Teens, Dogs Learn Skills in Program

TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) — At first glance, teaming at-risk teenage boys with untrained dogs might seem a little, well, risky.

Don’t tell that to Josue Vasquez, 17, Luis Ramirez, 14, or Alejandro Flores, 16.

The teens are part of Sycamore Canyon Academy, a residential program for troubled boys — most between the ages of 13 and 17 — in Oracle.

And last month they helped two dogs, Amethyst and Belle — known around the grounds as Ammie and Bella — to graduate from dog obedience classes.

Watching the boys work with the dogs, you’d never know they’ve dealt with substance-abuse problems and have been in and out of detention facilities several times in their short lives.

Each boy stands in a different corner of a large room, taking turns calling Ammie, clicking a device when she arrives and giving her a dog treat. Bella gets a turn after Ammie has gone around several times.

“Remember, you’re treating, petting, praising,” instructs dog trainer Jay Smith of Community Dog Training, who works with the boys and the dogs from 2 to 4:30 p.m. each weekday.

“When you call the dog, even if you’re not happy, act like you are.”

Associated Press - In this May 27 photo, student Josue Vasquez works with Bella, a dog from the Foundation for Animals in Risk (FAIR), during a training session at Sycamore Canyon Academy in Oracle, Ariz.

The teens are proud of the work they’ve done with the dogs and are eager to take their knowledge and new skills back to the outside world.

Not everyone at Sycamore Canyon gets to work with dogs. It’s a program for which the boys must apply, and only a few are chosen, based on how they’ve done so far in the rest of the program.

Ammie and Bella were the second pair of dogs to graduate from the six-week classes, taught by Smith and his partner, Julie Hall.

The first two dogs, trained by different boys, were within hours of being euthanized at the Pima Animal Care Center when the Foundation for Animals in Risk — FAIR — rescued them for Smith to begin the program at Sycamore Canyon, Smith and Hall said.

After graduating from the program, the dogs are placed in foster care until they’re adopted. One of the original pair was adopted May 23 — a cause for celebration among the current participants as they readied their dogs for graduation last month.

Before being sent to Sycamore Canyon — an offshoot of the multi-state Rite of Passage organization – and learning to work with the dogs, Flores said he didn’t care about his life at all, whether he died young or ended up in jail.

He says he has learned social skills and leadership by being responsible for the dogs, which live with the boys at Sycamore Canyon until the obedience program is complete.

“It makes me think differently,” he said. “I can help out a lot of people.”

While working with the dogs, the boys can only offer positive reinforcement, not stern voices or negative response. Ramirez said the training has taught him self-control and patience he didn’t know he had.

“You can’t really get mad at the dog,” he said. “If she doesn’t know what you want her to do, you just have to wait.”

Vasquez says he was angry when he was sent to Sycamore Canyon. It’s a four-month program, and the longest he’d ever been sent anywhere was 2 1/2 months, he said.

“I never thought you could attend a place and have it actually change you,” he said.