Since June 2006, Puppies Behind Bars has been training inmates, at three of the facilities that we operate in, to raise potential service dogs for children and adults with disabilities. Since then, we have produced 3 working service dogs, have 4 in formal training, and have 40 others in training within our facilities.

Working closely with two major service dog schools, we have been able to successfully learn the service dog training, teach it to the inmates, who teach it to their puppies, who ultimately go on to serve a disabled person. The pups, who learn 82 commands while being raised in prison, can turn on and off lights, pick items up off of the ground and give them to a person, pull laundry baskets full of clothes to washing machines, retrieve a telephone receiver, hold open doors for someone in a wheelchair to pass through, and stretch its body to get an out-of-reach item for its companion.

The pups that we raise will go on to assist a wide variety of people with a variety of different disabilities. One of our service dogs was placed with a 7 year old boy with autism. Another has been placed with a 17 year old with multiple sclerosis and the last was paired with an adult female suffering from bipolar disorder. These wonderful puppies are being trained to meet specific needs for specific individuals.

Puppies Behind Bars has always tried to raise the type of working dogs most needed by society. Our latest initiative, "Dog Tags: Service Dogs for Those Who've Served Us" allows us to meet society's latest demand. There are many veterans from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq returning home wounded, both physically and emotionally, and in need of a service dog. Each year Puppies Behind Bars will donate ten service dogs to ten returning soldiers who need them. Puppies Behind Bars is giving the dogs to the vets completely free of charge and is also paying 100% of the costs of getting the veteran and a family member to the service dog school for two weeks of training to learn how to work together as a team. In addition, we are picking up the $3,000-$6,500 fee that the service dog schools normally charge. We feel this is the least we can do for all these veterans have done for us.

As our service dogs go into the world and improve the quality of life for so many people, the inmates continue to learn what it means to give of one's self and to contribute to society rather than take from it.