SEASON 2 Episode 6 with

Episode Transcript +

How Putting Dogs in Prison Saves Lives

A conversation with Puppies Behind Bars President Gloria Gilbert Stoga

Season 2, Episode 6

Guests: Gloria Gilbert Stoga, president of Puppies Behind Bars

AARON KWITTKEN: Broadcasting from the 10 Hudson Square Building, home of WNYC Radio here in Soho, New York, welcome to Brand on Purpose, the podcast dedicated to uncovering the untold stories behind the most impactful purpose-driven companies.

My guest today is Gloria Gilbert Stoga, President of Puppies Behind Bars, an organization that trains prison inmates to raise service dogs for wounded war veterans and first responders, as well as explosive detection canines for law enforcement.

Gloria founded Puppies Behind Bars in 1997, when she began teaching a group of carefully selected inmates at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility, New York’s only maximum-security prison for women, to raise service dogs. With Gloria’s leadership, Puppies Behind Bars has raised more than 1,200 dogs to date and works with six prisons in New York and New Jersey.

Gloria has extensive experience in the non-profit sector. Prior to starting Puppies Behind Bars, she served as a member of former New York City Mayor Rudy Guiliani’s Youth Empowerment Commission, was the executive director of the New York Metropolitan Committee for UNICEF, and founded the Privatization Project at the Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs. Gloria has used her passion for animals and bettering society to make substantial change in the surrounding communities, positively impacting individuals lives. Gloria Gilbert Stoga, welcome to Brand on Purpose.

GLORIA GILBERT STOGA: Thank you, Aaron.

AK: So, how did you come up with the idea? I know I briefly touched on it in the introduction, but that initial spark, because it’s so provocative and so courageous.

GGS: Right. It was not my idea. It was a veterinarian named Dr. Thomas Lane. And everyday driving to his office, he would pass, in Gainesville, Florida, a men’s minimal-security prison. And the guys would be hanging out at the fence. And he knew at that time that there were a shortage of families to help raise guide dogs.

Guide dog schools, then and now, take eight-week old puppies. They put them into the homes of families until the dogs are 18 months old. And the dogs go back to the guide dog schools to be formally trained, but they can’t be trained for a year and a half. So, Dr. Lane knew there was a shortage of families to raise these dogs, and he thought, well these guys have nothing to do. What if I approach the prison about having them raise the dogs. So, I read about his idea and thought it was brilliant, but it was not mine. He get’s full credit.

AK: So you didn’t know him?

GGS: No.

AK: Did you reach out to him?

GGS: I tracked him down and I visited the prison that he set the program up in. I talked to inmates, obviously, talked to staff, talked to volunteers, talked to the people who were running the programs and thought about what I would do differently or what I would the same if I were to bring something like that to New York State. And then, a couple years after I started, Dr. Lane came up at my invitation and went to one of the prisons that we were working in.

AK: And where did you read about him, was it a news story?

GGS: People Magazine.

AK: See, I love that. And the reason why I say that is because PR, and obviously media, can have a very positive impact. Just to hear you say that, and people have different views of People Magazine. But think about what that one story has done 22 something years later.

GGS: I still have the article. But, it wasn’t, as people know, People Magazine doesn’t have a lot of words, it has more pictures. It’s not the heaviest of stuff. And for me, the picture that was and still is most captivating was an inmate in a prison yard doing a high 5 with a yellow lab. So, I don’t remember any of the wording in that article. I remember, to this day, the impact that that photo had on me.

AK: So you have this idea, or rather you take this idea and you’re like, “I'm going to build something, I'm going to build this organization.”

GGS: Well, there’s a little more behind it. So, my sister gave me this article because we had adopted a dog from Guided Eyes from the Blind. A Labradoodle who’d gotten hit by a tow truck so he couldn’t be a working dog. So, we had adopted him as a pet and I always felt guilty that he wasn’t working. I thought he should be doing something.

