Jail program lets troubled women learn patience from

Cuddly therapy dogs are giving mothers behind bars a new leash on life.

About 10 women in the Westchester County Jail are learning how to deal with their emotions and be better moms with the help of friendly pooches.

“Look at his face, he is being so extra today!” squealed 32year-old Yosmarils Cotto as she threw her arms around

Mambo, a service dog that trotted into the jail chapel.

Cotto broke into a smile as the 6-year-old black Labrador retriever rolled over for a belly rub.

“That’s my boy right there,” said Cotto, who is facing an assault charge. “Mambo was my best friend when I was down, when I was happy, when I was mad. He was always there.”

Mambo is a canine companion from The Good Dog Foundation, which provides the pooches as part of the Parenting, Prison & Pups program run by the jail and Pace University’s criminal justice department.

“There’s no other facility that incorporates therapy dogs within a structured parenting curriculum …We’re able to form a community while we’re here, and the women really see the dogs as part of that community,” said class director Kimberly Collica-Cox, an associate professor of criminal justice and security at Pace. “[The pups] provide a normalization factor … and the women feel the dogs were really able to sense when they were down, when they were depressed. They bring a lot of joy to the program.”

The animals, first brought into the jail in 2017, also help teach jailed women how to better engage with their children.

It has worked for Shauntae Aponte, a mother of four girls between the ages of 4 and 14. She was so worried she would be released before completing the two-month long program that she asked Collica-Cox to write a letter to the judge requesting that she stay behind bars.

“I knew this could really help me,” said Aponte, 29, who befriended a 4-year-old

German shepherd named Fonzie in the weekly class. “When I was on the outside, I never really took the time to sit down and learn how to be a parent.”

For Aponte, who is in on a probation-related charge, her newfound parenting confidence included a hard conversation with her 13- and 14-yearold girls.

“I asked my two oldest daughters if they were sexually active,” she explained. “I did not have the courage to do anything like that before.

“My mom never asked me