Program that matches inmates with shelter dogs expands outside Fulton County Jail

FULTON COUNTY, Ga. - Canine Cellmates has matched inmates with shelter dogs in Fulton County for years, but now the county is expanding the program outside of jail cells.

For the past year, six men have worked on turning their lives around while training their dogs. The goal of the program is to reduce repeat offenders.

"This is important stuff, this is important because this gets men out of incarceration," Canine Cellmate Executive Director Susan Jacobs-Meadows said. "It gets them back to their families sooner, it gets them back to their communities sooner."

Sheriff pat Labat and District Attorney Fani Willis decided to take a chance on a new idea: an out-of-custody program and alternative for men to serve a sentence.

"If people don't have an opportunity, they're going to go back to a life of crime, and so we take a risk on some men that some in society would say no it's time to just throw them away," Willis said. "But an in-depth interview process is done. And in one year the program is done, and they're able to turn their lives around and become productive members of society."

One of those men, John Lay, says Canine Cellmates was transformative for him and his dog, Zonda. He said, if you want to be there, the program can be life-changing.

"Zonda was kind of like me at first, hard-headed, always barking and all of that," he said. "But as you got to know Zonda she really turned out to be a perfect dog, a perfect fit."

Participants also take classes on parenting and anger management. Ultimately, ex-inmates and dogs get a new lease on life.

"These are just men who have made mistakes in their lives and are working really hard to move beyond that and we need people to recognize they are just people who made mistakes," Jacobs-Meadows said.