Roanoke Times Online Archives

ROANOKE TIMES
MAN'S BEST CELLMATE

Date: Monday, November 28, 2005
Section: VIRGINIA
Edition: METRO
Page: A1
Byline: By Joe Eaton joe
eaton@roanoke.com 381-1665
Dateline: BLAND

Summary: Prisoners at Bland find redemption training service dogs for the disabled.

Standing in his 9-by-6 prison cell, John Bumgarner reached his skull-tattooed arm down and patted a black and white border collie puppy named Skippy.

"To wake up and the dog wasn't under my bed, it'd be a lonesome feeling," he said in a deep quiet voice.

The 40-year-old North Carolinian knows something about loneliness. Bumgarner has been locked up since 1989 for multiple grand larceny and breaking and entering convictions.

The first 13 years were cold, gray and dead, Bumgarner said. Then came the dogs.

Since 2002, Bumgarner has shared his cell at Bland Correctional Center in Bland County with a series of puppies as part of a joint program of the Virginia Department of Corrections and the Saint Francis of Assisi Service Dog Foundation, a Roanoke nonprofit organization that provides service dogs to Virginians with disabilities.

The Prison Pup Program is more than a feel-good operation for Saint Francis of Assisi. There are now 50 people on a waiting list for a service dog, said Cabell Youell, the foundation's executive director who left a job as a corporate lawyer in 2003 to head the organization.

Prisoners are in a unique position to help fill the demand for dogs, Youell said. They crank out trained puppies faster than people on the outside because they have so much time to spend with them. In the 3 1/2 years since the program began at the medium-security prison, inmates have trained 34 service dogs.

The Bland program is working so well, Youell said , that the foundation will expand to other prisons. In January, a similar training program using juvenile offenders is set to begin at Virginia Wilderness Institute in Grundy, she said.

Currently, there are 11 prisoners raising nine dogs at Bland.

Since the puppies first arrived, the mood of the prison has changed, the trainers say.

"The pups have brought the little boy out of us for real," said Bumgarner. "Guys from other institutions arrive, the first thing they say is 'You know how long it's been since I petted a dog?' "

David Galloway, a 31-year-old from Pennington Gap, has been serving time for first-degree murder since 1996. He transferred to Bland in 2000. When he first saw the dogs, he wanted one.

"I couldn't believe it. Here we are inmates, prisoners," he said. "It was unreal, unheard of to have dogs."

Not any inmate who wants a dog can have one. To be eligible, Galloway had to make it to the prison's honor dorm, which is reserved for inmates who have gone 1 1/2 years at Bland without getting in trouble.

In June, Galloway became a dog trainer and was given Montana, a black lab puppy. Living and working with "Monte" has transformed his life, Galloway said.

"I used to abuse and use people. Now it's a 360-degree turnaround."

Like the other trainers, Galloway cherishes the idea that raising a dog for a disabled person shows he is no longer a man without regard for others. It is a chance for him to prove he is not a bad person despite his crime.

Tony Oliver, a 42-year-old from Alexandria serving time for first-degree murder, is raising Sparky, a poodle and golden retriever mix. With dogs, unlike humans, Oliver said, it's a clean slate. "If you give love, you get love."

Dog trainers at Bland live in single dorm rooms, a highly-prized benefit in a prison where some inmates live 70 to a large room. The trainers' beds are raised off the floor to allow a dog crate to fit underneath. Leashes hang from the walls. Liver treats and books about dogs rest on the shelves.

Unlike other prisoners, trainers can leave their cells at any time to take their dogs out to the yard. When their dogs need to go out, the prisoners inform a guard who radios "dog in the yard" to inform the other guards patrolling the grounds.

The prisoners generally receive two-month-old puppies. All day, and often late into the night, they teach them tasks. A trainer from Saint Francis of Assisi travels to the prison on Mondays to check the dogs' progress.

Periodically the puppies are taken out of the prison for a week so they can get used to crowds, riding in cars and noises absent in prison life, like the sound of a vacuum cleaner.

By the time the dogs leave the prison for good, generally a year after they arrive, the prisoners have taught them basic commands including sit, stand and lie down. The dogs can walk beside a handler without pulling or lagging behind. Some advance to where they can open and close doors.

Kevin Alley, a prison counselor who coordinates the program at Bland, said the inmates talk about their dogs as if they are children. When a dog finishes its training, it's like a kid has graduated from high school, he said.

"Prison can be stagnant because your life does not go on," Alley said. "It allows them [prisoners] to have a feeling of life. It makes the prison feel more alive."

Although raising the dogs is one of the highest paid jobs in the prison at 45 cents an hour, few inmates apply for openings. By the time a prisoner is eligible to raise a dog, he has usually gained seniority in another job, Alley said, and doesn't want to move. There were only four applications for a trainer opening this month, he said.

For those who do become dog trainers, it is easy to lose the privilege. If an inmate gets in trouble, he is kicked out of the honors dorm and his dog is taken away. There are many ways to get in trouble, the prisoners say, including fighting, stealing from the kitchen and getting caught next to contraband gambling tables.

At least 10 men have lost their dogs, Alley said.

For the trainers currently in the program, losing their dogs is unthinkable. It is hard enough to give them up when they have finished their training. Bumgarner has done it five times, with Buddy, Patience, Drake, Shanti and Goose.

"I cry like a baby when they leave," he said. "In 2003, when Buddy left, I had to walk him down the hall, stop at every door to let everyone say goodbye."

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