Hence, my sister who saw this article in People Magazine cut it out and gave it to me. And I read it and I cried. And I folded it up and I'm not making this up, and every 6 months, I took the article out, unfolded it, reread it and cried. And after two years, on a Saturday, my husband finally said, “Gloria, you cannot keep doing this. You either have to do something about it or shut up.”

So, I mentioned it was a Saturday because that Monday I was working for Mayor Giuliani. I went in and I gave notice and I came home Monday night and I said, ok, you told me to do something or shut up and I'm not shutting up and that was literally it. It was two years of thinking about the brilliance of Dr. Lane’s work and me deciding I wanted to do something that was more important than what I was doing.

AK: There’s so many difficulties in starting anything, whether it’s a non-profit or for-profit. Especially in a non-profit. Your first charge was to try to raise money, right? You put a business plan together but how did you raise the money?

GGS: It wasn’t raising money. Puppies has been, knock on wood, incredibly lucky for 22 years. There’s been a hell of a lot of hard work, but we’ve just been lucky. So the first thing wasn’t raising money, the first thing was getting into prison. I needed prisons.

AK: First time anybody, by the way, has said, “trying to get into prison.”

GGS: Yeah, and then the second thing was getting dogs. So, raising money which is difficult, but that I had a lot of experience with. I had no experience with prisons and I had no experience with dogs. So those were the 2 big hurdles. Once I overcame those, then yes, it started fundraising. And as anybody who has started a non-profit knows that that first year I did everything. I went to the store and picked up the dog food, I brought the dogs to the vet. You have to do that when you’re starting something.

AK: You probably remember very clearly though, the first litter or the first couple dogs that you received.

GGS: Guiding Eyes for the Blind in Yorktown Heights very generously donated five puppies that they didn’t think were gonna make it. So, they sell their puppies that aren’t going to make it as guide dogs, which virtually everybody does. And instead of charging me for them, they donated five puppies thinking, “Ok, we can help her and of those five, three made it.” So it was like, ok, everybody’s eyes were opened that inmates could nurture, love and train dogs.

AK: Was it Bedford Correctional Facility that was your first?

GGS: Yes, that was our first.

AK: And, how hard was it to convince your prisons and the bureaucracy there and that leadership that you wanted to do this program, was it difficult?

GGS: It goes back to luck. I met Libby Pataki when George Pataki was elected as Governor. And I don’t remember what year that was, sometime in the 90’s. I met him, and when I went to UNICEF, I met Libby. And Libby was going to Morocco as one of her first trips as First Lady of New York and asked me to do something in Morocco. And I did. And she was just grateful.

So years later, when I wanted to start this, as I said I had zero prison contacts or knowledge. The only one I knew who knew prisons was Libby Pataki via her husband, the Governor. So I wrote her a letter and said, Libby, this is what I want to do, I want to put puppies in prison. And I didn’t hear anything. And the month’s pass and I thought, “Ok, she threw it in the trash.” Or, her secretary threw it in the trash. It didn’t even get as far as Libby’s desk.

And three or four months later, I was at a Women for Pataki luncheon where the governor was speaking and Libby was at the head table. And I was seated wherever I was seated. And this was pre-9/11, so security was very different than it is now. And after lunch, I thought, “Do you have the nerve to go up to her and mention the letter?” And I thought, “Well, this is my one chance if I don’t.”

So I went up to her and I tapped her on the shoulder. I walked behind and I tapped her on the shoulder, and she said, “Gloria, that idea of raising puppies in prison is so brilliant. It’s exactly rehabilitation, education, second chances. I’ll help you any way I can.” And then next day, I literally got a call from the number two in Albany saying, “Do you want to come up and talk?” So, that was part of the luck that I happened to go to that Women for Pataki luncheon. Libby was gracious enough to want to help. Without her help, it wouldn’t have gotten started, there’s no doubt about it.

