Pet Therapy Helps Inmates Relate to People

They were so disgustingly well-behaved, these three German shepherds. Candy and Tippy, both 1, and Emily, 3, were in the visitors room at the California Institution for Women at Frontera. The room had filled with chattering people, yet the dogs were doing exactly what they had been told to do--lying at their trainers’ feet, their faces happy as they looked around at all the commotion.

Even when Ralph, a Maltese, skirted under some chairs to visit them, the shepherds remained silent and unmoving.

Graduation Day

It was graduation day. Six women inmates had completed a 16-week state-accredited vocational rehabilitation course in dog training, a pilot program at the prison instituted by HEALO, the nonprofit arm of the National Institute of Dog Training (NIDT) and its School for Dog Trainers in Monterey Park. Only four of the graduates were there this recent day, however: One had been released several weeks earlier and the other was on work furlough--working at the Monterey Park headquarters of NIDT. Like all graduation ceremonies, this one was emotional. Not so much for the prison officials, but unabashedly so for the inmates and the HEALO crowd.

After all, NIDT president Matthew Margolis and its executive director, Dana McRitchie, both instructors, had been bringing the dogs up to Frontera every Tuesday and Thursday morning for so long that, well, life was going to seem kind of empty now. They would miss each other, everyone agreed.

MacLaren Pilot Program

Then there was the HEALO (Human-Environment-Animal-Love Organization) itself, which, besides the prison project, also had a pilot program under way at MacLaren Hall in El Monte, the county’s sole facility for abused and neglected children.

As valedictorian of the Frontera class, Melissa McGinnis, 24, had given the matter some thought. Yes, the first goal of the program was vocational training and all of the graduates were talking of working in the dog industry, even over the other courses they’d taken in prison. But there was more to it than that, she said in her speech.

“In learning to relate to the dogs,” said McGinnis, who was convicted on charges related to running an escort service, “we have learned to relate to people, authorities and children on a new level.”

Later, after she, Diane Ellison and Rosalinda (Rico) Soto had taken the dogs through a demonstration of on-leash and off-leash exercises, McGinnis would have more to say.

“Working with dogs made the adjustment to prison easier. Even though I’ve gone through several courses here, I see no rehabilitation. It’s good stuff, but it’s all ‘by the rules.’

“Rehabilitation has got to be arranged by yourself--for yourself. Some people find religion. This,” she said, looking to Tippy at her feet, “is my way.”

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NIDT founder and president Matthew Margolis comes on like the guru of dog training. He’s not like England’s Barbara Woodhouse, all tweedy, folksy and seemingly more fond of dogs than people. True, Margolis said, Woodhouse has done great things for the dog training industry. “But she’s into reprimanding people in class.” He shrugged. She just isn’t his style.

Margolis, 43, slick, slim and Italian-suited, has described his method in five books and countless talk shows. His clientele, as listed on the brochure, includes Victoria Principal, Kenny Rogers, Glenn Ford, Richard Pryor, to drop just a few names--people willing to pay $475 for basic obedience instruction (either in their home or by leaving their dog at the Monterey Park kennel for three to eight weeks) and as much as $12,000 for “Buddydog” personal protection training.

As for statistics, try 20,000 dogs trained since he founded NIDT in New York City in 1968. (Drawn by the weather here, Margolis moved the institute to Southern California in 1976.) Almost 40 trainers have graduated from the Dog Training School, which was added in early 1983.

The Matthew Margolis method? “Basically,” he said, sitting in his wood-paneled office at the front of the institute’s 26,000-square-foot grounds. “it’s ‘Love, Praise, Affection Training.’ I train from the dog’s point of view. As with children, all dogs are different. You need to know where they’re from, how they’ve been raised so far, their background. Then the personality test . . . how the dog responds to your voice, sounds, like if you drop your keys . . . and you go from there.

“Obedience is not as important as to get a bond. Then with a bond, you can train the dog to obey. Other dog trainers just go for the obedience. That’s like treating the symptom but not the problem. I believe in getting the dog to like and trust you first.”

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“I was surprised at how important the class became to all of us,” Karen Bradley was saying as she sat in one of the institute’s empty offices. On work furlough, she’d had to miss the Frontera graduation ceremonies.

But here she is, a former heroin addict convicted of forgery who all her life had been terrified of dogs, and now she’s working at the National Institute of Dog Training, hoping to become a dog trainer.

“When I took the class,” she said, “I had no intention of a career move. But I had this tremendous fear of dogs. I’d never owned one, never liked them. So when I heard about the class I thought it might help me overcome my fear, plus I wanted to use my free time.”

Bradley, 31, who’d been a word processor specializing in corporate law before her conviction, turned down a job in a law firm for NIDT. Not only was the law firm offering more money, but it was more convenient. As part of the work furlough re-entry program, she must live in a halfway house in Watts, which means being at her bus stop by 5:30 every morning for a 2-hour trip to Monterey Park.

