Stray dogs find home in women’s big house

POCATELLO, Idaho – The Pocatello Women’s Correctional Center is trying out a new program by bringing in stray dogs that officials hope will give inmates something to love and nurture while teaching them responsibility.

“It brings love into an environment where good things are hard to come by,” inmate Erin Magill told the Idaho State Journal.

Magill met a shepherd-chow mix named Heidi for the first time Thursday. Heidi was found running at large and malnourished. She was taken care of by Bannock County Animal Shelter Director Mary Remer, who then turned her over to the care of the inmates.

Beth Cronin, a treatment specialist at the correctional center, spent 11 years lobbying prison officials to get the program.

She said it’s modeled after a program at a private prison in Boise’s Idaho Correctional Center. Eventually, Warden Brian Underwood hopes to expand the program to include six prison dogs, possibly in higher security areas of the prison.

Nationally, 67 other prisons allow dogs inside.

At the Pocatello center, the dogs will be with the inmates for two months before being adopted by people in the outside world.

Heidi and eight women share a cell built to hold four inmates within the community custody wing.

Although the canine presence will make quarters even more cramped, there’s a waiting list at the correctional center for that cell with eight adult beds and one dog-sized bed.

Heidi’s is a crate fitted with a small mattress.

Inmates in the community custody wing are allowed to leave the prison for work and other functions in preparation for returning to the outside world.

Once each week, Magill and fellow inmate Kim Jennings will take Heidi to obedience training at K-5 Kennels in Pocatello.

She’ll be taught social manners, and basic commands such as sit, stay, heel and come to make her socially acceptable, said Karen Collins, owner of K-5 Kennels.

Inmates will be selected to work as dog trainers and will be paid $60 a month for their work.

When prison dogs graduate from the program and are put up for adoption, new dogs will be brought in, Cronin said.

The Bannock County Humane Society will handle adoptions of all prison dogs, and new owners will be required to continue working with them in obedience school.

Petco, the Animal Planet network and the Idaho National Laboratory donated funds and supplies for the program.