"Walks with dogs", is how Heide Coppotelli categorized herself, but she is much more than that. Her love of animals, especially canines, is just part of this remarkable woman. She is a highly educated Duke University Ph.D., an accomplished writer and philosopher; and she is a caring human being who has a deep love of justice, humanity, and the Transylvania mountains.
Born Heide Arndt in 1944 in the Harz mountains of northern Germany, she and her younger sister immigrated to Chicago, Illinois with their parents in 1956.
"My father was a journeyman electrician and he was my mother's rock; while my mother was a bookkeeper and his siren. She was the adventuress who instigated the plan to cross the ocean with nothing but her husband and two young daughters," Heide Arndt Coppotelli reminisced.
The Arndt family put a high priority on education. Heide attended the Chicago public schools, where she learned to speak English. She also began college in Chicago, studying biology. However, her formal education was not completed until after she was a married woman with a young son. She received her B.A. from New College in Sarasota, FL and her M.A. and Ph.D. from Duke University in psychology, with a specialty in clinical psychology. She later taught college courses in that field.
Coppotelli was determined to attend Duke because their graduate programs in clinical psychology were dedicated to an eclectic approach that incorporated anthropology, biology, and other disciplines into psychology. "I thought that was important, and though they were known to have a tough program at Duke, I figured better tough up front than stumped later," Coppotelli asserted.
After Coppotelli completed her residency at the VA in Tampa, Fl, she went into private practice in Jacksonville, FL where she became known for working with the traumatic stress that accompanies tragic circumstances. There she also founded one of the first critical incident debriefing teams in the country.
Only a few weeks after the debriefing team became operational, Jacksonville endured a workplace massacre that cost 10 lives and many more injuries, and her team of specially trained firefighters, police officers, and a few mental health professionals spent hundreds of hours in the service of first responders and survivors of the disaster as they dealt with the impact of that traumatic event. It was in trauma response work that Coppotelli first began to incorporate her dogs into her work as a clinical psychologist.
"You might say that the more I worked with people in desperate situations, the more I longed for the companionship of dogs, not only for myself but also for the people who were suffering. I made up my mind to search for a good dog, and as life would have it, I promptly found myself with two of them; a young German Shepherd puppy (Hope) from a guide dog breeding program and a young adult White Shepherd (Maya) who was found drowning in a creek and who needed a home.
"From the beginning, these two dogs accompanied me in my practice as a psychologist and formed a part of my life, from listening to overwrought victims of tragedy to hiking for hours in wilderness areas. To be honest, it is they who shaped my life from then on much more than I did myself.
"Accompanying me to a debriefing of police officers and firefighters in the aftermath of a tragedy, they would walk the circle of men and women who shed tears few people ever witness. Maya would stop to rest her chin on a knee, Hope would lean against a leg, and burly officers laid their heads against the dogs' ruffs. In the company of my dogs these men and women were able to lay down their burdens and express their grief.
"These kinds of experiences became a turning point in my career, as I discovered how much the dogs had to offer, and how much we humans have left to learn. Maya and Hope were remarkable therapists, Coppotelli revealed.
These experiences led Coppotelli to close her private practice and move to the mountains in hopes of establishing a training program for dogs who would work with people with disabilities or other pressing needs in a position of partnership and in the context of family.
"My objective was to train them to work with people with physical disabilities, but also with those who had mental disabilities, who were then, and still are, marginalized and underserved," she stated.
Coppotelli moved to the Transylvania Mountains in 1997. Growing up in the Harz Mountains, this area always had a real draw for her; and for years, she and her family had come to Pisgah National Forest to backpack. So when she decided to make a big change, simplifying her life and following her passion of working with dogs, this area was her natural choice.
"For some time after we moved here, I continued to work with my dogs as assistants in my work as a psychologist, especially in area nursing homes where the dogs brought joy and strength to people suffering the losses of health, home, family, and independence. Maya and Hope helped me to have critical conversations with patients about dying, about old regrets, and about painful frustrations of being dependent on others.
"The dogs offered encouragement and support for enduring pain and for finding purpose in trudging forward. Picture a big German Shepherd snuggled in a hospital bed alongside someone lonely and frail, providing a transfusion of hope. Along the way, I lost my beloved Maya to cancer; but true to her name, Hope remained the light in my life that helped me to carry on," Coppotelli said.
"It was Hope who was at my side the morning that we received the news that my son Tino had died in a heart-breaking tragedy. By nightfall, Hope and I had a much larger extended family, with my son's dogs suddenly in need of help.
"Those were the hardest of times, finding myself unable to continue to be the psychologist who helped people through their trauma and losses, as I myself wandered, numb and lost. It was the dogs who became my guides. Like so many dogs who touch our lives, they brought balance, wholeness, and healing.
"I had initially limited my work as a dog trainer and certified behavior consultant to serving as a resource and mentor to my son, whose journey of recovery from addiction took him to working with dogs. He was a natural at relating to dogs with a rare understanding of their minds and hearts, and I was inspired by his style of communicating with them. His love for dogs is the very heart of my work.
"After my son's death, the dogs helped me to complete the work he had begun before he died. Then, they accompanied me on a continuing, incredible journey of teaching people about their faithful companions," according to Coppotelli.
Coppotelli feels that dogs have to be reared - - not merely trained -- to know the roles, rules, responsibilities and limits of life in their family/pack. She says that dogs are their own beings, not little creatures in fur coats. They are domesticated members of their human families who need protection, guidance, inclusion, and consideration for their own needs and personalities. Dogs face many difficulties in meeting the challenges of the human world into which we have brought them.
In fact, Coppotelli stressed, most dog problems arise from shortcomings in human involvementa lack of adequate guidance and absence of understanding of the mind and behavior of dogs. The most misguided idea, she feels is that what a dog needs most is a boss.
What dogs need most is to be allowed and helped to play a meaningful role in the lives of their people. We need to be willing to be there for them; to guide them, not just to train them. If we will let them, they have much to teach us, Coppotelli explained.
Her own dog family has grown and changed over the years. Hope died a year ago, but not until she had helped to train Teddy, the rescued German Shepherd who now wears the service harness on which Coppotelli leans for support.
"Looking back over my life with dogs, I am altogether enormously fortunate and grateful to have known so many wonderful dogs, including those who have followed along with - and often guided - my own steps," Coppotelli concluded.
