we re going to go to the programs area. we ve got a stage all set up where we re going to do an official graduation. it s hard to believe we started this almost two and a half years ago and here we are 30 classes into it. we ve saved over a thousand dogs during the life of this program, not to mention this is one of the best programs we have for the recidivism rate. people that go through this particular program typically don t come back to us, and i throw that out as challenge to you gentlemen. when you leave, don t come back. we want you to go out and we ll do all we can to help you have a productive life once you get out of here. at this time i d like to call them up one at a time. alvin daryl and his dog truvy. james hodges and trish. curtis conrad and his dog
while conrad has pled not guilty, he admits he was drinking on the night of the accident. going out, that s one of the things the military preached. when you go out, you have a plan, have a plan. that was what i was going to do. i was going to call a cab and get home. why i decided to get back in the car, i couldn t even begin to friggin say why. i ended up crossing the center line and hit someone head on. the individual i ended up hitting, she had a broken leg and multiple injuries thing. the dui, i could have handled that. the wrecking the car, i could have handled that. hurting someone, that s what sucks the worst. conrad is negotiating a plea deal that he hopes reduces his prison time to no more than three years plus probation. the deal would include oversight from a veteran s court which will include treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder. he said while he s never sought treatment or received ptsd he believes it contributed to his drinking that let to the
training dogs who were in danger of being euthanized because their past behavior made them difficult to adopt. the dogs have now reached the end of their training period. today is test day so last day of the cycle. kind of a somber day. i mean, you work with them for 30 days and they get to leave. graduation day is not a happy day. it s actually sad. i ve seen them cry. it s real emotional for them. that s what we want. we want them to build that bond, that relationship. if they can bond with an animal, then they can bond with their children, their wife, their parents, their employers, you know. that s transferable. curtis conrad has split his time between several dogs. he started out with a dog named minion and assisted with the training of duke after his handler keith johnson was removed from the program. for the past week he has been assigned a dog named folgers. all of these guys have been working each and every dog. it s not just his dog, his dog
wednesdays and commissary is on thursdays. all right. keith has recently plead not guilty to new charges including murder and carjacking. he s been removed from the detention center s dog program and moved back into general population. curtis conrad says he and the other inmates in operation new hope will have to take over training johnson s dog who s been allowed to remain in the program. pretty much what s going to happen is i will pick up the slack for him or someone else does, and we ll keep training him coinciding with other dogs until we get a handle and go back and back-brief them on what s going on. i m glad you moved in, i really am. maybe i should stack their cages. johnson, his first cousin la quan brown and her boyfriend rah shored mosley have always been indicted on multiple charges including assault and murder related to an alleged carjacking. johnson had not originally been charged in the case although the
a lot of these inmates and the dogs come from similar backgrounds. they have a common ground. they come from broken homes. a lot of these guys come from living on the streets, just like the dogs, so they can relate to each other. loose leash. now, he just walked him right through you with no problem. everything about an inmate is negative. the courts are negative, jail s negative, families can be negative, the community can be negative. nice work! good job, good job, perfect. and all the sea of negativity, here s this one bright spot that this inmate can kind of give something back to society. that dog doesn t care what he did, how he did it, where he did it. all he wants to be is taken care of. now on his third dog, curtis conrad is one of the jail s most experienced trainers. it s funny. they treat us like human beings. i like that aspect a lot. i like to be able to work with dogs.