Paw & Order:
Our Prison Dog Training Program
We are happy to have several prison dog training programs for service dogs and other training areas. This program, like all our programs, is based on positive training.
This program will not only help us train service dogs and therapy dogs to give back to the community, but it will also help the program participants build skills that will enable them to get jobs in their community once they are released. This follows along with the principle we have always had - "Helping Dogs, Help People".
​
Currently, at our Kentucky state program, we have ten, 2 person teams of handlers working, for a total of 20 handlers Our federal programs have 7 trainers per facility and we expanding.
​
Each team has one dog to train. This gives the dogs more exposure to situations and helps generalize their skills to more than one person.
​
These dogs will be trained to do different jobs based on each dog's abilities and aptitudes. As the dogs go through the program, they will be evaluated to determine their targeted job skills, and when ready, we will begin training the team to work with them.
​
Any dog that does not meet service dog guidelines will be placed up for adoption. The adoption fee will go directly back into the prison training program to help us continue to offer this partnership.
These dogs for adoption will make wonderful pets, therapy dogs, or emotional support dogs.
for more information on our Prison Dog Training Prog ,
How Does the Prison Training Program Work?
Our prison training programs are run by volunteer professional service dog trainers and volunteer professional therapy dog trainers. None of our staff is paid. The fee goes back into the every day running of the facility expenses.
​
Our inmates are hand picked by us and must pass an interview with two of our professional trainers, plus be referred by their supervisors at the prison. We have very strict guidelines for them to be accepted into the program, and most have been with us for over 4+ years. We specifically look for inmate long-termers or lifers, which cuts down on us having to re-train new people constantly. We also have very strict guidelines for our inmate trainers to stay in our program. We will not accept anyone with a history of abuse towards animals, women or children. Most of our trainers commit white collar crimes (bad checks, etc.) and most of our Inmate trainers are Veterans.
​
Click here for more information about our program​​​​​​​
​