AK: So, you and I have a different definition of luck, I think. Because that’s not luck.

GGS: It’s strategic luck, maybe.

AK: It’s strategic luck, exactly. That’s amazing. So, the first couple of years, very challenging, difficult? What was that like just getting it off the ground after that moment? Like you said, you were doing everything.

GGS: I was doing everything. And then I hired the first employee 13 months after I started. So there was enough funding and there was enough work. And then I also just opened in the 2nd prison in the 13 months. I mean, I had to learn everything.

It was challenging working in prison. It still is. I love it. It’s a unique environment. I love working with inmates. But I had to learn how to work with inmates. I had to learn everything about training dogs. I knew nothing about dogs. I knew I loved them and we had that Labrador at home as a pet, but I didn’t know how to teach a dog to sit. So, it was a big learning curve.

Back then, we were just raising guide dogs so it was literally like ten commands. Sit down, stay. it was simple, but how do you know if a dog’s sick? How do you know if a dog has an ear infection? What do you do if a dog’s limping? What do you do if a dog refusing to walk? Just learning everything about dogs.

AK: And, did you have a lot of preconceived notions of inmates and prisoners going in that I’m sure have been completely 180 degrees reversed for you now, 20 plus years later?

GGS: I absolutely had, everything was black or white. Shortly into it, I started seeing grey. And there were nuances, but I haven’t changed 180 degrees, no. I mean, just like any population, there’s some good people in the population and there’s some not good people in the population. But, yeah, I’m not nearly as black and white as I was prior to working in a correctional facility.

AK: So, I will say, obviously you know because we work with you on some of the communications and my team loves this work. And, I went to graduation at Bedford Hills a few months ago. And even though you tried to prepare us for it, I don’t think you can prepare anybody for that experience.

And I say this, like, I dropped my son off at school six weeks ago. And you know, that last hug and you’re crying but the amount of crying that me and my team had, it was like ugly crying being in there. I don’t think I’ve ever experienced anything like that. I liken it to, you know, you go to a movie and you’re like, “Wow that was a really interesting movie,” and you’re changed for like, 12 minutes.

When you go to that graduation ceremony I think it changes you indelibly forever. And even though I’m very left of center, I’m very progressive socially with my politics, where I hadn’t been historically is when it comes to incarceration and prison, and my view of people who are inmates and prisoners. It’s different, as you know, as you actually sit with them and you hear them speak and you engage and interact with them, and you’re reminded, “Sure there are some very, very bad people, also some very good people who found themselves in bad situations,” and it’s just unfortunate.

But they’re humans. And I have the opportunity to leave, they don’t. And that was a very awkward, it’s so hard to describe other than how I’m describing it and I’m probably butchering it, and I know you know this, but that was a transformative event for me. That was unbelievable.

GGS: Well, I’m so glad you came. I really am.

AK: I mean you have this emotional fortitude to get through this. These stories on both sides, whether it is from the eyes and voice of the puppy raiser, the inmate, or the recipient, they’re so emotional, these narratives. These people have gone through a lot, there’s a reason why they need these dogs, in many ways, to live, and to thrive. How do you deal with that? How do you process that? It’s almost like a position who has to process a lot of negative things compartmentalize, and go on with their day, how did you learn to do that?

GGS: I honestly don’t know. I don’t think it’s something that you learn, per se.

AK: I guess you’re just wired that way?

GGS: I mean, I think of people who have to go into homes of abused children and I say, how the, how could they do that. I could never do that. So you’re probably seeing me in the same eye. I mean, I know there’s stuff I could never ever have the emotional fortitude to do. But the work I do now I don’t consider needing a lot of emotional fortitude and I know, from your perspective, that sounds nuts.

AK: No, I get it. I totally get it. I’m really in awe of it, thought. I think that it’s absolutely incredible. And, the layering of the benefitting of the value to different stakeholders in this process is also something I just wanted to unpack for a second.

