Sister Pauline Quinn says it was a German shepherd who saved her life.
After running away from an abusive home and being shuffled between different institutions throughout her adolescence, Quinn was released onto the streets at age 18.
“Where do I go? What do I do?” she remembers. “I lived in abandoned buildings. Slept in doorways, on a bench.”
Living on the streets made her even more vulnerable to abuse, Quinn says. “I was taken advantage of by people in authority, such as the police.”
Quinn would visit dogs in kennels as a way to cope with her mistreatment. When she eventually adopted a German shepherd named Joni, everything began to turn around.
“That became the start of a different life because I learned I had power within me at that time. She gave me the power,” Quinn says. People started treating her differently, staying away as she walked down the street with a big dog by her side. “I liked the feeling so much I got another dog. I knew that they would protect me, which people did not do for me.”
With the confidence Joni gave her, Quinn started thinking about how she could use dogs to help other people who were suffering. She couldn’t afford to take her own dogs to dog-training classes, but trainers allowed her to sit in on their classes and observe what they were doing. In 1981, after years of self study, she teamed up with Leo K. Bustad, the dean of Washington State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine, to launch the first-ever Prison Pet Partnership.
The program operated out of the Washington Corrections Center for Women (WCCW) and paired previously homeless dogs with inmates who trained them as service animals to help veterans and others suffering from trauma.
“I wanted the inmates to learn how to become others-centered, using the dog as a tool for change, but also for them to learn a skill that they can use when they get out, like dog training,” Quinn says.
After a three-month trial that showed the model could work, WCCW implemented the pet partnership as a permanent program — and similar programs began sprouting up throughout the country. Today there are over 200 prison dog programs in the U.S., as well as a handful in foreign countries.
Different programs have different objectives and funding sources, and there has yet to be a comprehensive study on the programs’ efficacy. But there are plenty of anecdotal reports on programs successfully reducing recidivism, improving inmate self-esteem and reducing conflicts within the prisons.
Inmates themselves report feeling empowered by their work with the dogs. “I thought that if I could do something to make someone’s life better, maybe it would help balance the scales a little bit,” says writer Charles Huckelbury, who served 38 years for homicide. “It gave me a good feeling knowing that I was helping somebody instead of hurting people.”
And Dunasha Payne, an inmate at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility, tells NationSwell through tears that the dogs are a key way of coping with life behind bars. “They make you feel like you’re worth something, and they make you wake up every day, that you have a purpose in life and that you’re not just a prisoner.”
Watch the video above to learn more about Quinn and her work to bring about healing through the power of human-animal connections.
More: These Dogs Are Giving Inmates a Paws-itive Path Forward
Tag: therapy dog
Emotional Support Animals Are Not Service Animals. Here’s Why It Matters
It’s Monday in the office, and I’m on a mission to see if the mouse that continues to eat its way through my pantry can be registered as an emotional support animal. After all, it has been more effective in cutting carbs from my diet than weekly therapy.
Within five minutes of searching online, I found that if I paid $164 to one company, it would provide me with a “disability assessment and treatment recommendation letter.” This letter would allow me to position the mouse — yes, my pest — as an emotional support animal. For another $75, I could get a letter that would make it possible for me to take the tiny rodent with me on a plane for a year, no questions asked.
It’s schemes like these, along with a number of viral-worthy posts claiming peacocks and iguanas as emotional support animals, that have made the use of emotional support animals (ESAs), well, eyebrow-raising.
As a result, people who game the system to get free flights for their pets are being scrutinized more frequently — and that’s not good news for those with actual disabilities.
“I had to fight for my right to have my ESA everywhere I applied for housing. It was extremely difficult dealing with housing managers who simply had been scammed so many times,” Karen Ann Young, a blind woman with PTSD who has been using a seeing eye dog along with her ESA for 33 years, tells NationSwell. “It took so long to find an apartment [because] landlords have been overrun with tenants claiming their pets are emotional support animals.”
Here are a few things you need to know about service animals, the controversy surrounding ESAs, and what’s being done to stem the rising tide of fraudulent support and service animals.
What is an ESA?
In order for an animal to be considered “of service,” the Americans with Disabilities Act requires the animal to be trained to provide a specific task — seeing eye dogs, for example.
By law, most public places are required to allow service animals. Shop owners are allowed to ask someone using a service animal two questions: “Is the animal required because of a disability?” and “What has the animal been trained to do?”
It’s a completely different set of requirements, though, for ESAs, which are regulated under the Fair Housing Act and Air Carrier Access Act. Typically, you must have a legitimate mental diagnosis and an ESA deemed necessary by a licensed psychotherapist, before your pet can fly for free (and not in the cargo hold).
But those seemingly legitimate rules have created a cottage industry for online certifications, bogus treatment letters and even online shops via Amazon that sell support animal gear.
As a result, pigs can fly. And that’s a growing problem.
How ESAs turned airline travel into a nuisance
In January this year, Dexter the peacock made its owner famous after she was denied entry to her flight from Newark to Los Angeles when she claimed the bird was an ESA. And earlier this month, Southwest Airlines announced they would start allowing miniature horses on planes. (Miniature horses are recognized as service animals under the ADA.)
But many are saying “neigh” to the idea of expanding the definition of support in this context, partially because it’s feared that the ESA trend is getting out of control.
It’s difficult to know how many ESAs there are in the nation — there is no central database or oversight in terms of how such animals are registered — but airlines track the number of support animals they fly every year, which gives us some idea. Delta Airlines found that since 2015, it has flown over 250,000 service and support animals — an increase of 150 percent.
