Unwanted dogs, prisoners and
disabled people may not on the face of it appear to have a
great deal in common but they are all living creatures facing
problems of communication and, particularly for the first two
categories, rejection. For the dog the best it can hope for is
a short-lived life scavenging for itself and then either
starvation, a road accident or being beaten to death is all
too often the norm. Even those who are taken into care by
charitable or governmental agencies can very often find
themselves subjected to euthanasia if a permanent home with a
dog loving family cannot be found for them. Prisoners are
denied, in most cases, normal communication with other human
beings and it has been common throughout the history of
incarceration for them to make friends with the most unlikely
of pets; indeed during the early days of the 'silent system'
in British jails it was not unheard-of for lonely inmates to
adopt even flies and crawling insects, rats and mice were seen
as a welcome break from a never ending monotony and we are all
familiar with the story of the Bird man of Alcatraz.
A
particular problem that many disabled people have is that they
feel isolated from the world in general; unless they are
fortunate enough to have friends or family to visit them
regularly they can find themselves trapped within four walls
with little chance of getting out and mixing with people.
Being cut off from not only normal social contacts but also
from work opportunities with no immediate future prospects of
a relief from the monotony of day-to-day life it is little
surprise that many disabled people sink into depression.
So here we have dogs which seemingly have no purpose in
life; prisoners who would welcome not only a pet to lavish
attention upon but also a chance to do something useful for
society and perhaps pick up job skills, and disabled people to
whom a trained dog could be a godsend; and you have the Second
Chance Prison Canine Programme. Unwanted dogs are taken from
what is probably canine death row and taught useful skills
which would make them not only helpful companions to people in
need but which could also make them capable of security work
such as sniffing out drugs, weapons, bombs etc at airports or
other potential terrorist targets; and even those that were
unsuitable for this type of training would benefit from the
human contact which would make them far more suitable for a
future life as a domestic pet.
The programme was first dreamt of by Sister Pauline Quinn
as far back as 1981 and although it has met with a mixed reception
from prison authorities a number of correctional Institutes
have given the idea a try and there are more considering it in
the future. Dogs are now being trained in prisons in not only
more than 20 states in the USA but also in numerous countries
worldwide.
