Prisoners train dogs to help disabled

My story about the Puppies Behind Bars program, which is going on at Fishkill Correctional Facility and other prisons in the area, is in the paper today.

Here's an excerpt:

Edward Stoll, 51, originally from Warwick, Orange County, is training Midas, a 13-month-old male golden retriever.

Stoll, who is serving 20-years-to-life for second-degree murder, has been with the program for five years.

"I haven't regretted it yet," he said. "If you've got to be in prison, what better way to spend your time?"

Stoll talked about the various tasks the dogs will hopefully master, including taking off someone's socks, opening doors, taking clothes out of dryers and turning light switches on and off.

Midas, on cue, jumped up and flipped a wall switch.

"We teach them all kinds of things," Stoll said.

And the dogs give back companionship and affection, not only to the inmates who work with them, but to other inmates. Stoll said just about every day another prisoner will ask if they can pet his dog.

"There they are looking pretty miserable," he said, "and then they go away smiling."

Read the whole article and see the photo gallery and video created by Lee Ferris and Chrissie Williams, respectively, here.

Upcoming story

I wrote a story a couple of weeks ago, but it hasn't seen ink yet because we've had a few other stories that needed to be on the front page lately.

Thanks, Eliot!

But there's no need for my colleagues Chrissie Williams and Lee Ferris to have to wait in the wings.

Chrissie shot the video below, and Lee took photos (see the photo gallery here) while we all were working on a story about Puppies Behind Bars, a program that uses prisoners to train dogs to become guide dogs, service dogs or explosive-detection dogs.



At this point, the print story is on for Wednesday.

But I haven't looked at the schedule in the last five minutes.

Is Paterson still governor?

Photo by Lee Ferris/Poughkeepsie Journal
Video by Chrissie Williams/Poughkeepsie Journal

UPDATE: As of Monday morning, March 24, the story is scheduled to run on Tuesday, March 25. That means there will be some cataclysmic event this afternoon.

UPDATE II: Thanks, Marist women's basketball. As of Monday afternoon, my Puppies Behind Bars story has been bumped to Wednesday.