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Second Chance Dog Training Program Teaches Young Inmates New Skills

Four-legged friends are teaching young inmates at the Miami-Dade Corrections and Rehabilitation Department (MDCR)  self-awareness and a new skill.

Second Chance Dog Training Program encourages qualifying cadets of the MDCR Boot Camp to pursue careers in animal services after their release by pairing them with dogs from Miami-Dade County Animal Services.  

Credit Adrianne Gonzalez / WLRN News
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WLRN News
This dog graduated from the Second Chance Dog Training Program and has since been adopted.

The cadets -inmates between 14 and 24 years old - receive the shelter dogs with no initial behavioral training. By the end, they learn that dog training reflects how they themselves are changing. They learn to work with patience and softer demeanors.

“Discipline, routine, a reward based system, they get praised for their good behavior in boot camp. They get to take those skills and then apply them to their dogs,” said Dee Hoult, a veteran dog trainer who visits the MDCRC once a week to meet with participating cadets enrolled in the program and help them train shelter dogs basic behavioral skills.   

“A lot of these kids, if they had dogs their experience training those animals were probably more coercion-based or dominance based, and to learn a way that’s a lot gentler, that’s a skill they’ve learned to embrace by the time they are done with the training,” said Hoult, who has been training inmates within the Florida Correctional System in 2009.

Daniel Junior, Interim Director at MDCRC, says Second Chance Dog Training is an incentive program. Cadets have to exhibit good behavior and can't have infractions while in the prison.

Credit Adrianne Gonzalez / WLRN News
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WLRN News
Cadet Christopher Bailey says he enjoys the time he spends with the dogs

“We don’t want to put anyone with the animal that might want to hurt the animal, and we do the same with animal services to make sure the animals are properly screened and are not aggressive. We don’t want to bring any harm to the cadets," said Junior.

The number of dogs available for training determines the number of cadets in the program.

Christopher Bailey, an inmate enrolled in the program, plans to pursue a career in the animal care field. Unlike other cadets, he had never had a pet but says the future will be different. He says this program changed is humbling. 

“Training with the dogs, I felt like this is for me. So that’s what I want to do when I get out. Training animals or working at an animal shelter. Anything I can do with animals, I am willing to do it,” said Bailey.

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