Travis County Commissioners Court
October 23, 2007
Item 30
30 is consider and take appropriate action on memorandum of agreement between Travis County sheriff's office and guide dogs, inc. To provide training for puppies who may become guide dogs for the visually impaired.
>> > this is larry, and forgive me, larry, I don't know your last name. And captain peggy hill from the sheriff's office. And what we're asking the court today to approve is the memorandum of agreement for tcso to enter into an agreement with guide dogs of Texas to provide this service that is right now is established and running quite well in a state jail, the dominguez state jail. And I gave you some information with your little backup with mra that talks a little about the program. But thought we would go ahead and take the opportunity -- I thought maybe you all would have some questions and just give you all real, real quick overview of what this will do. I'll -- I'm sorry, go ahead. >> > I had one question, if you don't mind. I don't mean to cut you off. I was wondering, how long does it take for the puppies to be adequately trained before her actually ready for the vision impaired to take ownership? How long -- the early -- >> > about two and a half to three years. >> > two and a half to three years? >> > uh-huh. >> > we wouldn't have them that long. >> > pardon me? >> > our involvement is we would not have them for that whole time frame. >> > why don't you -- larry or peggy, basically explain how it works. >> > basically what we do is take the puppies in at eight weeks of age and we work them with either puppy razor or a handler in the unit at deming dominguez. They keep them to about 18 months analyzed. They teach basically obedience training. They are allowed to leave with a guard and go to the general public, downtown, malls, in order to socialize them, get them used to different sights, sounds, smells, that kind of thing so they aren't surprised when we get out working with the client and something new may come up, a bus going by or a fire truck, something like that. That's what the first part of our program is. After they complete the basic training, they go into advanced training at our facility in san antonio where they are taught the actual guide dog procedures. >> > thank you. >> > certainly. >> > so now what's the public benefit for those walking up and wondering what's going on? >> > the puppies' benefit is that they are with an individual basically -- >> > the public. Public. >> > the public, we're speaking of our clients, the visually impaired, allows us to get more dogs out to be trained. It allows us to have a place to put dogs when the puppy razors. The puppies cannot be left alone for three hours by themselves without some kind of human contact to take them outside, whatever the case may be. Initially we would probably do that here, have puppies basically babysat here in order to teach the offenders how to work with the dogs, what they need to know and then go from there into the actual training of the puppies here in Travis County. >> > how many puppies did we have in mind? >> > well, normally -- normally you assign two offenders, two inmates to a puppy, and some of the things that we're going to have to overcome internally is much easier at the dominguez jail because they are able to segregate their inmates. We have a much, much more difficult time. So we are going to try to start with three to four puppies, which means we're going to have more teams. We're going to have to have more than two teams of people watching each puppy, but initially we want to start with three to four puppies and hope that it grows so that we can use the population that we have. But that's the goal to start with is three or four puppies. >> > is there a job opportunity once individuals get out of an in cars rated situation as far as puppy sitting, dog walkers, dog training, guide dog training and the like? >> > it is possible. We -- we're in the process of hiring one of the offenders from dominguez to be a kennel manager for us. His situation didn't work out because of family illness, but they do learn the skills necessary for dog training whether it be just specifically dog training, guard dog training, whatever the case may be. Once you basically learn how to work with the dogs, the theory of how they think, yes, the possibilities are definitely there. >> > are there any barriers to employment with your organization once these individuals get out of jail as far as -- >> > not at all. >> > that's good news. Thank you. >> > so the county's contribution is expected to be what? >> > space and inmates basically. >> > space and inmates. It says here number 4, ddt would provide the kennels, dog food and veterinary services for the puppies at no cost to Travis County. >> > that's correct. Now, we would -- we being tcso, when it was time for the puppies to go to a vet, we would provide that transportation, but we wouldn't pay for the vet service. >> > okay. We believe that if we -- at the beginning when the puppy is most untrained, a puppy bite wouldn't be that harmful. We don't have to worry about significant medical bills. >> > there have been none so far in the program since I've been with the program and I've been with it for 18 years. >> > by the time the dog is big enough to be vicious, we think the dog is trained well enough. >> > the breed of dog we use is not vicious. It's a lab door retriever or -- if anything knows anything about those dogs, those breeds are not vicious, aggressive dogs. >> > we don't -- >> > >> [inaudible] inmate mauled by vicious puppy. >> > guide dogs of Texas, inc. >> > that's correct. >> > so your business is training dogs to help visually impaired? >> > specifically that, yes, sir. >> > where do you have similar operations that may lend information to services that you are providing, which I think is a great thing? Is there someplace else other than Travis County that you have done this and have a track record? >> > we have done this since the year 2000 in san antonio. >> > in san antonio? >> > dominguez state jail, yes, sir. And I would like to add that for those that have completed our program, the offenders I'm talking about here, so far since 2000, our recidivism rate is zero. None of those guys have ever come back. >> > how many offenders are we talking about? >> > 65, maybe 70. It's a two-year jail so we do rotate quite a few of them through there, and we try to have two offenders per puppy and right now we've got five puppies in our program, so there's 10 right there. >> > okay. This is a two-year pilot, renewable depending on the results, I guess. >> > yes, sir. >> > so would we expect to see a report annually so we'll be able to help you monitor the situation? >> > yes, sir. >> > okay. Yes, sir. >> > they just invited me to the table for support. Captain cardenas. >> > I thought you had come -- >> > wasn't there something just recently at san quentin where they were talking about how the inmates really were -- had given some inmates a lot to look forward to for the care of animals, and I mean it was very therapeutic. It was a big article. I forget where I either read it or saw it but it was impactful to watch it and see what it had actually had done to some people that were there for more than just taking purses. >> > they do. They give a certain pride in what they are doing and pride in themselves. They are contributing back to society again with this. And just being with the dog, with an animal that does provide unconditional love 24/7, it's got to help. >> > yeah. >> > I can attest to the help. My dog >> > >> [inaudible]. >> > so how do we determine what inmates are appropriate for the program? >> > it will be a joint effort between the personnel from guide dogs of Texas and our own treatment personnel, screening the different inmates because we really are going to let them select the inmates. They have the track record and the history of what is best suited for the dogs and who are the best trainers, so to speak. So it will be a combined effort, but we'll rely on guide dogs of Texas to kind of get us through that process. >> > and the kennels will be placed where? >> > in our units out at isd a is vision that we have. It's the old core compound since we don't have the boot camp, we still have all that space and we still have areas where we could exercise the dogs and we just don't think it's a problem. >> > so if there are four dogs here at a time, four to eight inmates, so what security is provided? >> > we're actually going to have the dogs in a 24-person unit and we're going to have more than two-person teams on the dogs. That is something they will probably be -- beginning with it will be problematic, we think. It's one of the issues we're going to have to work through. This is much different than the state jail where they can isolate people. We don't have that luxury just because of our design. So we'll be -- we'll be using or we'll have the four dogs in a 24-person unit, but only six of the 24 inmates, that team will work with those dogs. And because of our high turnover rate as those inmates leave, then the next set of six inmates will fill in as those inmates get out. It will be kind of a -- I think we'll have more turnover with our inmates than we will with our dogs, but that's something that we'll have to try to work through. It's just one of the, you know, kind of logistical issues that has always kind of kept us from doing this, but we want to give it a try. We think it's absolutely worthwhile and we just want to try. >> > move approval. >> > second. >> > discussion? Other questions? All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote. >> > thank you very much. >> > thank you. >> > what a novel idea.
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Last Modified:
Wednesday, October 24, 2007, 18:30 AM