James Bowshier and his wife walked into the Franklin County Dog Shelter in Columbus, Ohio, to look at a puppy. Herbie caught them instead: a one-year-old pit bull mix with a hand-drawn portrait taped to his kennel, made by someone locked up a few miles away.
The program is Portraits with a Purpose, run by the shelter with the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office. People held at the Franklin County Corrections Center pick whichever dog they feel connected to and draw it. The portrait goes on that dog’s kennel, and when the dog is adopted, the drawing goes home with the family.
The first portraits arrived in September. There are 20 now, each beside a short sheet where the artist explains what drew them to that dog and what they hope people feel looking at it.
“What they’re giving us is something so unique and so personalized,” Erin Hamill, the shelter’s marketing manager, told WCMH. Sheriff Dallas Baldwin said the work reminds people in jail that they can still make a positive mark on the community.
It works because a shelter holding 200 to 300 dogs is a blur. One run of kennel glass looks like the last. A portrait turns a dog into a face you remember, the same reason the dog who waited 575 days finally got noticed.
What this means for your dog: if you are the one adopting, ask what the shelter does to make individual dogs stand out, and read the volunteer notes before you walk the rows. Dogs get chosen faster when they get to do the choosing. If your dog came from a shelter, pay it back: photograph a kennel card, post it, and write two honest sentences about a dog you actually know.