The idea of pairing animals and inmates is most often credited to an eccentric Dominican Order nun.
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Because the majority of animal/inmate programs are run by individual nonprofit organizations, it can be difficult to track their number and origins, but many agree it was Sister Pauline Quinn who got things going when she helped start a program to train service dogs in 1981 at Washington State Corrections Center for Women in Gig Harbor.
The plan was for inmates to use the dogs as tools to help others, such as people with disabilities who could benefit from the service of a dog. If the prisoners are "doing something positive for people, then their suffering takes on meaning," Quinn said during a recent phone interview.
The program also showed the inmates — and society — that they could do something constructive with their lives and that they could do it within the confines of correctional institutions.
Quinn said she came up with the idea after enduring what she referred to as "a difficult life" — self-harm, institutionalization in psychiatric wards and abuse are often mentioned in stories about her — and finding solace in a dog.
The idea, she said, was initially met with skepticism. Authorities worried the inmates might train the dogs to attack guards, and that the authorities would lose a certain amount of control by allowing the inmates the freedom to care for the dogs.
But in the end, Quinn, or the dogs, won, and she now helps other corrections institutions across the nation, and world — she worked with one in Italy — implement their own animal programs through the nonprofit Pathways to Hope.
Quinn said she does not know if participants in the original program had lower rates of recidivism, but she does know that, once released into society, several started grooming and dog-training schools and that the program is still going.
While other programs, including ones with horses and cats — the Audubon Youth Development Center in Louisville uses miniature horses — have taken off more recently, she said the ones using dogs are still the most common. They work, she said, because they provide the inmates with unconditional love.
"They don't care what you look like; they don't care what crime you did. They just care to love and to be loved."
Working with youths
Animals are believed to have begun making inroads in juvenile correctional facilities a little more than a decade after Quinn started her work in Washington.
One of the first efforts to bring animals to juveniles was Project POOCH, which paired troubled youths at the MacLaren Youth Correctional Facility in Woodburn, Ore., with dogs local shelters had difficulty placing.
Founded by Joan Dalton in 1993 with two youths and two dogs, it has grown to include 15 kennels and 12 youths to help with the dogs at any one time — and a training conference for those who want to implement a similar program in their states.
The youths in the program — sex offenders, violent offenders, substance abusers and others — learn to train and groom the dogs and help find them adoptive homes.
"We're taking the dogs that the shelters have the most difficult time adopting out, and so the youths may say, 'Maybe I took a life, or I harmed someone; this is a way for me to give back for what I've taken because I'm going to save this dog by giving the dog training,'" Dalton said.
She said she has noticed some participants, who have children of their own, utilizing the positive-reinforcement lessons they learned through the program on their children. Others, she said, have gone on to find jobs in the pet industry, and one is even studying to be a veterinarian.
One of the reasons the program works so well, she said, is that the dogs are housed in a kennel on the facility, thereby alleviating any issues that might develop with staff or other detainees not affiliated with the program.
As opposed to working with adults, who often can take the dog to their cells, working with youths poses the added difficulty of often working in a dormitory-room setting, said Dalton.
That was one of the issues with a greyhound program at a juvenile correctional facility in Ohio, said Andrea Kruse, a public information officer with the Ohio Department of Youth Services.
"Because in an open-dorm facility you need 100 percent buy-in from every kid there in the unit," she said.
Maria Carney, president of the greyhound program that placed the dogs, said she ended the program after the family of one of the residents asked to adopt a dog purely to protect it from other detainees.
Another obstacle to working with youths is that they are in the facilities for a much shorter time than are most adults. That was the main issue Sally Irvin faced when she started the Indiana Canine Assistance Network (ICAN) in 2001 with two incarcerated youths.
Training dogs to serve people with mobility difficulties is a time-consuming process, said Irvin, and the youths did not have the maturity or time to make it work.
Despite the difficulties, last fall Kentucky implemented a greyhound program at Morehead Youth Development Center, a staff-secured facility for girls ages 12 to 18 who have committed crimes ranging from truancy to murder.
Almost a year into the program, it is going strong, said Sylvia Kuster, a curriculum specialist for the Kentucky Department of Juvenile Justice, who was instrumental in getting the program off the ground.
"This is the first program, as far as we know, in the United States that has dealt with greyhound rescue and juveniles, and has been successful at it for this period of time," she said.
The Morehead model
Pets have been a part of life within the Kentucky Department of Juvenile Justice for years, said Rodney Young, director of mental-health services for the department. But, he added, until the greyhound program at Morehead, there were never any organized therapeutic-animal programs.
In addition to the greyhounds, there is a miniature-horse program at Audubon Youth Development Center in Louisville and plans to implement Project POOCH at the same facility.
Both programs provide a connection with emotions and needs that traditional therapy does not, said Young.
"We talk with them until they're blue in the face, we deal with their behavior daily ... but there's still so much to your personality that those interventions don't touch — but the animals do," he said.
Since the greyhound program began at Morehead, the reported incidents of assaultive behavior, both youth-on-youth and youth-on-staff, have decreased, said Ron Haws, acting commissioner for the Department of Juvenile Justice. Staff members report that the greyhounds have also taught the girls about selfishness, responsibility and second chances.
"I think it teaches them unconditional love because there are so many young ladies here who have not had that; they have not known what it's like to be loved no matter what they do in life, no matter what's happened," said April Frazier, a counselor at Morehead.
Organizers were looking for a facility with staff that would not only be receptive to the idea but also would be excited about working with animals. Partnerships were arranged with the veterinary science and technology program at Morehead, an education teacher at the university researching the human-animal bond, and Greyhound Pets of America, Louisville chapter.
Because retired racing greyhounds need time to adjust to things like stairs, windows and wood floors — which they may not encounter during their years at the track — having a program that helps them cope and provides a place for them to stay while homes are found is invaluable, according to greyhound rescue workers. All of the 11 dogs who have been through the program so far have been placed successfully in homes.
It was the success of the greyhound program, on both the human and animal sides, that led the department to look into Project POOCH, said Haws.
"If we can use an animal to get kids to open up about the kinds of issues they see themselves having, and working them out with trained adults, then we've gone a long way," he said. "And in the meantime, we also help the animal."
Reporter Katya Cengel can be reached at (502) 582-4224.
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