PBB began in 1997 with eight women at the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility in Westchester County, New York, training five dogs. In the last eleven years, PBB has expanded to six other sites (4 in NY, 1 in NJ and 1 in CT) and now has 150 inmates raising 80+ dogs. As of September 2008, PBB has raised 12 service dogs that help disabled children and wounded veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, 83 guide dogs that work throughout the United States and 186 explosive detection canines that protect America and her allies in the United States and abroad. 12 others PBB-raised dogs live with blind children.
"To find out how much you've truly been blessed with in terms of love, time, energy, talent, joy, abundance, confidence, intelligence, wit, or any other quality, substance, or dispensation...give of them. Then you'll know what boundless really means."
After the events of September 11, 2001, law enforcement agencies' need for working dogs increased dramatically. To help meet this demand, PBB added the training of explosive detection canines (EDCs) to its program. In 2006, PBB started raising dogs to assist disabled children and adults and launched Dog Tags: Service Dogs for Those Who’ve Served Us, through which they donate fully trained service dogs to wounded soldiers coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan. The puppies live in prison for sixteen months, after which they are tested to determine their suitability for training as service dogs for the disabled or explosive detection canines for law enforcement. If they are deemed suitable, Puppies Behind Bars returns them to the schools where they continue their formal training. If they do not continue on the track to become working dogs, Puppies Behind Bars donates them to families with blind children. In either case, these puppies, raised in such a unique environment, spend their lives as companions to people who need them. The inmates have taken these pups that were not housebroken, did not know their names, and obeyed no commands, and have transformed them into well-behaved young pups who are a joy to be around. The raisers, too, have matured: the responsibility of raising a dog for a disabled person and the opportunity to give back to society are being taken very seriously. Puppy raisers show the pups tenderness and love, qualitities which they rarely expressed before, and are deeply committed to supplying the solid foundations upon which guide dogs are made. The puppies have affected the lives not only of their raisers, but of virtually ALL the inmates, staff, and their new family and friends.
