MISSION PAWSIBLE ROVER REHAB

A Collaborative Effort With
Warren Correctional Institution, Franklin Pre-Release Center, and Lakin Correctional Facility For Women

The women of Franklin Pre-Release Center with their 4 Paws Dogs!

Warren Correctional Center, Home of the 4 Paws Prison Program

Lakin Correctional Center

Franklin Pre-release Center

Sister Pauline, shown here with four wonderful German Shepherds, is the founder of the Prison Dog Training Programs in the United States, and placed the first service dog trained in the prison setting!

At 4 Paws For Ability, Inc. we are proud of our collaboration with prison systems in Ohio and West Virginia. We all know of the healing powers of animals. They are our best friends, our constant companions, and they live their lives for us. However, day after day they are killed by the hundreds because the people they lived for couldn’t be bothered by them any longer.

4 Paws For Ability, Inc. is dedicated to assisting in the war to end this unnecessary destruction of life by selecting many of our Service Animals from local shelters and rescue groups.

Rover Rehabilitation is a program that was started in the prison to train service dogs with the very first program started by Sister Pauline in a women’s prison. A movie "Behind These Walls" was made about this program and is amazing. Dogs selected from shelters were placed in the prison to be trained by the inmates for service dog work and future placement with people who had disabilities.

Rover Rehab - Giving Shelter Dogs A Second Chance

Reaching out, even to a small puppy, is often not something the inmates are used to. Yet, when the puppy and their handler meet, their lives are touched by each other in many ways and it is an awesome thing to see.

Today some programs also place dogs to learn basic obedience in the hopes of making them more adoptable. In these programs, like ours, the trainers are the inmates who have earned a high merit status and the right to have the dogs with them in their cells. Each cell has two inmates who became a training team. The dogs live in the cell with the two inmates and are to be with one of the team members at all times. Many dogs have been successfully trained and placed. Many of these dogs had once been on death row.

When 4 Paws heard of these programs we were excited. Training Service Dogs is quite costly. The result of the collaboration is that we can save the dogs from death, provide prison inmates a means of rehabilitation, and then bring independence to the people with disabilities who need their skills at a much lower rate.

Unconditional love and acceptance have often been absent from the inmate's lives before our dogs step in to show the way. Obviously, the trust learned in bonding works both ways, especially when using shelter dogs who often, like their inmates, have been given little reason to trust another.

What a wonderful program! We started out with dogs in the Warren Correctional Institute (WCI), at first only one or two and now we have up to 17 dogs at any given time. As the success grew we added Franklin Pre-Release Center (FPRC) where we have the ability to place up to 10 dogs at a time, and finally we are very proud to have been chosen to head up the start of service dog training programs in West Virginia by partnering with Lakin Correctional Facility For Women with a starting number of 20 dogs!

As one can imagine these programs are win-win situations. The inmates benefit greatly from working with the dogs especially the shelter dogs.

They understand and relate to the shelter dogs that have been thrown out, discarded as one would discard a toy, no longer favored by a child. They understand rejection and abandonment, sadness and despair, and certainly suddenly finding themselves looking out at the world through the bars of a locked cell door.

They look at the "broken" cast away and are able to see in their eyes many of the same feelings they have themselves and as they work with the dogs, together as a team, the miracle of healing, the light that returns to the eyes of both inmate and dog is an amazing thing to see. Many times the inmates are people who have had little to no experience with unconditional love, or forgiveness. Also, they have often not experienced the joy that can be found in doing something that will so deeply affect another’s life. They are in prison and when it comes right down to the line, many people with disabilities live in a prison as well. The dogs bring a sense of fulfillment and esteem to the inmates and then go out and bring the same to their new life partners. So much from a dog that somebody threw away.

Katie's family knew she was injured but left her with a broken leg for more than 5 weeks. When she didn't appear to be "getting better" they dumped her with a local humane society, discarded like a broken toy no longer wanted.

By the time we got her, into the 7th week or more post injury, little can be done to fix the damage done. The elbow suffered a serious break which should have been pinned to allow it to heal appropriately but without medical care the elbow had begun to fuse.

Once the fusion is complete, Katie should no longer need pain medication to keep her comfortable but her elbow will never function properly and she will always have a limp.

Trust did not come easy for Katie at first but one only needs to see her leaning into her inmate handler to know she has begun to recover physically and emotionally, and one can also see, with a gentle hand laid on Katie's side that the relationship is multidimensional, perhaps both will find some emotional healing in the love they have found in the dog-human bond.

In the 4 Paws dog program, inmates attend classes run by 4 Paws Training Director, Jeremy Dulebohn or one of our young trainers, and learn how to work with their dogs to ready them for advanced service dog training.

One of the great things about Mission Pawsible Rover Rehab is that inmates not only give back to the world they once "took" from but they also learn a new skill, one which may someday allow them to get a job on the outside where they can continue to give back to their community and live a life much different to the one they had before coming to prison. These inmates meet with 4 Paws trainers on a weekly basis to participate in class where they learn not only obedience training but also how to train the advance skills needed by the child the dog is matched with.

The inmates know who is getting their dog, not the details but the age of the child and how the dog needs to help them. They work to make sure the dog has appropriate behavior and tolerance for the things children do; they work to train advanced skills that will give the child more freedom and independence; and they even train the dogs some fun tricks the child can show off as they talk to the people and children who come to meet their dogs!