Another study found that registration for assistance dogs in California increased by 1,000 percent between 2002 and 2012. And that number is likely to rise, as Americans age and start requiring more canine support.
“It is likely we will see more dramatic increases in the number of adults with a disability as the baby boomer population [ages] over the next 20 years,” Chad Helmick with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told Anything Pawsible, a trade publication covering service animals.
Are ESAs effective?
One in five Americans deal with mental illness in a given year, and given the massive media pick up on animals helping us deal with trauma or stress, you’d think that a small furry creature — such as a hungry mouse — could represent cheap and easy therapy.
Not so much, it seems.
The science is still out on ESAs being truly effective for treating those with trauma, depression or anxiety.
Dogs, for example, have been found to help veterans with PTSD. Adopting furry animals has shown to help reduce stockbrokers’ blood pressure, and a review published this past February found that pets did, indeed, help those with mental health conditions.
But almost all of the studies that demonstrate the efficacy of pet therapy also come with a big caveat: there needs to be more research on the subject. Moreover, there is nothing conclusive to show that animals actually help more than just being cute, cuddly and generally happiness inducing.
“Despite media headlines extolling the curative powers of dolphins, dogs, horses and Guinea pigs, there is little evidence of the long-term effectiveness of emotional support animals for the treatment of mental problems,” writes Hal Herzog, a psychologist who analyzes relationships between humans and animals, for Psychology Today. “Indeed, it is possible that they can sometimes have an enabling function which actually prolongs an individual’s psychological issues.”
Airlines and states are fighting back
Because airlines are on the front lines of the ESA debate, private companies like Delta Airlines and JetBlue have created higher standards for flying with animals, such as providing proof of need through a therapist’s note and giving 48 hours notice to review animals being taken on board.
The change in policy — outside the dramatic increase in ESAs being used in travel — was implemented because of “incidents involving emotional support animals that haven’t been adequately trained to behave in a busy airport or the confined space of an aircraft,” reads JetBlue’s policy.
But states have also taken action in order to curb the trend.
Last year, the state of Washington passed a law that makes misrepresenting a pet as a service animal a civil infraction with a $500 fine. A similar law was passed in Arizona this year that also fines fraudulent service animals’ owners.
But such laws can create problems for people who rely on legitimate service animals. Some argue that the new legislation doesn’t adequately address poorly behaved non-disabled people and their pets, but rather opens up harassment for people who actually depend on their animals to help them lead normal lives.
Perhaps a better solution is one that is less punitive than regulatory, like a nationally recognized identification system, where both dogs and trainers must pass testing and be recertified every few years — something not currently mandated under the ADA.
And though I might want to justify my use of an ESA mouse to cut back on my intake of Wonder Bread, I think it’s likely best to just stick with traditional diet and exercise.
These Blind, Deaf Therapy Dogs Show Special Needs Children That Anything Is Possible
It was Serendipity that inspired animal behaviorist Erika Proctor to focus her life’s work on dogs with special needs. Seven years ago, Proctor watched as a small ball of white fluff was tossed from a truck window, landing on a nearby driveway. When she walked over to see what it was, she was amazed to find a beautiful, white Great Dane puppy. “She was as white as falling snow, and as soft as silk, but she was unresponsive to sound, and had what looked to be permanently squinted eyes,” Proctor told The Huffington Post. A veterinarian advised Proctor to euthanize the animal, saying that she couldn’t live a full life and might become vicious due to her disabilities. But Proctor wasn’t about to give up on the puppy, which she named Serendipity. “This most perfect, most pure white creature was just an impressionable infant, who could learn and flourish like any other pup with the proper care and guidance,” she said.
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After successfully training Serendipity to become a therapy dog — and seeing the extraordinary effect she has on everyone she meets — Proctor realized that there are many other special needs dogs that also deserve a chance at life. So she started Green Dogs Unleashed, a tax-exempt, volunteer-run nonprofit in Troy, Virginia, dedicated to saving, rehabilitating and finding homes for these animals. Since the rescue’s inception in 2013, the group has placed around 200 dogs — some with disabilities and some without — with the goal of training them to become therapy dogs. “These are mostly animals which communities around the country have thrown away like garbage. The majority are shelter dogs, that would otherwise be deemed unadoptable and euthanized,” Proctor said. “We rescue these precious creatures from shelters, rehabilitate and train them, using their special needs as a gift, not a burden.”
MORE: How a Veteran Military Dog Inspired a Movement to Save Animals in Need
The training is quite intensive. Dogs have to successfully complete basic obedience training before going through an additional six- to eight-week program to become a therapy dog. If the dog passes their evaluation, they become part of the therapy team, visiting seniors in assisted living communities and children in schools for students with special needs. Currently, 22 dogs are in the therapy program. “The kids just light up,” Proctor told local TV station CBS19. “They see that the dog is able to overcome what’s different about them and it makes them no less of a dog and they’re able to connect with them on that level.”
To help Proctor and the other volunteers in their mission to rescue and train special needs animals, visit Green Dogs Unleashed’s GoFundMe page. Funds will be used to pay veterinary bills and assist with transportation costs of saving dogs from across the U.S. If that doesn’t sway you, just take a look at these adorable photos of the dogs they’re trying to place in permanent homes.
ALSO: A Dog Trained by a Prisoner Helps an Autistic Boy Learn How to Hug His Mom Again