6 top questions for Prison Puppy Programs
A program to train puppies for vets and people with disabilities, and a way to reduce recidivism for inmates
If you left it up to Gillie Da King, Wallo 267 (who served 20 years in prison for armed robbery) participated in every possible prison program. On each episode of “Million Dollaz Worth of Game” podcast, Gillie makes up some new prison program that his cousin Wallo was running.
True to form, in an interview with Big Boi (one-half of Outkast) and singer Sleepy Brown, Gillie cracked a joke (at the 48-minute mark) about Wallo being in the Prison Puppy Program. I laughed along with Big Boi before the Atlanta rapper confirmed he knew that this was a real program. This was news to me.
I was really interested in finding out whether these puppies are stuck in a small cell with nothing to do but tricks. To be honest, I was sympathizing for the prisoners too. I distinctly remember what it was like to be around Junee when she came home with me at 3 months old. Those first-year Zoomies almost made me walk out of my own front door and let her have my condo and the mortgage too!
One of my Upwork clients talked me out of packing my bags before this dog made me pull out all my hair, and I thank her for it on occasion years later. The puppy year and the “teenage” year are a lot. In all fairness, Junee was fairly easy to train. If carrot sticks or meat jerky was involved, she was ready to do whatever I asked — besides stop those Zoomies.
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These prison puppy training programs are fascinating to me, not just to see how they execute training techniques for dogs but also the way the men’s eyes light up at the sight of these puppies in their crates, just waiting to play.