This edition of “We don’t deserve the goodness of dogs,” is brought to us by Rosie O’Donnell, care of her friendship with Lyle Menendez. A few years ago, Rosie wound up connecting with Lyle (who’s serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole, along with his brother Erik, in San Diego, California) after she publicly voiced support for the brothers. After many phone calls, Rosie eventually went to visit Lyle in prison… where she was promptly bowled over by rows of Labrador retrievers standing at attention with inmates. How could so many very good floofs be convicted?! No no, of course they weren’t. The dogs are part of a program where inmates train the pooches to be of service to blind people, disabled vets, and autistic children. By the next year, Rosie and her 12-year-old autistic child Clay welcomed Kuma, whose presence had such a positive impact on Clay, Rosie decided to make a documentary about the wonderful program. She’s now promoting it in a New York Times profile:
In 2022, after watching a documentary about the Menendez brothers, Ms. O’Donnell discussed their case on TikTok, reiterating her belief that they were sexual abuse survivors who killed their parents out of a sense of trauma and desperation.
Soon after, she said, Lyle Menendez’s wife, Rebecca Sneed, reached out to her to see if she was interested in speaking with him.
Their first conversation lasted two or three hours, Ms. O’Donnell said.
“Then he started calling me on a regular basis from the tablet phone thing they have,” she said. “He would tell me about his life, what he’s been doing in prison and, for the first time in my life, I felt safe enough to trust and be vulnerable and love a straight man.”
Some of her friends expressed concern. “They were like, ‘Ro, he’s a murderer,’” she said.
She shrugged, then went to visit him in prison, where she saw scores of inmates with Labrador retrievers stationed silently at their feet.
Ms. O’Donnell asked Mr. Menendez how this could possibly be legal and he told her about a program they had to train and place dogs with the blind, disabled veterans and autistic children, which is run by the program Guide Dogs of America. He suggested Ms. O’Donnell get a dog for Clay through the program.
Ms. O’Donnell said she felt uneasy at first. Clay is a highly verbal child and Ms. O’Donnell, aware of her celebrity status, did not want to jump in front of someone who could not function without a highly trained service dog. But Mr. Menendez told her not to worry: The dogs were distributed according to need.
A year later, she was approved for a dog.
Ms. O’Donnell spent two weeks commuting daily to the prison, where she was matched with Kuma, a black Labrador mix who had been trained for a year by Carlos Aguirre, an inmate doing time for armed robbery. (Although the dog winds up working principally with the autistic child, the intensive training takes place between the dog and an adult.)
Kuma bonded instantly with Clay when she came home. “I noticed the difference in Clay immediately,” she said. “I was shocked to find out that all the stories I heard from other mothers of autistic children were true.”
I have to say it again, we don’t deserve dogs! Thank woofness they haven’t figured that out yet. I’m continually amazed by the many different jobs they can be trained to do, not to mention how much joy and satisfaction they get out of doing very good jobs. I support dogs being in homes with children of all kinds of needs — I was an only child and my pediatrician always recommended getting a dog, and in retrospect I think my mother wishes we had — and am especially glad to hear that Clay and Kuma found each other. I also hope Kuma has settled in well with Rosie and Clay in their new Irish home. After America flunked the election, Rosie made preparations to move and obtain citizenship in Ireland, for her own sanity, and to protect Clay’s rights as a nonbinary child. If I had the money, I’d be looking into relocation options right now, too. In the meantime, I’ll get my tail wagging by watching Unleashing Hope: The Power of Service Dogs for Children With Autism, when it hits Hulu on April 22.
A few years ago I was lucky enough to meet a dog handler who specializes in searching for victims after disasters. She told me that dogs like hers want so badly to find survivors, that when they don’t, they have to be given emotional health breaks and plenty of focused love and playtime to offset what they are experiencing. She also said that the dogs truly experience joy when they do find survivors. In my book dogs = love.
Awww, that is amazing!
This just kicks me in the gut. Her friend Lyle Menendez! I want to throw up. 🤮
there’s medical evidence that the Menendez papa horrifically abused his sons (sexually) but one more than the other. I know it’s hard to stomach but I think these guys had a justifiable homicide on their hands.
My last foster (adopted Friday!) spent some time in the Happy Hounds program. I can’t say I’m impressed by the “training” he was supposed to get in that program but I have worked with trainers that were part of New Leash on Life (a similar prisoners training dogs) program in the Philly area and the programs are transformatory for the inmates, as well as good for the dogs themselves
I just watched a true crime show that covered the absolutely horrific torture and murder of Shanda Sharer in 1992. I was foaming at the mouth to see how little time the murderers, especially Melinda Loveless, spent behind bars but Loveless got involved in the Indiana Canine Assistance Network (ICAN) program while behind bars and not only continues to train dogs in the program but Shanda Sharer’s mother has taken the extraordinary step of donating dogs for Loveless to train in the program
My dog Ollie came from a prison program in Georgia. Incredibly smart and loyal but still an a-hole on leash walking. Love him to death.