Because you have, obviously, the puppy raiser, and then you have the recipient. There’s, of course, the dog. I think it’s a little bit easier sometimes when the first responder, the recipient, is not a police officer necessarily. I remember when we first met, we were talking about this a little bit. Both the beauty and the complexity of someone who’s in law enforcement who then is going to be working with an inmate who’s lived with this dog for a few years and then is going to help train and graduate this dog to that person. What is that like, how do you speak to, it’s got to be incredible, right?

GGS: I love it, I absolutely love it. It is incredible. It’s breaking down barriers. It’s breaking down labels. It’s two very disparate groups coming together over a dog. And it’s that simple. And I think that’s, I think that’s one of the beauties of Puppies Behind Bars. Yes, our work is complex, but it’s actually pretty basic, which is that the purity and goodness of dogs can bring all sorts of people together, including police officers going into prison to work hand in hand with inmates.

AK: I imagine it’s also hard not to get close to some of these inmates. You’re working with them, you’re training them, how do you navigate them and maybe if you could share a story about a couple of inmate stories where there’s a clear moment in time where you feel like they’ve been rehabilitated as well through this process.

GGS: No, I don’t get too close to the inmates. I’m really clear that I’m the instructor and I’m there to teach them and they’re there to learn. It’s a voluntary program so I can kick them out at any time or they can quit at any time. And I’m really clear that these standards are very, very high.

AK: They have to apply, right?

GGS: They have to apply. But, working with people week after week after week, you get to know them and you get to like some more than others. I mean, I’m a human being, but I am very clear that I’m there to teach and they’re there to learn. And that we’re both coming together over this dog because we want this dog to make it as a service dog or a bomb sniffing dog, so that I don’t have a problem with. Transformative, yeah.

I guess that probably, in general, I would say that there’re a lot of inmates, both male and female, who come into the program and they’re petrified of life. They’re petrified of where they are. They never talk. They sit in the back of the room. They’re quiet and over months and years, I see them getting voices. I see them becoming leaders and I see them accepting responsibility and succeeding.

That’s the biggest thing. When a dog makes it, the inmates, people say it all the time: “Aren’t the inmates sad, isn’t it awful?” And the answer is, yes, of course they’re sad, they should be sad. If they weren’t sad then there’s something basically wrong. They’ve lived with his dog for two or three years, but, the overriding sense for the inmates when their dogs graduate is success, it’s accomplishment.

So, that’s the biggest transformation, working with people who are pretty downtrodden and watching them through a lot of hard work, through a lot of picking themselves up, through a lot of support from other inmates and Puppies Behind Bar’s staff to do the right thing. They turn into leaders and I really believe that that’s going to change them when they go home and they’re back on the street. I really think that this experience is going to help them navigate the world when they’re released from prison.

AK: And, are they puppy raisers multiple times over or it is a one and done type thing?

GGS: Yeah, no, we work primarily, except one prison is minimum security, all of our others are maximum and medium security because we want inmates with long sentences so they raise dog after dog after dog after dog.

AK: And how strict is the application process? How do you know? How do you screen them?

GGS: It’s strict but you don’t know.

AK: I mean, obviously, you’re working with the prison and they know them well, as well.

GGS: Right, but you make mistakes. I’ve never had a dog hurt, but you make mistakes that people are lazy but you didn’t think they would be. You make mistakes that people want to join the program just cause they want to get moved to another floor or housing unit.

AK: You have to try to suss that out.

GGS: You have to suss it out, but it’s like any interview. They’re on their best behavior, you know, they’re going to answer the questions to the best of their ability. You don’t really know until you start working with them if they really should be in the program or not.

AK: Well, going back to that graduation. I was sitting behind the puppy raisers. Obviously, the speeches and the ceremony and the recipients, that was all incredibly moving. But the other thing I was watching was the way they’re interacting with the dogs. They love these dogs. And they were more concerned about these dogs, their welfare, than being necessarily at the ceremony. And that was very striking to me.

