Purdue students are gaining leadership skills and future career training by volunteering in prisons and teaching the prisoners how to train dogs for adoption programs in their community.

Megan Estes, a sophomore in the College of Agriculture, matches dogs with behavior issues with offenders from the New Castle Correctional facility, which is located south of Muncie, Ind.

"They taught us about shanks (weapons the offenders make), and how to defend ourselves if someone gets violent. But when we actually go into the prisons, the offenders are very respectful," said Estes.

Estes is seeking entrance into the vet tech program, which she said deals with the behavior of the animals and how they deal with people.

"So through doing this I am not only learning about animal behavior and training, but also how to work well with people," said Estes.

Estes said the 12 week program is designed to conduct training classes with the offenders and the dogs for six weeks, and then allow the offenders to work mostly by themselves with the dogs during the second six weeks.

"We instruct the offenders to teach their dogs tricks like roll over, shake, sit, and stay," said Estes.

Estes said at the end of the 12 weeks, the dogs have a graduation ceremony where the public is invited to see what the dogs have learned and start the adoption process.

Although hands-on work with the animals is what most people think of when volunteering with animal adoption services and humane societies, students from all majors are finding real-life experience outside the classroom.

Shauna Cari, volunteer coordinator at the Tippecanoe County Humane Society, leads a training orientation session for volunteers at the Humane Society that teaches basic animal care, whereas Estes' preparation dealt mostly with training on how to deal with the prisoners.

"Students from business and marketing classes do projects for us. They design pamphlets and make brochures," said Cari.

These programs appreciate students who are able to volunteer regularly.

Cari said they also have a lot of opportunities for students who may not be able to volunteer regularly at the Humane Society, and that helping organize and run animal adoption fundraisers at off site locations with local businesses is an option many students prefer to participate in.

"I would say that if you are patient and have an interest in helping people and animals at the same time, then get involved in a program like this," said Estes.