TSA, Texas prison collaborate on dog training

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and the Texas Department of Criminal Justice announced a new program which will allow a select group of inmates to help care for puppies who will ultimately serve as explosives detection dogs within TSA’s National Explosives Detection Canine Team Program. The Prison Puppy Program (PPP) will allow four TSA-bred puppies to be housed in the Travis County State Jail in Austin for approximately one year. The puppies will reside in kennels on the prison grounds where inmates selected to participate in the program will be responsible for feeding, cleaning and socializing the pups. “TSA is excited to embark on this mutually beneficial partnership with the Texas prison system, ” said Scott Thomas, director of the TSA Canine Breeding and Development Center. “The prison is an ideal environment to socialize puppies with a variety of sights, sounds and smells, similar to what they will encounter in a transportation environment.”

TSA’s Puppy Program selectively breeds, raises, and prepares puppies to be future explosives detection dogs. Dogs who graduate from training are assigned to airports and mass transit systems nationwide. The program is located at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio. The program is normally dependent on volunteer families in San Antonio and Austin to raise the puppies between the ages of nine weeks and fourteen months before they can enter the training program. The Travis County State Jail partnership offers a unique social environment for the puppies while providing companionship and a sense of responsibility for those who are paying their debt to society. After their prison stay, dogs that meet TSA’s rigorous selection process will begin their formal training to be explosives detection canines. The Canine Breeding and Development Center first bred dogs in January 2002, and the program has since produced more than 300 puppies. The mission is to produce approximately eighty puppies per year to help supplement the needs of National Explosives Detection Canine Team Program and other federal and state agencies in need of working dogs.