GGS: They love the dogs. The dogs are their lives, yeah.

AK: There’s nothing like the way a dog looks up at you. And I know we’ve co-evolved for like a hundred thousand years. They used to say 10,000 but I think it’s like 100,000 now. And, I can see them looking at the inmate for the cue, like what’s next and am I doing something wrong or something right? And it was adorable, it was amazing.

And it’s softened me and then I had to remind myself that I am in a maximum-security prison, and I need to also stay centered to your point earlier. That’s incredible. So, I’m sure there’s a lot of favorite things about your job in your day. What’s your most favorite? What’s the moment for you? Is it the graduation? Is it the handing of the dog to the person in need?

GGS: God, that’s a hard question.

AK: I mean there’s so many amazing things.

GGS: Yeah, I don’t know what my favorite thing is. Because there’s a lot of favorite things. I’ll tell you this. I teach in a maximum security prison every Friday, and there are times where there’s just…

AK: When you say, teach, you mean dog train.

GGS: I, dog train, yeah, all day for the inmates training the trainers. And there’s so much sadness in prison, I mean, just on so many levels. It is a really, really sad environment and there are times when I’ve walked out of the prison both simultaneously reeling from sadness that’s been seen or told to me, but also exhilarated by working with this population. So I don’t know if it’s my favorite thing, but it’s 22 years later I still have those same feelings of exhilaration by working with prison inmates.

AK: And what’s the biggest challenge?

GGS: To be perfectly honest, the biggest challenge is we retain ownership for life for our dogs after they leave us.

AK: Which is not uncommon, that’s a standard practice.

GGS: I think about 50% of service dog schools in this country retain ownerships and others don’t. There are a number of schools where you have to pay for the dog. And my guess is if you pay for the dog, you do own it. And then, there are other schools where you don’t have to pay but they give you ownership. But we don’t, we retain ownership.

So the biggest challenge is, and I know this is weird, I know my dogs are safe in prison. I know it. I absolutely, in 22 years, I know it. My challenge is when they’re paired with people who then take them to their home and we service the whole country so our dogs are far and wide. My challenge is, is that person who I trained and lent this dog, is that person doing the right thing by the dog? Is the dog safe? Is the dog loved? And is the dog really being used as a service dog. That’s what keeps me up at night.

AK: I mean, I know this just from working with you but there’s a tremendous investment of time but also real dollars, so that dog when it’s ready to work in service of the first responder or vet, you must have spent $30, $40, $50 thousand dollars, right? This is real money.

GGS: It’s real money. We used to say $40 thousand dollars and then we just did the math a couple of days ago, because there’s been an increase in cost, it’s now $47 thousand dollars. So, there’s real money behind each and every one of our dogs.

AK: The dog, obviously at some point, will not be able to serve. What happens then?

GGS: The recipient has the option of retiring the dog as a pet and keeping the dog in his or her house as a pet and getting what’s called a successor dog, which is a second service dog. If they feel they still need one. And if they can’t keep the dog for financial or emotional reasons, Puppies Behind Bars takes the dog back and we find the dog the best home possible for the rest of it’s life. So our commitment to the dog to each and every one of our dogs is for the dog’s life.

AK: And Puppies Behind Bars is evolved since the founding, like you said, in terms of what you set out to do to what you’re doing today. And there’s also bomb-sniffing dogs that you’re also raising. Are there other adjacent areas or other things in the future that you’d like to see the organization migrate towards, as well, or is it just doing more of what you’re doing which is plenty. But are there other adjacencies in other areas as well?

GGS: We started doing bomb-sniffing dogs in direct response to September 11th. Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think we’d be raising explosive detection canines.

AK: And you definitely did not have that in your background.

GGS: Law enforcement agencies are the ones who do the formal training of those, ‘cause you have to train them on explosives and we can’t train them on explosives in prison.

AK: For all the obvious reasons, right.

