The Rescued Program is 12 weeks in length and comprises eight to 10 detainees working with six to eight dogs selected by two shelter partners © Lisa Waggoner
Our dog training company, Cold Nose College, has been teaching a dog training program at the Georgia Department of Corrections Colwell Probation Detention Center, a minimum-security, short-term sentencing facility housing probation and parole violators in Blairsville, Georgia, since July of 2012. The superintendent of the facility, Diane Hassett, had already partnered with a local rescue group and worked through almost all the red tape for the program’s approval. All that was left was selecting a dog trainer.
I was sitting at my desk one day writing a training report for a client when the phone rang. I anticipated a client on the other end of the line, so imagine my surprise when it was the head of the local rescue group asking if we’d consider being the dog trainers for a new program focused on the rehabilitation of incarcerated men through the training of rescue dogs who would live in the facility.
(Issue 50, September 2021, pp.14-22). Read article