Become A Volunteer

This program is about training future working dogs, either service dogs for wounded war veterans or first responders, or therapy dogs for police departments, or explosive detection dogs for law enforcement. Please do not get involved in volunteering only to gauge whether your family is ready for a dog of its own. Our dogs are not pets.

To be eligible to volunteer for Puppies Behind Bars, you must be at least 18 years old and live in New York City—or within 45 minutes of one of our correctional facilities in New York to participate as a “puppy sitter.”

Bedford Hills Correctional Facility
247 Harris Rd., Bedford Hills, NY 10507
Eastern Correctional Facility
30 Institution Rd., Napanoch, NY 12458
Fishkill Correctional Facility
18 Strack Dr., Beacon, NY 12508
Green Haven Correctional Facility
594 NY-216, Stormville, NY 12582
Otisville Correctional Facility
57 Sanitorium Ave, Otisville, NY 10963
Wallkill Correctional Facility
50 McKendrick Rd., Wallkill, NY 12589

Volunteer Opportunities

Our volunteer opportunities are available 7 days a week.

Overnight Sitters: taking dogs of all ages into your home overnight to socialize
Daytime Sitters: taking dogs of all ages for a few hours to socialize
Paws & Reflects: taking dogs to visit with a homebound elderly person for an hour a month (NYC residents only)
Brood Fosters: we occasionally seek dedicated families to provide stable foster homes for our broods. Broods are essential to our program because they provide the puppies we train to become service dogs or explosive-detection canines. If you are interested in learning more about fostering one of our dogs, please call our office at 212.680.9562.

Play

Watch as Sophia, Yael, Dustin, and Melissa show what it's like to be a Puppies Behind Bars volunteer!

Volunteer Application

Thanks to all our prospective volunteers for your interest and willingness to participate. Please note the following considerations:

We ask for a one (1)-year commitment. It is important that our prospective volunteers understand that this is a serious commitment to a challenging and, at times, exhausting volunteer program. Your efforts help shape the future of a service or facility dog for wounded veterans, first responders and police departments, or explosive detection canines (EDCs) for law enforcement. Since training you and organizing your visits with each prison are quite involved, and the puppies benefit from consistency, we ask that you commit to volunteering once a month (overnight), or twice a month (daytime) for the next year. If you find you love it and have more time, we would be thrilled to have you volunteer more than once a month! However, in order to remain active in our system, you must maintain the minimum monthly commitment. We need to be strict with this guideline, so please take this into consideration before committing to the program.

We require attendance at two consecutive three-hour training sessions. New York City volunteers train at our midtown office; all other New York State volunteers train in upstate locations. At the sessions, volunteers learn about handling the dogs, supplies needed, what commands the puppies know, how to read a dog’s body language, among other valuable tips.

Please note that we do not have a pre-set schedule of upcoming training sessions for the year; they are scheduled as needed. It may take a month or a few months before we announce the next one.

Volunteers must take a puppy out within 30 days of being trained, as a safety measure for volunteers and our dogs. Puppies must be taken out once per month (for overnight sitters) or twice a month (for day sitters) for one year, in order to remain an active volunteer.

Volunteering as a puppy sitter involves a big commitment and can be challenging, but it is also extremely rewarding!

*Our online application is comprehensive, and includes a number of long-form answers. For this reason, we recommend you complete it on a desktop or laptop.