FORT GRANT, Ariz. (KGUN) — Fort Grant is the first state prison to partner with Soldiers Best Friend, allowing inmates to help veterans in Arizona.
The nonprofit connects veterans with service dogs. Leslie Bryant, prison program director for Soldiers Best Friend, selects dogs from local animal shelters that she believes have the potential and personality to be service dogs and trains them. The program with Fort Grant State Prison allows the dogs to stay with the handler for training, while Bryan visits weekly to work with the 12 inmates in the program and the seven dogs.
“This is helping us to be able to help more dogs and go forward and help more veterans,” Bryant said
She says the participants are selected following a rigorous interview process, which includes seeing how the inmate works with others and with a dog. Inmates then go through a 6-week dog trainer course to learn basic obedience skills and how to handle a dog. Kevin Taylor is one of the incarcerated dog handlers.
“A lot of people come to prison and they just keep doing the same thing, or they don't have support, or don't have anything to really look forward to, and this gives us purpose," he said. "(The dogs are) with us 24/7.”
Taylor, a veteran himself, says he knows firsthand how a service dog can change a life.
“I was on all kinds of different medications for years, for my PTSD, for my nightmares, for my sleep, for everything, and a service dog was the best medication I've ever gotten," he said. "You can't prescribe anything better than that."
He’s been working with a dog named Ramon, who lived on the streets in Douglas for a year before being turned into the Douglas Animal Shelter. On Wednesday, Ramon left the prison to unite with his new owner in Phoenix.
“(Ramon's) going to a Vietnam Veteran with major PTSD and has a hard time doing anything, and what he does for me, I know he's going to be tenfold with somebody that he's going to stay with,” Taylor said.
The dogs stay with their handler for 12 weeks at a time. Bryant says the layout and the minimum security environment allows the dogs to get "lifestyle experience" while also being in a contained environment.
“It's doing something bigger than just being in prison," Taylor said. "We're making a difference in veterans' lives, and everybody loves helping veterans.
"I think it helps overall with us, with not just dog training, but with our lives in general.”
Bryant says, although the dogs will leave the prison, she sees the impact they have on the inmate handler.
“I think it's given them a little bit of hope for when they get out of here that maybe if I didn't have a skill before I left here, I have this.”
Fort Grant is the pilot program for Soldiers Best Friend in prisons. Bryant says they’re working to expand the program to other prisons, the next being in Phoenix.
