Prison Goes to the Dogs

It’s a quarter past nine on a Thursday morning, and save for the fact that the setting is a maximum– security federal penitentiary nestled in the foothills of the Pocono Mountains, there’s really nothing remarkable about the situation.

There is, however, a certain “something” in the air. There are several inmates huddled up by the housing unit’s main entry door, and a large and particularly menacing looking convict named Cee is pacing back and forth and having quite an animated conversation with himself about a guy named Fred. It would appear that Cee has been waiting on Fred for quite some time, and Cee doesn’t look like the type of person that you would want to have waiting for you. For any reason. Ever.

Cee is serving a life sentence – two of them actually – but after the first one, what’s the point in counting? Cee’s sentence stems from his part in a particularly violent disagreement over a drug transaction three decades ago. In the early nineties, Cee was one of the largest narcotics distributors in the Midwest. He did a brisk trade and, despite rising quickly to the pinnacle of his vocation, he still enjoyed getting his hands dirty and doing his own collections. The dispute that landed him behind bars for the rest of his current life – as well as the one that he will never live to see –involved a debt of seventy-five thousand dollars. And what happened, then, was this: The debtor took delivery of a sizeable amount of extremely pure cocaine and then, simply, refused to pay. Now, Cee, as most drug dealers of serious quantity tend to be, is a reasonable and understanding businessman who knew that, at the end of the day, slow money was infinitely better than no money. That being said, had the debtor offered any type of even mildly believable excuse, a payment plan could’ve been worked out and everyone involved could have saved face. A flat-out refusal to pay, however, that was blatant disrespect and couldn’t be tolerated. Criminals run on reputation and, in the drug market especially, a man’s rep helps moves product. A statement had to be made, and few things speak louder than a .45. Cee collected two human lives in lieu of his 75k and, unfortunately for him, someone else decided to make a statement, too, to the police. A homeless man witnessed the whole thing, and on his testimony, Cee was, in short order, tried, convicted, and sent to prison.

“Hey ya’ll, here they come!”

An electricity of sorts permeates the air. Excitement may be too strong of a word, but there is certainly something palpable, an expectation of something about to transcend the 98% sheer boredom that is the day– to– daylife of your average convict. Cee charges to the housing unit entry door, it opens, and there stands Fred.

Cee shouts his name, their eyes meet, and time stands still. Fred just stands there wearing a hang-dog expression. He seems not at all concerned that he is now the center of a hundred prisoners’ undivided attention. His eyes have a twinkle of mischief as he watches the room watching him and his tongue falls loosely from his mouth as he swaggers towards Cee, followed closely by a dozen or so prison staff, from the Warden all the way down to a few of the kitchen cops who walk rounds of the housing unit every Thursday.

Fred and Cee find themselves mere inches from each other and, despite the abundance of correctional officers present, nobody makes any move to get between the two. Cee sinks into a crouch and, in doing so, seems to morph into a hint of the wide-eyed, wonder-filled little boy he must’ve been before real life and questionable decisions got ahold of him.

“Hiya, Fred!” He yelps, punctuating his greeting by reaching out and giving Fred a vigorous scratch behind the ear. Fred’s tail is wagging so ferociously that his rump is undulating like a fur-covered pendulum. It’s hard to say who’s got the bigger smile, Fred or Cee.

Cee is a fifty–something convicted murderer, and Fred is a 4-ish year old Lab/Pitbull mix, yet the two have much in common. Both have, at some point and to some extent, been given up on. Both are locked up., Cee at United States Penitentiary Canaan, in Waymart, PA, and Fred at a nearby animal shelter. Fred, however, with a little socialization and training, might get a second shot at life, and Cee could not be happier for him.

Fred is one of three dogs enrolled in the Second Chance Dog Program, a program that the prison runs in partnership with the Dessin Animal Shelter in Honesdale, PA. The program is aimed at helping to give the shelter dogs the training and rehabilitation that they will need to become adoptable. Most of the work takes place at the minimum– security prison camp adjacent to the penitentiary. At the camp, each dog is assigned an inmate handler who essentially lives with the dog and is responsible for providing training as directed by a certified animal trainer. The inmate participants at the camp are actually able to complete a 4,000– hour vocational training apprenticeship towards becoming a certified animal trainer themselves.

Numerous prison camps have some version of a dog program, and the recently enacted “First Step Act,” an act aimed at strengthening and broadening the scope of rehabilitative programs that the Bureau of Prisons can offer even goes so far as to actually encourage facilities to implement some type of canine– based program.

The Second Chance Dog Program at Canaan is unique because it is allowing inmates at the penitentiary, –maximum-security inmates – to participate in the program. Penitentiary inmates enrolled in the dog program meet once a week, and actually get to do some hands-on work with the dogs, working on socialization and basic obedience commands and skills.

But it’s not just the maximum –security inmates enrolled in the program who benefit from it, as the staff tries to bring a dog with them as they make rounds every Thursday. This helps the dog as much as it helps the inmate population. It gives the dog a chance to socialize and become used to noisy and crowded environments, and the inmates get to partake of the smiles and warmth the dog’s presence brings.

So far, the program has been a success, and a staff member at the prison, speaking under the condition that she remain anonymous said that she never fails to be touched by how the sight of one of the program dogs can turn even the most hardened prisoner back into an innocent child, if only for a moment. Perhaps Cee put it best when he said that, before the dog program started, he never thought he’d get to pet a dog again, but that now, seeing Fred he knows that, for at least a minute or two each week, he gets to feel human again.