emotional disabilities. “Social service dogs are expected to work a lot more hours than therapy dogs,” she said, typically seven to eight hours a day.

“They have to be able to handle stress,” she concluded.

Ricchetti sees the benefit of having social service dogs in school as three-fold.

First, she said, they reduce anxiety with testing. “Miss Siggy has been used for all kinds of testing apprehension,” Ricchetti said, including helping students succeed who had formerly been too nervous to even try to take a test.

Moreover, Ricchetti cited research from the Netherlands showing that test scores increased when students patted a dog for 10 to 15 minutes before taking an exam. This has given her an idea of perhaps having a dog available in the high school library during Regents week.

Second, Ricchetti said, social service dogs can be used for practical lessons. She gave the example of a teacher during a geography lesson asking, “Where in the world is Miss Siggy?” Miss Siggy might be hiding under a map.

Also, she said, young children often read and write to Miss Siggy, which encourages them.

Third, she said, social service dogs help with social and emotional problems. “There are students with school phobias; just getting into the building is hard for them,” said Ricchetti; Miss Siggy has helped ease the way.

“Back to being a student”

Ricchetti has also used Miss Siggy to teach very shy children how to be assertive under the guise of having them “train” Miss Siggy.

Soon after Miss Siggy started her work at Pine Bush Elementary School, The Enterprise observed a group of shy first-graders during their lunch break teaching the dog to jump through a hoop. Over the course of a year, they learned to give commands and to stand with a commanding posture, which carried over into their everyday lives.

“They get the body language of what authority looks like,” Ricchetti said at the time. While teaching a dog new tricks, the students had also taught themselves.

At that time, when Ricchetti worked just from Pine Bush, rather than circulating between schools, she spent a lot of time using the imagined viewpoint of Miss Siggy to answer letters from troubled children.

“My skin is cocoa-brown,” wrote one student. “My mom says it is beautiful, like chocolate milk. A kid at school said my skin is dirty looking. I don’t feel beautiful like my mom says I am anymore. What can I do?”

“I have spoken to your principal,” Richetti replied as Miss Siggy. “Behavior like this is not tolerated in school; the adults will help.

“Your letter made me so sad, I cried. I get biting mad when I hear mean, ignorant comments about race. They are so hurtful. I have been called a ‘yuppie-puppy’ and a ‘mixed-breed’ all because I am half golden retriever and half standard poodle! I know in my heart I am a great dog, and I am proud to be a Goldendoodle!

“I am sorry that you were hurt, my beautiful friend. Remember, kindness matters. Be kind to yourself! Smart kids and dogs never believe ignorant comments.”

Ricchetti compiled some of the most heartfelt letters into a book, “Miss Siggy Speaks.”

Ricchetti grew up, in Merrick, Long Island, with a dog that was a lot like Miss Siggy, a standard poodle named Tug. “I just loved that dog,” she said. “He was so gentle. He would know when I was angry or sad…He sat near me and gave me his paw.”

She also kept a journal as a kid and believes in the healing power of writing about emotions. The fifth of six siblings, she had plenty to write about. Her father was a pressman for The New York Times and her mother, a homemaker.

These two important aspects of her childhood — loving a gentle dog and writing to solve problems — came together in her book.

She also wrote a book detailing the program she has developed at Guilderland — “Dogs in School: Creating a dog Program in Your School,” in which she cites research that says a dog can increase a child’s ability to learn by helping the student to manage stress, anxiety, and depression.

The book also describes the miraculous. For example: At the start of a school year, Ricchetti was called to a self-contained special-education classroom because a 7-year-old boy with severely delayed language skills had been throwing a temper tantrum for three-quarters of an hour — throwing things, kicking the wall, crying, and screaming — and was about to be restrained.

“Miss Sigmund heard you crying,” Ricchetti told the boy as he hid behind a table, distraught and frightened. “She was worried and she asked if we could come help.”

Within five minutes, the boy tentatively touched the dog and smiled as she wagged her tail. Ricchetti asked if the boy would like to help Miss Siggy make new friends in his classroom and he nodded.

Ricchetti said this week that, traveling between schools with her dog, she doesn’t get as much mail as she used to. She is hoping that, once a dog is placed permanently in a school, those sorts of exchanges will become more frequent.

She said of students writing letters to a dog, “It’s a way for kids to self-refer and to problem solve. Anyone with a diary knows you feel better if you write.”

In putting together a video for the March 21 gala, Ricchetti talked to a number of students, now in high school, who had benefited from knowing Miss Siggy when they were elementary students.

“One girl said Miss Siggy took the edge off,” said Richetti. “She used to run with her. She said, ‘When I ran with Siggy, my body would calm down so I could go back to being a student.”

This puppy could use a gala

“Four-legged friends help students face fears, gain confidence, enjoy learning,” says the invitation to the Bloomingrove Veterinary Hospital’s Gala 2015, which is raising funds for the Guilderland School District’s social service dog program.

Catherine Ricchetti, who started the program at Guilderland with her goldendoodle, Miss Siggy, and wrote the grant to expand the program to five more dogs, is also the link to the gala.

Her veterinarian is David Stone. Stone’s wife, Mindy Freman, manages the hospital.

“Our daughters were in ballet class together; while they danced, we chatted,” said Ricchetti of how she came to know Freman and the Bloomingrove Veterinary Hospital.

“Every year, they pick a not-for-profit animal organization and throw a fund-raiser,” she said.

This year, Bloomingrove chose Guilderland’s social service dog program. The gala and silent auction will be held at the Franklin Plaza Ballroom at 4 Fourth Street in Troy on Saturday, March 21, at 7 p.m., featuring food, dancing, and a cash bar. Mohawk Honda is helping to sponsor the event.

Guests will be in “cocktail attire,” Ricchetti said, and she is putting together a video on the social service dog program for the event.

Willow, the first of the five puppies to start work at Guilderland, and Miss Siggy, who has been at it for 11 years, will both make an appearance along with their trainer, Kathy Stevens.

Tickets may be purchased online at http://bit.ly/1Bo095Q; if purchased before March 21, they cost $85. Guilderland faculty and staff are eligible for discounted tickets.

Each building has a gala representative with more information: Louisa Lombardo at Altamont Elementary, Heidi Cutler at Guilderland, Ricchetti at Lynnwood Elementary, Ricchetti or Keith VanWagenen at Pine Bush Elementary, Lombardo at Westmere Elementary, DeeAnn Whittet at Farnsworth Middle School, and Kathy Catlin and Matt Wright at Guilderland High School.

Local businesses are invited to contribute merchandise or gift cards.

All proceeds from the auction will fund training and certification of the labradoodle puppies and the 50 or so Guilderland educators who will handle the dogs in the schools.

All five dogs are to be certified by Therapy Dog International, allowing them to work as social service dogs in the Guilderland schools.

Those who are interested in donating to the auction may call Pine Bush Elementary School at 357-2770, for Ricchetti at extension 3504 or VanWagenen at extension 4204.