Therapy Dog Comforts Incarcerated People With Mental Illness in California

Mellow is a therapy dog who comforts incarcerated people with mental illness in a California jail.

Mellow was trained to catch criminals by sniffing out drugs, but his handler says he wasn't very good at it.

"He was better suited to be a therapy dog because he was so friendly and wasn't able to focus on detection," Ventura County Deputy Sheriff Sung Lee tells KCBS.

He says Mellow is enjoying his new assignment of being a therapy dog for inmates at the local jail.

"It's to help facilitate and manage psychiatric inmates in a more humane manner. so that we are accommodating to their needs,” Lee adds.

Inmates struggling with mental illness say incarceration doesn't help their condition, but a visit with Mellow can help put them at ease.

One inmate told KCBS, "you feel anxiety, you feel lonely, something like that. its good to have a dog like this."

Another inmate added, "it's huge in here and it's nice to get any peace of mind in here that you can get, it helps a lot."

Deputy Lee says Mellow is a peacekeeper in more ways than one. "(The inmates are) more willing to let us help them. I've seen fewer fights," he says.

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