Pound to Pen Partnership Program
In 2005, Mutt Matchers & Friends decided to start a basic dog obedience training program at the local prison. After a few months of red tape and paperwork, we were given the go ahead to start our Pound To Pen Partnership Program. The program was the first of its kind in the State of Arizona.
Volunteers from Mutt Matchers teach the prison inmates - we call them handlers - to train the dogs. We initiated the first six-week class in April 2006 with three dogs and five handlers. The prison asked if we could bring more dogs and extend the classes to an eight-week training session. We were more than happy to comply.
Now the eight-week classes include five dogs and ten handlers. Four weeks into each class, we host an open house for potential adopters, and we host a graduation ceremony including exhibitions of all the dogs’ newly learned skills at the end of each eight-week session. Mutt Matchers also provided the inmates with Pound to Pen logo tee shirts, as well as photographs of the men with the dogs they trained. Thus far, we have "graduated" 37 dogs from our Pound To Pen dog obedience training classes.
