PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS PAGE IS IN-PROGRESS

 

Prison-Based Dog Training Programs:
Rehabilitation for Canine and Human

 
Picture this: prison inmates receive training to, in turn, train dogs from animal shelters. The prisoners learn a joy, a compassion and a responsibility that can come only from raising and training a dog, as well as skills that can help them find a job. The dog becomes adoptable. Some lucky family gets to adopt a well-trained dog that, just a few weeks before, would have been put to death merely for being unwanted. The shelter reduces the numbers of dogs killed every year in the USA (which totals in the MILLIONS).

This is not a dream. It is a reality. Most attribute the original idea to a model for prison pet partnership programs envisioned in 1981 by Sister Pauline Quinn, who introduced the concept of inmates training unwanted dogs for those persons with disabilities. The program was initiated in the Washington prison for women.

Here is a quote from an inmate and a nurse at the Green River Correctional Complex in Central City, Kentucky, which either runs, or used to run, this type of program (I can't find any recent reference to it online):

"She likes to play now. She didn't want to play. She really didn't want to be petted when she first got here, like she'd been abused. Now everyone that passes her she thinks is supposed to pet her," says inmate Robert Smith, Dixie's handler. "She's helped me a lot because she helped me find the man that I was before I came to prison and I like the person that I found."

A nurse at the prison says the atmosphere at the prison has changed since the program started. "They're more friendly toward each other. We haven't had as many fights. You can see the changes in the inmates themselves, being responsible for somebody else has given them a purpose," says Ina Benge.

This page is meant to track some of these various programs happening in the USA, with the hope that other prisons and animals shelters throughout the world will be able to access the info they need to start their own programs.

To add an entry, please contact me.

If you are interested in developing such a program yourself, I strongly suggest that you purchase Animals in institutions . This action guide provides a compilation of sample infection control policies, resource information, journal and popular articles, and conference abstracts for hospitals, nursing homes, corrections facilities, and hospices.

Please note that I have NO further information than what is on this page!!!

 
PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS PAGE IS IN-PROGRESS

 

A Second Chance
A program featured on PBS.

 
An article from PetSmart, called "Pen Pals"

 
See photos of many of the programs mentioned above

 
But it's not ONLY dogs: the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation (TRF) began partnering with correctional institutions throughout the United States to give young and adult prisoners an opportunity to learn how to care for "retired" horses who would have otherwise gone to slaughter. In addition to saving horses, the goal of the project is to rehabilitate prisoners by giving them new skills and knowledge, helping them find a sense of purpose, and healing emotional wounds through human-animal connection.

 
Also see camping with your dogs

 

 

about Coyote Communications | about J. Cravens |
list of technology tip sheets | return to home page |
contact me | Linking to or from these pages

copyright 1996-2004
by Coyote Communications, all rights reserved