“Got a new friend for you, Carl.” The dog handler walked into the common room of the prison where Carl had been waiting. This was where the exchange between dog handlers and prisoners took place. “She’s going to need a lot of care. This is a bad case.”
The dog the handler brought to Carl was not the worst example of animal abuse he had ever worked with, but it was close. She was a black Labrador retriever mix, one of the sweetest breeds of all, and she was a mess of nerves. As he stooped down to get a better look at her, she tried to hide behind the handler’s legs. When he reached out to pet her, she made a puddle on the floor from the sheer fear of the touch of a man’s hands.
He felt his anger rise and immediately tamped it down. Being angry at the dog’s previous owner could transfer to her, in her mind, and she would not be able to distinguish the difference.
“Thanks, Sarah,” he said. “I’ll take good care of her.”
The middle-aged, heavy-set blonde who handed the dog’s leash to him had devoted her life to rescuing animals. Carl respected her for that. He also respected her for having the courage to deliver the dogs to the prison.
It was not as dangerous as some would think. The prisoners who had been given the privilege of working with the dogs did not want to put their hard-earned positions at risk. But, still, even driving up to the prison was intimidating to most outsiders. He gave Sarah points for being willing to do so.
“I know she’s in good hands now.” The volunteer wiped her eyes with the backs of her hands. Sarah was tenderhearted and a crier. “I don’t understand what’s wrong with some people.”
“I don’t either.” Carl hated to see Sarah cry, so he tried to distract her. “Hey, what was the weather like when you were coming in?”
“Oh, you know what March is like.” She sniffled a little. “In like a lion, out like a lamb.”
“So it’s nice outside?”
“It’s perfect—warm with clear blue skies.”
“Then go home and enjoy it, Sarah,” he said. “I can take it from here.”
‘Thanks, Carl.”
It was hard work getting the Lab back to the cell. She skittered around on the surface of the shiny concrete floor, trying to get away. He was finally forced to simply pick her up and carry her, her terror exhibiting itself by the dog going stone-still.
As soon as he closed his jail-cell door, Carl put her down and tried to get a better look at her as she ran, shivering from fear, to the nearest corner.
“It’s okay, girl. You’re safe now.” He crouched and put out his hand for her to smell.
Instead of sniffing him and beginning to make friends, the dog cowered with its backside pressed hard against the cement wall. The whites of her eyes showed as she searched for a way of escape.
“I know you don’t trust me,” Carl spoke gently, staying where he was and letting his hands dangle between his knees. Dogs this frightened could become dangerous—even a sweet-tempered breed like the Lab. He knew better than to make any sudden moves around her. “I don’t blame you, girl. I wouldn’t trust me either, if I were you. Not after what you’ve been through.”
With her tail tucked tight between her legs, the dog sidled along the perimeter of the cell until she was directly behind him. At sixty-two years of age, Carl didn’t move as easily as he used to, but when he turned around, he saw the dog exactly where he expected her to be—curled up tightly in the furthest, deepest corner, beneath the metal bunk where he slept.
“You feeling safer now?” He might be angry at the unknown person who had hurt this beautiful, gentle creature, but he felt proud to be given the opportunity to heal her.
When he had first asked to be included in the prison’s dog-training program, it was entirely for selfish reasons. The prisoners who trained dogs were to keep them at their side seven days a week, twenty-four hours per day. The best part, in Carl’s mind, was that they shared their cells with the dogs alone. As long as he was a dog trainer, he would not be assigned a human roommate. Now, working with the dogs consumed most of his waking thoughts and gave him a reason to live.
He filled the frightened dog’s water dish from the stainless steel lavatory in his cell and sat it at the foot of his cot beside her food bowl. He sat quietly and thought awhile. His new roommate needed a name, and he prided himself on coming up with good ones.
Blackie was an obvious one, but everyone used it. Carl remembered seeing a movie once by the name of Black Beauty. He didn’t remember much about the movie except that there was a beautiful black horse in it.
Black Beauty sounded a little pretentious, though. Maybe he would shorten it to Beauty. That suited the pretty young animal still cowering in the corner of his cell. He leaned down and looked beneath the cot.
“Do you like the name Beauty, girl? I believe it fits you. At least it will when those scars get all healed up.”
It would take six weeks of careful work to bring this dog out of her terror. At least six weeks. Maybe more. At the end of his time with her, she would be housebroken, able to obey simple commands, and trained to walk quietly at the end of a leash—and she would have gotten her heart and her dignity back. Carl intended to use every method he knew to make her whole again.
At the end of his time with her, someone from the outside would come to the prison, pay one hundred and fifty dollars to help cover the prison’s expense of food, and take possession of the animal Carl had lived with and trained and loved. There was a long waiting list for prisoner-trained dogs.
He would be allowed to meet the new owners and give them special instructions about the personality of the dog. He would also take stock of the people taking his animal home with them. Usually, he was pleased. Sometimes he wasn’t. There was nothing he could do about it either way.
Each time, it felt empty in his cell after his charge had been taken to what some of the visiting civilians called a “forever home.”
His feelings were ambiguous about that term. Nothing was forever. Homes could be destroyed by any number of things, some from without, some from within. Some quietly rotted away from neglect.
The only “forever home” he knew was the one here where he could not leave of his own free will. The one with metal bars and guards. The one where he was serving a life sentence for a murder he had not intended to commit.
Carl had killed a man. Some said it was in cold blood. At least a dozen people saw him do it, so he could not deny it. But it had not been in cold blood. It had been a knee-jerk reaction to what he saw as a threat. Unfortunately, he had been at the wrong place at the wrong time and had reacted in the worst way possible.
Carl understood how a man could accidentally kill another man. The one thing he would never understand was why anyone would deliberately hurt a defenseless animal.
Without a dog for a roommate, he always felt lonesome in his “forever home.” But he was seldom alone for long. There was always another damaged dog to take in, and he was very good at healing them. It was the only thing he was good at. He understood the psyche of abused dogs.
After all, he had grown up feeling like one of them.