“But in my situation, I decided I needed a good support system and I really get that here. And the career potential is far greater, I decided. Besides, just in terms of personal growth, I decided that this was what made me happy.”

It was the bonding that did it, Bradley said. She was working with the shepherd named Tippy “and as time went on, we just got closer. Halfway through the course, I said this is it.”

Rico Soto, 36, also talked about the bonding. Soto, whose looks and manner are much like the waitress Carla on TV’s “Cheers,” grew up around dogs in Long Beach, had done a solo bit during the graduation, taking Candy through a series of off-leash exercises. Now, Soto, who’s serving two years on drug-related charges, reached down to tickle Candy’s ear.

“It’s the physical contact,” she said. “Prisoners aren’t allowed any sort of physical contact with each other. But on Tuesday and Thursday I could go out and hug Candy, tell her anything. I used some words I haven’t used in so long.

“Words like I love you. But I do with Candy.”

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HEALO and what happened at Frontera actually came about because of Bill Balaban. Both a friend and Margolis client, he’s involved with the Delta Society, a group that promotes the “human animal bond system.” He saw a similar program in dog training at the Purdy Treatment Facility in Gig Harbor, Wash., also a women’s prison, and was so impressed that he suggested it to Margolis. Margolis visited the Washington facility, which was then one of four prisons nationwide to have dog-human therapy and, sharing Balaban’s enthusiasm, approached CIW.

As for HEALO, “I wanted to do this project as a nonprofit entity. After all, I certainly wasn’t going to make any money with these classes, and with a nonprofit corporation I could do some fund raising and fund the classes myself. That way too, people wouldn’t be saying, ‘What’s Margolis getting out of this?’ ”

And what is Margolis getting out of this? “Aw, there is just a point when you have to put back into the pot. Without trying to sound heroic and wonderful, I just really felt good from all the emotions that were expressed, like at the graduation. The girls in prison really need a chance and this gives it to them.

‘It’s Love, Love, Love’

“Then there are these kids at MacLaren Hall . . . maybe some of them will grow up to be dog trainers. But the big thing is you get them with the animals and it’s love, love, love.

“You’d have to have no compassion not to be touched by it.”

The CIW bureaucracy didn’t just leap at Margolis’ proposal, even though it was being offered at no cost. There was, after all, nothing like it in any other California prison and, said Phil DeLao, the prison’s supervisor of vocational instruction, “when you’re dealing with security, you have to be cautious.”

At the graduation ceremonies, however, DeLao was guardedly impressed. There had been no problems with the dog training program, he said, though whether this would become a permanent addition to the institution’s vocational instruction “depends on their proposal.”

HEALO is moving slowly with this, said Margolis, waiting--at the suggestion of the CIW staff--for the settling in of a new Department of Corrections administration before making a presentation.

Less Concern With Security

The situation at MacLaren Hall is different. Not only because there’s less bureaucracy and less concern about security but because, as HEALO’s McRitchie discovered, working with youngsters is so different.

Initially, said McRitchie, HEALO’s pilot program here was the same format as the one at Frontera. “But, what with the kids’ shorter attention span and their emotional problems, it was a lot looser.”

There was also a problem of continuity. Of the 16 teen-agers who originally started the program, many were moved out to residential placements while the classes were under way. “That’s what you wanted for the kids, of course, but still you couldn’t be sure who would be there from week to week.”

“Nevertheless, the kids definitely learned to train dogs,” McRitchie said, “just not to the degree to be certified.”

For the MacLaren Hall class, Margolis and McRitchie brought an Akita named Mija, a Doberman-shepherd mix named Mike, and Kelly, a German shepherd. In addition, Margolis’ own dogs, Emily the German shepherd and Ralph the Maltese occasionally came around. A few extra dogs on the scene, after all, just made for more hugging and loving.

Learning to Love, Trust

And that, McRitchie and Margolis decided, was the most important thing. “We were initially talking vocational training, but as the program evolved,” McRitchie said, “it was more of an exposure, pet therapy. The kids learned to love and trust the dogs, which in turn could be transferred to adults.”

That was enough, said MacLaren Hall duty manager Rex White. He liked what he saw. “They were working with many of our most difficult kids and two of them stayed with them the entire time, even coming back Saturdays after they were placed. I’m all for the program. I think it really benefited the kids to be around them. It’s good for them to be able to relate to dogs.”

There’s no second class in the works yet. Instead, HEALO is planning a pet fair on the facility grounds during the first week of May.

Plus, Margolis has been doing a lot of speaking about the HEALO approach and the response has been great, he declared. Just the other day, for instance, he heard from a woman who runs an outpatient program for problem children and wants to use her two dogs in therapy.

“People don’t realize the extent animals can be used. Look at seeing eye dogs or hearing aid dogs. That’s the ultimate. But animals can bridge a child’s frustrations and fears of adults. Through HEALO, I can help her to bridge that gap.”