Training Dogs Gives Purpose to Prison Inmates
Wonderful post in the reader blog section of the Seattle Post Intelligencer about a story from the book Angel Dogs: Divine Messengers of Love. It involves saving a rescue dog and giving him the training to be an adoptable pet. Plus, as is happening in many places now, the people who did the training were prison inmates. What makes this story so interesting is that in a discussion about the book and the program the inmates began to talk about the spiritual side of working with dogs. They talked about whether dogs go to heaven, how the dogs had changed their lives through their unconditional love, and how learning to love and respect an animal had made them into better human beings. It's pretty neat.
As the post asks, I'll ask you: do you know people who have been transformed by their love for an animal or by a dog's unconditional love? Maybe it's you?
Do you think dogs go to heaven? Do they have souls? Are they like us? Interesting questions.
Training Dogs Gives Purpose to Prison Inmates
An uplifting story in our book, ANGEL DOGS: Divine Messengers of Love, took place at the Lee County Corrections Facility in Fort Meyers, Florida. A deaf inmate named Jay wrote the story about his first experience with training the dog Hershey.
This little dog was destined for euthanization at a local animal shelter. Chosen to participate in the new program at the prison where Jay and other inmates would train the dogs to be excellent pets, Hershey's life was spared. After he graduated from the program, Hershey found a good, new home. Jay found a new purpose in life and was soon released.
This program is unique because it is designed to give second chances to dogs who are trained to be highly adoptable and to prisoners who needed to discover that they could be successful at a project. The program is now being copied at facilities across the U.S., Australia, New Zealand, and in Singapore.
Allen visited the jail while he was working in Florida. He wanted to thank the Cell Dog Program Administrator, Captain Tom Weaver, the guards, inmates, and dogs for their excellent program. After Allen made a short presentation during a sit-down "roundtable" discussion, several inmates talked about their work with the dogs and surprisingly, their own writing projects.
The inmates and guards spoke about how much of a difference the dogs had made at the jail. Since this dog-training program began, and the dogs started sharing living space with the prisoners, everything had become calmer and less stressful. The fighting among inmates was reduced to nearly no incidents. The guards said that the inmates who participate in the cell dog program are not returning to jail after their release in the large percentages that the rest of the jail population do.
Several inmates commented on the unconditional love and trust each dog showed toward the handler/trainers. A few said this was the first time they had received such devotion and love from another creature.
The captain held up ANGEL DOGS and said, "Remember Jay?" He reminded the men that Jay Williams was a contributing author to the book and had written about the dog Hershey, a graduate of the prison's first Cell Dog training. Captain Weaver then passed the book around and said he had ordered twenty of the books to give to the inmates.
The word "angel" seemed to prompt the men to think about spiritual lessons they had learned from the dogs. Several started talking about believing that dogs go to heaven and how much their viewpoints have changed due to their experiences with the program and the dogs.
We wanted to share this profoundly moving experience with all of you to emphasize the point that learning to love and respect animals truly makes a person, even an inmate living in jail, into a better human being.
Do you know someone, even yourself, who has transformed into a better human being through experiencing the unconditional love of a dog?
