# Puppies for young offenders

- Teacher: Ajahn Brahm
- Type: Story
- URL: https://beingmindfulstories.com/stories/brahm-juvenile-offenders-puppies
- Themes: unconditional love, self-worth, rehabilitation, animals
- Life situations: low self-worth, troubled teenager, juvenile offending, feeling unlovable

## Synopsis (editorial summary)

Ajahn Brahm reads that Western Australia gave repeat juvenile offenders, aged 16 or 17 and beyond the reach of counsellors, a puppy each to train. Every session the puppy jumped all over them and licked them — “No counsellor ever does that” — and it melted them.

## The story, as told by Ajahn Brahm (verbatim captions)

I read it in the newspaper in the local Western Australia. There's some really smart person here in this state, there're lots of smart people in government. Rare, but there are some. [laughter] Decided to take some of these juvenile offenders who got into all sorts of trouble with the law. Instead of like bagging them up in a jail again, or giving them counsellors because sometimes the counsellors can't do anything either. Instead, they gave them dogs. They assign every one of these really bad juvenile offenders, a little puppy to look after, to train. And the results were incredible. And they were saying instead of like a counsellor, another human being. Yeah, they've been there. They've done that. They went to sort of to that little puppy little dog to train and to get to know and every time they went to this session with their puppy, the puppy would jump all over them and lick them. No counsellor ever does that. [laughter] Not even a monk does that. I'm not going to lick you. But, these dogs would do that. And they just melted some of these really repeated offenders. And they were just only 16 or 17 and gone through just a lot, a lot of therapies, and that really got to them.

## Teaching point

Unconditional love, even from an animal, begins to open a closed heart and restore self-worth.

## Reflection (in the spirit of Ajahn Brahm's talk)

Teenagers whom no counsellor could reach were each given a puppy to train, and every session the puppy leapt up to lick them. No counsellor ever does that, Ajahn Brahm laughs. Unconditional welcome can open hearts that lectures can't. If someone near you is closed off, try a warm, no-strings presence before any advice.

## Source

- [How to deal with rejection and lack of self-worth | Ajahn Brahm | 30-01-2015](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=enFEj7wKrnM) (Buddhist Society of Western Australia) — watch from 13:51 to 15:18: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=enFEj7wKrnM&t=831s