Quote:

Cats Filled the Prison. Then the Inmates Fell in Love. In Chile’s oldest and most overcrowded prison, the inmates have found solace in the hundreds of stray cats. Some say they were first brought in to take out the rats. Others contend they wandered in on their own. What everyone can agree on — including those who have lived or worked at Chile’s largest prison the longest — is that the cats were here first. For decades, they have walked along the prison’s high walls, sunbathed on the metal roof and skittered between cells crowded with 10 men each. To prison officials, they were a peculiarity of sorts, and mostly ignored. The cats kept multiplying into the hundreds. Then prison officials realized something else: The feline residents were not only good for the rat problem. They were also good for the inmates. “A cat makes you worry about it, feed it, take care of it, give it special attention,” he said. “When we were outside and free, we never did this. We discovered it in here.” Known simply as “the Pen,” the 180-year-old main penitentiary in Santiago, Chile’s capital, has long been known as a place where men live in cages and cats roam free. What is now more clearly understood is the positive effect of the prison’s roughly 300 cats on the 5,600 human residents. The felines’ presence “has changed the inmates’ mood, has regulated their behavior and has strengthened their sense of responsibility with their duties, especially caring for animals,” said the prison’s warden, Col. Helen Leal González, who has two cats of her own at home, Reina and Dante, and a collection of cat figurines on her desk. “Prisons are hostile places,” she added in her office, wearing a tight bun, billy club and combat boots. “So of course, when you see there’s an animal giving affection and generating these positive feelings, it logically causes a change in behavior, a change in mindset.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/31/world/americas/cat-prison-chile.html

Dogs are best, of course, but cats will do, especially in overcrowded prison cells.

Donkeys too...  so cute!

Meet the miniature donkeys helping regional nursing home residents overcome isolation, loneliness.

          https://i.postimg.cc/8s87STfY/Screenshot-2024-01-01-at-08-30-56-Pedro-and-Diego-are-two-miniature-donkeys-helping-regional-seniors.png

Yup, animals are great for people “locked up” in prison, hospital, nursing etc homes.

When I was still running my brewshop there was a call for volunteers and their dogs to visit nursing homes. Demi was rated as suitable but I could not leave my business unattended. Later when I had closed the shop and had the hip replacement operation I volunteered but by then the visits had been stopped.

Jovial Monk wrote on Jan 1^st, 2024 at 7:41am:

When I was still running my brewshop there was a call for volunteers and their dogs to visit nursing homes. Demi was rated as suitable but I could not leave my business unattended. Later when I had closed the shop and had the hip replacement operation I volunteered but by then the visits had been stopped.

Lack of interest by volunteers, lack of volunteers, or other issues?

Other issues, like having enough volunteers. No doubt insurance cost played a role.

Speaking of cats ...

https://i.imgur.com/0clUQHo.jpg

    ;D    ;D    ;D

Jovial Monk wrote on Jan 2^nd, 2024 at 12:33pm:

Other issues, like having enough volunteers. No doubt insurance cost played a role.

One of the volunteer issue in our little town is that as
older volunteers get frail and/or sick and give it up,
the younger generation are not filling the volunteer void.

    :(

That is sad!