A Long Island service dog trainer is one of the people in the spotlight in the new Netflix documentary “Inside the Mind of a Dog,” which premiered last Friday.

For more than 20 years, Alexandra “Alex” Hutchinson has worked to train service dogs to assist people with disabilities, police officers and search and rescue teams. Like guide dogs, service dogs perform specialized tasks, from opening doors and picking up dropped objects for wheelchair users to sniffing for people trapped in rubble to interrupting night terrors in post-traumatic stress disorder by pulling blankets off beds and nudging their humans.

While the documentary stops at far-flung universities and other locations to talk to scientists about the latest findings on the dog brain, the details of training a puppy to be a partner are discussed in Medford, at the Northeast Training Center of the 49-year-old national organization Canine Companions.

“Originally, they only had two short days that they wanted to shoot,” says Hutchinson, 51, of Red Rock Films, a veteran nature documentary company for Discovery, Disney+, Nat Geo Wild and others, including Netflix, for which it made “Inside the Mind of a Cat” (2022). “At some point, after they were here and got to know everyone, they decided to extend their time here and shoot a little bit more with us. So it ended up being about eight days.”

Hutchinson, who grew up in the Pittsburgh suburb of Penn Hills and now lives in Queens but spends months at a Canine Companions kennel during his training, plays a key role in the 75-minute documentary.

One of the few non-scientists to speak directly to the camera, she is also seen working with dogs at the center and taking them on training trips to a supermarket (CTown in Farmingville), a restaurant (The Oar in Patchogue) and an amusement park (Adventureland in Farmingdale) — all places where service animals, unlike untrained “emotional support” pets, are allowed under the Americans with Disabilities Act.

“I watched the documentary with friends I’ve known for ages and who know what I do,” says Hutchison mischievously, “and they said, ‘Wow, I had no idea!’ I said, ‘How long have you known me?’ ‘Yeah, but we didn’t really know what it was like to do what you do!'”

The trainer was born in Germany, the youngest of four daughters to a U.S. Army father and a German mother who came to America when Hutchinson was a toddler. She grew up with a “best friend,” a dog. While pursuing a communications degree at Robert Morris University outside Pittsburgh, she began volunteering at dog shelters.

Hutchinson became a flight attendant for a living. “But I always knew that I wanted to help people someday” – which she did as a non-medical volunteer with the non-profit organization Surgicorps International, similar to Doctors Without Borders. “And if I could bring people and dogs together? Wow.”

She started at Canine Companions in 2003 “as someone who just took care of the dogs, groomed them and things like that,” followed by three years of training to become a trainer, then certification as an instructor. But, Hutchinson says, she’s been with the organization on and off while also working as an assistant to New York Jets Pro Football Hall of Fame member Curtis Martin — “We grew up together and are good friends,” she says — and hasn’t yet completed the final step, called the presentation.

Nevertheless, she jokes about her appearance on the documentary: “I presented a lot of witnesses!” – and adds jokingly: “Guys, can’t we just check that box?”