Duke arrived at the Wodonga Dog Rescue Tuesday night from the Port Macquarie Animal Shelter where he's been since May 1, but soon he will be heading to the Beechworth Correctional Centre.

Wodonga Dog Rescue's Peta McRae said she was giving Duke a little bit of time to adjust to a new routine out of the shelter before taking him to the prison.

"They couldn't get a home for him," she said. "So someone suggested that we take him.

"I thought well I'm actually keeping the numbers down at the moment because I've injured my knee and I'm having trouble walking the dogs, so I said we'd take him, but if we did take him, he'd have to go to Beechworth prison where we've got a program."

Ms McRae said the program taught prisoners how to train the dogs.

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"We've got a dog trainer that comes up once a fortnight and goes up to the prison and trains dogs and the handlers," she said.

"They're pretty sure the guys really enjoy it, because it's a feather in their cap.

"They've got a thing to say they're training the dog."

Ms McRae said the program was good for the prisoners and the dogs.

"[The prisoners] have been really great," she said.

"They get handled every day and they walk them maybe four, five, six times a day, and they play with them, throw the ball, take them on long walks, introduce them to people. It's good.

"We just send up dogs that mainly have a got a few issues, but not big issues.

"The bigger ones, the more boisterous, fence jumpers, I often send up there, .. ones that are a bit strong on the lead or they're not used to other dogs, or we sent one up there the other day, that was very mouthy."

Ms McRae said training the dogs helped them to find new homes, sometimes with their prisoner handlers.

"When they've left the dogs go with them," she said.

"It's worked out pretty well, we've got 10 pens up there and we usually have 10 dogs but we've rehomed about four lately."

Ms McRae said she'd send more dogs to be rehabilitated through the program.

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