Rehabilitation

I believe in rehabilitation for both dogs and people. I don’t want to get in to a discussion about the purpose of prisons or whether or not we should try to rehabilitate all people, but if we want to be able to release people from jail and have them function in regular society again, we have to make an attempt at rehabilitation.
For that reason, I am firmly in support of animal training programs, like this one, at prisons. Caring for an animal, be it a dog or a cat, gives the person someone to care about other than themself. The animal does not judge, does not hold past actions against them, it simply loves; it simply responds to who they are now.
Giving these people a chance to do something good, something where they can see the results of their hard work, and teaching them to love and be loved, is one of the best ways to rehabilitate them.
The programs, which besides training animals for the disabled can take troubled dogs from shelters and give them basic training, or simply provide an environment where cats don’t go feral, are just as good for the animals as they are the people.