Female prisoners training service dogs for veterans

Courtesy of Huffington Post

Female inmates in Utah are getting a chance to give back to the community. Dogs from local shelters are being brought in and trained by the inmates to become future service dogs. By training shelter dogs to become service dogs, there is a  win-win-win situation that helps everybody involved. Shelter dogs are released from their death sentence, inmates gain the companionship of dogs and the feeling of accomplishment that follows after doing something good for someone else, and war veterans get a fully trained service dog to help them cope.

It takes up to 9 months and $15,000 to adequately train a service dog for soldiers with PTSD and other psychological and physical ailments. It is estimated that 1 in 4 dogs will pass the service dog training, but don’t worry, the dogs that don’t pass are adopted by loving families.

Canines with a Cause is a non profit organization that pairs psychiatric service dogs with Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans.