Dallas Morning News
August 16, 2003
Edition: SECOND
Section: METRO
Page: 1B
Column: JACQUIELYNN FLOYD

Taking crime by the collar
County may cut classes that teach youths, dogs to behave

The need for budget reductions in lean times is entirely understandable. A lot of government agencies are going to have to decide what they can do without next year.

But Dallas County ought to think twice before it dumps the "PREP" program, a low-tech pairing of juvenile offenders and homeless dogs for mutually beneficial training.

In nearly three years of operation, the results have been so encouraging that everybody involved wants to expand the program. Instead, it's facing elimination as of Oct. 1 because of state-to-county funding cuts.

"I know we have to cut, but please, not this program," laments Teresa Barnett, superintendent of the Dallas County Youth Village, a low-security residential detention center for teenage boys. "Not this."

At $40,000 a year, PREP (it's a peppy acronym for "patience, responsibility, empathy and partnership") is a comparatively cheap program in which Youth Village boys teach basic obedience to animal shelter dogs with the supervision of SPCA of Texas volunteers.

The kids learn, to their surprise, that just three weeks of intensive discipline and affection can turn a skittish, hyperactive dog into a reasonably obedient family pet.

You don't have to be Dr. Freud to get the symbolism here. As the boys gradually school the dogs in patience and self-control, the value of those commodities to the human species becomes clear.

"They see themselves the same way," Ms. Barnett said. "They start to understand that they've got to learn how to act, that they don't know until somebody teaches them."

I first visited the PREP class when it was a pilot program offered to a handful of the Youth Village kids in 2001. Dog training got through to them so effectively that it has since become mandatory for all the boys housed there.

So far, more than 200 teenagers, working in pairs, have taught basic obedience to 102 SPCA dogs. Each "class" of eight boys and four dogs lasts three weeks, with SPCA workers shuttling the dogs to the southern Dallas County campus daily.

"We've had kids who said they didn't like dogs fall in love with them," Ms. Barnett said. "We had two kids from rival gangs who just couldn't get along, and we put them on the same dog - they became good friends."

If that's not enough, consider what PREP has done for the dogs. Melissa Martin, who coordinates the program for the SPCA, said 98 of the 102 canine graduates have been adopted - a substantially higher placement rate than for the shelter population as a whole. For some dogs, the training they receive at Youth Village saves them from euthanasia.

"You've got to be patient," a quiet boy named Jose told me, as he demonstrated what he considers the superior abilities of a terrier-mix mutt named Princess. "But she's really smart."

They were finishing out their second week, and all the dogs had the basics down cold - sit, lie down, stay. They were working on the fancier stuff: jumping through hoops or over low barriers, or crawling through a plastic-pipe tunnel on command.

A handsome, soft-spoken kid named Steven told me with a little embarrassment that talking to his dog, a square-headed shepherd mix named Tasha, helps him feel calm and clear-headed.

"I was having a bad morning. I was feeling bad when I came in here," he said, sitting cross-legged on the floor so Tasha could comfortably rest her snout on his knee. "I don't know, I just feel better now."

SPCA volunteer Michelle Meiches, who has overseen the dog training almost from the beginning of the program, said she doesn't care about the boys' criminal backgrounds - some of which include just about everything short of murder.

"I don't know what these kids have done to get themselves here, and I don't want to know," she said. "If we don't turn them all into crusading dog-huggers, at least we're showing them something important."

And that's what I like about the PREP program. It's not lectures or group therapy or self-esteem coaching; it's live, real-time proof that with practice and guidance, anybody can learn to behave.

It's a wonder, but there are kids out there who are learning, in three weeks with a dog, lessons nobody else got across to them in 15 years.

Nobody wants to see the county waste money. But if you ask me, that's money well spent.

Copyright 2003 The Dallas Morning News
Record Number: 4511907