GGS: Right, for all the obvious reasons. So that was something totally unforeseen, organic growth. Our thing now is first responders and that’s what we’re going to be focused on. First responders meaning primarily police officers and firefighters, with post traumatic stress. And that’s a direct response to mass shootings in this country. Just as most of us never foresaw September 11th, I don’t think that I knew in 1997 when I started this, I didn’t think there’d be as many mass shootings as we are now. We’ve grown organically to meet the needs of our communities. And right now our big thrust is service dogs for first responders.

AK: Such a shame that we even have to talk about that. I was coming from another meeting and you were kind enough to wait for me, but I was riding the subway just now with a couple from Dayton, an older couple from Dayton, and it’s hard not to talk about one of the most recent mass shootings. And they were in their 70s and you could see them tear up.

I mean, Dayton’s not a big town and they knew the family, they knew everyone. It was a tough subway ride. And they were on their way to the Statue of Liberty. And I guess, in some ways, I always feel like dogs are apolitical. I do think that humanity and social justice in general is not left or right, it’s even centered. That’s a discussion for another day but I imagine it is sometimes hard to not be seen as politically driven.

But when you talk about mass shootings, PTSD, or you talk about vets who are either coming back and now they’re first responders or because they’re suffering from an event while they were a first responder, that’s not politics. I mean, I imagine you don’t get push back from that, because they were there.

GGS: Yeah, it’s not politics, it’s humanity.

AK: Before I forget, you guys were just mentioned by Charity Navigators as being in the top 1% of all charities. That has to feel great. In the US.

GGS: Yeah, in the US, it does.

AK: There’s a lot of things that you can attribute to that but what do you think attributes to that most?

GGS: Well, we’re rated on transparency, accountability, use of funds, so what it comes down to, to be perfectly honest, here I’m not going to say luck. This is not luck. This is 100% hard work. That we’ve been given the highest rating 13 years in a row. And it’s just hard work that we don’t spend people’s money on fancy offices or dinners that we spend money on dogs and inmates and first responders.

AK: You’re not throwing these big gala events.

GGS: It feels really good, but it’s completely because we are working our butts off to produce the best dogs we can and not to have any kind of plush whatever for ourselves.

AK: The other thing that’s quite noticeable is that you have a very active, very experienced board and advisors. And I feel like, I imagine it’s also because of when you worked in various administrations in your past jobs before you started Puppies Behind Bars, you’re really smart enough to maximize that network and get people involved who were, now we called them influencers but that word didn’t exist, right?

How did you do that? How did you cajole people, not the right word, but convince them, you know persuade them to become involved. There’s so many pulls on our time, especially people who are notable. Successful people, they’re asked to serve on so many boards and give to this and give to that, how did you do it?

GGS: I think because the mission is so straightforward and as you said, earlier, people get right away that multiple groups benefit. It’s like, ok, I get it. I don’t have to read a lot to understand what the mission is and what the work is. I think that’s why. And probably everybody’s a dog lover who’s on the board or on the advisory board so they understand the power of dogs to heal.

AK: Yeah, I mean, there are, something like, I can’t remember the last stat, but I think there’re 80 million dogs that we know of that are actually owned dogs in the US. So that’s like 40% of the US population owns dogs. But, it is something, and I see it in our own office. When we have dogs in our office whether it’s my Wally or a colleague of mine brings her Frenchie in named Winston, all the drama, all the BS, it could be a little bit of a fight or an argument or whatever, it just kind of goes away. They’re so healing. They’re amazing. They’re absolutely amazing, there’s nothing like it. Gloria, it was amazing having you on.

GGS: Thank you for inviting me.

AK: And what is the best way to follow Puppies. And if somebody wanted to get involved, that wanted to donate.

GGS: Either our website puppiesbehindbars.com or Facebook, Twitter, Instagram.

AK: Awesome. Thank you again.

GGS: Thank you.