Photograph by Whitney Curtis
"Jazzy would be a good dog for a family,” the teenager says, standing inside the gym at a medium-security youth center in North County. He and a friend have been training the German shepherd/Lab mix for nine weeks through the Loosen the Leash program, which brings together adopted dogs and incarcerated teens. Jazzy and several other dogs have been living at the prison, but after the test, their new adoptive families will take them home. “Jazzy was a little hard to train,” the teen admits. “When we first got her, she wouldn’t even sit. So it’s, like, patience—you keep on working with her, and she’ll eventually get it.”
“This program is all about being successful,” explains Cindy Vickers, founder and executive director of Loosen the Leash. “It’s about sticking with something. Ninety percent of the kids want to quit because they just feel frustrated and they don’t feel like they’re going to be able to do it. Our motto is ‘Don’t quit.’”
Vickers started the program in 2007, after hearing about the Prison Pet Partnership Program in Washington. “I just thought, ‘That’s so smart,’” says Vickers, who’s been training dogs for 20 years. So she began a similar program at the maximum-security Hogan Street Regional Youth Center with dogs from Hope Animal Rescues that were about to be put to sleep.
Vickers remembers an abused boy who lived at Hogan asking daily when he could be in the pet program. “I just want to know what it would be like to be nice to somebody and have them be nice back,” she recalls the boy saying.
Many of the dogs want to know what that’s like as well. Madeline, a golden retriever, was tossed aside by her owners when they decided they’d rather have a puppy.
“It’s such an obvious comparison,” Vickers says. “Those dogs needed somebody to take care of them and teach them. You can’t give up, and with everybody here, there’s a lot of giving up.” Vickers, along with trainers Nicole Wiethop and Amy Mitchell, is taking the program into phase two and setting up a grooming school in partnership with Kennelwood Pet Resorts. The goal is to “take care of them and teach them,” says Vickers, “until they’re ready to do it for themselves.”
Call 314-323-2004 or visit loosentheleash.com for more information about the program.
