TUCSON, Ariz. (KGUN) — Jenna Bryant might be a wildcat, but she's a dog person. She's graduating from the University of Arizona, already on a path to changing the world, four paws at a time.
Graduating with a 4.0, with a major in psychology and a minor in criminology, she has had a special companion for her senior year -- a canine companion. She is training Jelly (or Jelly IV as she is officially known) to someday be a service dog.
"So what we do in the puppy raising phase is we just train them to do a lot of basic obedience commands, to get them really ready for professional training, where they decide what they're going to task train them for," Bryant explained. But that's downplaying her commitment. As a full time student, graduating in just three years, she spends a colossal amount of time on this particular extracurricular.
"I spend at least a couple hours every week at actual training classes, whether it's at the prison where I'm co-raising her, or community classes. And then I also just schedule out several hours every day to just directly work on training," she explained. "I wake up earlier than a typical college student would every morning to make sure I can get her outside and just get her day started. And then I also get to take her to classes with me."
Bryant is now a founding executive member and the president of the U of A's Collar Scholars Club, which is the Arizona branch of the national organization, Canine Companions. At the U of A, students in the club train dogs in collaboration with inmates at FCC, the minimum security prison camp in Tucson.
Jenna got Jelly as a puppy in April of last year, and now Jelly is graduating too, with a world of possibilities in front of her.
"Canine Companions has several different service dog routes she could take, so she could end up being a hearing dog, she could be a service dog with a facilitator, so working with a kid or an individual with needs that someone else would need to handle the dog for them. She could be a PTSD service dog for a veteran, she could be a mobility dog," Bryant explained.
Their training is part of a bigger research project that Jenna's honors thesis is part of in the BRAY Lab at Arizona, looking at how different environments impact the success of future service dogs. Their achievements together, are proof of their results.
"What we were actually able to find was that college dogs do have a significantly higher predicted probability of success compared to community raised dogs. So it really showed that what I'm doing here matters," Bryant said with a smile.
Raising Jelly almost 50-50 with inmates at the prison camp, it's connecting her love of dogs to where her next steps will take her, pursuing a master's degree in forensic psychology at the University of Denver.
"My hope is to, after all of that, work as a clinician with people who are incarcerated or involved in the system in some way, which has also been why getting to work face to face with inmates has been so beneficial to me, because I'm really learning a lot about what I want to do later," Bryant said.
The common thread of her work is changing lives, whether it's the 87 dogs she has fostered through her hometown rescues in Colorado, her work with Jelly to become someone's lifeline, or the inmates she'll be helping along the way.
"It's been a lot of work," Bryant said. "I think it's been something that's super rewarding. It obviously took up a lot of my time, but it's really made a difference on my experience as a student too, especially raising a dog. Having a dog to bring to lectures with me, I've met a lot of new people just talking about Jelly, so it's just been incredible. And it also makes it feel like I really was doing something worthwhile while earning my degree."
When Bryant leaves Tucson to go home after graduation, she'll have to hand over Jelly, who will eventually go on to find her future owner through Canine Companions. She says it'll be hard to leave the sweet dog she's been working so closely with over the last year, but she's confident Jelly will succeed and thrive as a service dog.
Claire Graham is an anchor and reporter for Good Morning Tucson on KGUN 9. She grew up in Tucson and graduated from the University of Arizona with a degree in musical theatre. Claire spent a decade in Washington state, but she's thrilled to be back home in the beautiful southwest with her husband, two young sons and two rescued dogs. Share your story ideas and important issues with Claire by emailing claire.graham@kgun9.com or by connecting on Facebook and X.
