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The following are some web sites we recommend for learning prison dog and horse training programs.
Prison Pet program matchs dogs with veterans returning from Iraq
Assistance Dogs International, Inc Assistance Dogs International, Inc. is a coalition of not for profit organizations that train and place Assistance Dogs. The purpose of ADI is to improve the areas of training, placement, and utilization of Assistance Dogs as well as staff and volunteer education. Members of ADI meet regularly to share ideas, attend seminars, and conduct business regarding such things as educating the public about Assistance Dogs, and the legal rights of people with disabilities partnered with Assistance Dogs, setting standards and establishing guidelines and ethics for the training of these dogs, and improving the utilization and bonding of each team. ADI also publishes a newsletter for members and subscribers. If you are a not for profit provider of Assistance Dogs, ADI membership will be a benefit to you, and you can be a part of ADI's mission
Dogs chase nightmares of war away
•Service dogs can help veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder
•Dogs can sense and ease panic attacks, depression
•Caring for animal forces patient to overcome social isolation
•Small survey found less dependence on drugs after dogs arrived
With Cindy, a Bernese mountain dog, by her side, retired Air Force Capt. Karen Alexander can leave her home without fear
Humanizing Prisons with Animals: A Closer Look at ''Cell Dogs'' and Horse Programs in Correctional Institutions
by Christiane Deaton
Journal of Correctional Education, Mar 2005
If correctional education aims to transform individuals and bring about change, we need to consider the whole person who comes with human needs, emotions and attitudes. In order to expand our approach, alternative programs should be explored. A somewhat unusual but very promising approach to address offenders' human needs is the use of animals in institutions. The majority of these programs have a vocational skills component: Inmates train dogs to become service dogs for the disabled, or they work with horses, either wild mustangs or retired race horses in need of rehabilitation. Although vocational training is certainly a major consideration, these programs are also highly therapeutic and rehabilitative. Suggested outcomes can benefit many: The inmate, the institution, other agencies, and the community. The purpose of this article is to raise awareness of selected animal-assisted programs in correctional institutions and their reported benefits.
Rover to the Rescue! Contrary to popular perception, service dogs are not only for the visually impaired. In addition to providing companionship, the animals can be trained to comfort people with anxiety or post-traumatic stress, disrupt compulsive behaviours and help agoraphobics overcome their fear of the outdoors.
With such a wide variety of needs, each dog must be chosen and coached on a one-on-one basis, costing between $25,000 and $35,000 a year per dog.
The Dog Who Helped A Boy To Speak - CBS News Every kid in Penny Weiser's first-grade class is capable of making noise. Marc Oliveri had just chosen not to.
"Lovely little guy. Seemed, you know, happy to be in school. And he was not talking," Weiser told CBS News correspondent Steve Hartman.
It's actually not uncommon for some kids to clam up at school. It's called "selective mutism." But this was different.
"How was school? Nothing," Marc's mom, April said. He didn't talk at home, either.
"Where would you like to go today? Nothing," she said.
Not ever. For six years.
It was six years and barely a peep, even though doctors could find nothing medially wrong with the child. Everyone was at wit's end, until one day last December when Marc came home from school looking like he was about to burst.
"So I look at little Marc and I say, 'Marc, do you want to tell me something?'" his mom said. "And out comes, 'Boo!'"
That's right. "Boo."
April says her so spilled more words in that one minute than he had in his entire lifetime. Most of them about Boo.
Boo is a dog. That day in December, and twice a month, Weiser brought in the Delta Therapy dog. Boo did a few tricks, got a few pets, and stayed for story time.
By adult standards, it really wasn't anything worth running home about.
But in the mind of a first grader.
"There was something about this dog that got him to open up," his mom said.
Since then, April says, he's hardly shut up. Which is fine by her.
In a home video, Marc says, "I love you."
"I love you, too," April says.
Because no one knows why Marc wasn't talking in the first place, it's hard to say for sure why he's starting to now.
In fact, some experts have questioned how a dog possibly could work such magic - to which folks here reply that those experts … don't know Boo.
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