One of the inmates shared this with us, "The #1 reason, and the most important reason I joined the 4 Paws program is because I want to give something positive back to people who really need it. Doing that gives me self satisfaction as well I didn‘t want to be one of those guys who sit around and do negative stuff or nothing at all with their time in prison I would like to thank everyone that makes the 4 Paws program possible."

Another had this to say, "The reason I like the dog program here at WCI - I could get a dog that is going to a Autism kid that runs off all the time. I could teach the dog basic tracking as well as other commands and the dog will find the kid. I could get a dog that is going to a kid who needs a pal. I would teach the dog basic commands and lots of tricks. They can give you a dog and say this dog is going to be for this and you try to put yourself in that person's shoes and how you would want the dog to be I stay out of trouble by being in the dog program because I know if I get in trouble I can't have a dog and I never thought that while I was in prison I would be training a dog to help people. I have been locked up for 20 years and in the dog program for 1 year. I wish it was here 20 years ago."

We have seen some wonderful results both in the quality of the dogs we place and in the lives of the inmates who work with them. We have found that with the stress produced in prison the dogs placed develop a better ability to cope with the stress of the placement, for example since using the prison our dogs placed in the prison vs those which were trained only at 4 Paws handle the stress of placement with an Autistic child who has meltdowns with little to no signs of stress over the situation.

The dogs in the prison visit the inmates in the mental health wings of the prisons and become accustomed to people who they easily sense as In addition, our dogs placed in the prison acclimate to their new handlers during client training far more quickly than those trained by a single trainer at 4 Paws because they often switch handlers at the prison. Each dog trained in the prison spends 4 weeks in and one week out rotating for socialization in public. Each time they re-enter the prison they may switch handlers.

While the gains we see for our program are wonderful, the changes in the inmates are amazing. We have seen big, strong, tough men with tattoos over much of their body, turn into big kids as they play with their dogs and break down and cry as they say goodbye to them. I must say that every inmate in our program devotes every hour of every day to the dog in their care and it shows from week to week as our trainer meets with them to work on their dog training skills.

When the inmate takes the picture we give them of the child with their new service dog, no one can dismiss the look of pride and amazement that they could make such valuable contribution when many of them never knew they had it in them to make any “good” contribution to society. It is that look that seals for us, here at 4 Paws, the knowledge that the inmates don’t just play the game of training in order to benefit from having a dog with them, they truly give of their hearts and their spirits both to the dog and to the child the dog will be placed with and in doing so they cannot help but grow.

While some of our inmates may never see life outside prison, some will go out and they will take with them the self-esteem and confidence to know they can be somebody who lives to do good in their life and to make a difference. We believe that they can and they will.

DISCHARGED DOGS. 4 Paws has dogs available through the Rover Rehab Program that need "pet" homes.

These are dogs that were picked initially for observation and evaluation as potential candidates for 4 Paws Service Dog Training and some have actually started this training but could not complete it for reasons that pertain only to service dog status and have nothing to do with their success as a new family member in your home! In fact, being considered as a possible trainee in our service dog program and/or starting in training is a bragging right for these special dogs and any of them would make excellent companions in every day life!

Please consider adopting one of these special dogs.

Many of the dogs in this program are dogs that were once sitting on death row, (yes, the pun is intentional, in shelters, who would love it if this were no longer an issue but the sheer numbers of marvelous dogs entering their doors make this wish, just that, a wish for a society that values the animals as much as we do here at 4 Paws as well as the shelters who rescue them.

These dogs are some of the fortunate ones. We saw them sitting there, patiently waiting as the people walked by, hoping that this time someone would stop for them, but that just never happened. Well, until we walked by and stopped to acknowledge their potential!

These dogs are now or have been in the loving care of some inmates in prison trying desperately to make up for the life that led them there and finding themselves through the work with their dogs, as people who can make a better life for themselves, better choices, and have experienced some mental and emotional healing that only these furry friends could give them!

The dogs are building their handler's (inmate's) ability to trust, boosting their confidence, and building their self-esteem and in return the inmates are doing the same for these wonderful dogs. Once they have spent their time in prison and are ready for discharge, these dogs have the basic skills needed to be a wonderful addition to any family. They know the basic obedience commands, have learned house manners, and have been housebroken. (Housebroken in the prison program means the dogs do not relieve themselves in the cell or the buildings, only outside.

One should note these dogs have never been alone in a house off lead. While most transition with few if any accidents some need a bit of help figuring it all out.) Please consider one of these very special dogs; in adopting them, you will be adding love, loyalty, and adoration for everything you do.

One of these wonderful dogs could easily become a friend, a confidante, a family member who will love you unconditionally, never pass judgment, and never care if you have a bad hair day!

All animals thrive with touch and close contact, and it is believed by researchers that the absence of contact with other living, breathing animals can even lead to death. Premature infants in hospitals thrive when "substitute Grandmothers" are brought in to hold and rock the babies who's parents can't be there.

In a prison, appropriate, loving contact is hard to come by and the dogs fill a void, which for some inmates has never been filled.

The inmates find a comfort in their dogs that can decrease anxiety, and fill the voids left by a system in which they are locked away from their children, family, and friends and the dog, many who have never known a kind, human touch, thrive with their relationship to their inmate handler and with each day that passes both inmate and dog find a world which is a happier, healthier, more loving place.

To see a list of the dogs available go to Petfinder here http://www.petfinder.org/shelters/OH390.html

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