Marines train dogs to help comrades

Animals are expected to benefit inmates as well as Marines hurt in the war

CAMP LEJEUNE -- One day, the six dogs will do amazing things.

They will load laundry in washing machines, and they will pull it out of dryers. They will perform simple banking transactions.

They will even be able to open the refrigerator on command, select a cold beer -- yes, just like that dream-come-true TV commercial -- and take it to their grateful owner.

For now, though, the dogs are locked in the Camp Lejeune brig. And so are the young Marines who are training the dogs, which will eventually be donated to Marines badly wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan to help them regain some independence.

Civilian prisoners have been used for the labor-intensive task of training service dogs to help disabled owners since 1981. The new program at Lejeune is thought to be the first in a military prison. Base officials said they were willing to do it because the dogs will help disabled Marines, and because studies have shown that working with dogs helps rehabilitate prisoners, calming them and improving their attitudes.

Prisoners in the program said in interviews that the dogs had turned days of tedium into lives with focus, allowed them to contribute at least a little to the country they let down, and even given them back self-respect they left outside.

"I'd still be doing laundry and anything I could to keep my mind from dwelling on the past," said Mark, a compact 23-year-old who is halfway through a sentence of about two years. (Under the rules for interviews in the brig, prisoners could give only their first names and ages and weren't allowed to name their offenses).

As Mark talked, Dixon, a stocky, mellow English Labrador retriever that he and another Marine are helping train, lay calmly at his feet.

"People don't give them the respect they deserve," Mark said. "They think they're stupid, but dogs can really do some great things."

When he gets out, Mark said, he has decided he wants to try for a job training dogs.

A couple of bunks down, Chris, 28, and Gene, 23, sat with dark-haired Roxy, the star pupil. She is the youngest of the six dogs, just 10 months old, but ahead of all the others in learning the early lessons.

Roxy will leave the brig before Gene, who has three years to go, but after Chris, who is down to just seven months.

Gene said parting with her would probably be harder on him than Chris, as he gets attached to animals easily.

Chris agreed. "The good thing is that Roxy will go on to help someone," he said. "Someone I know, most likely, because the Marines are a pretty tight community."

He bent as Roxy watched and pulled up the left pant leg of his orange jail suit, revealing a round white scar on each side of his calf where a sniper's bullet had entered and exited.

"There was a time I could have used a dog like this myself," he said.

Mark's convoys in Iraq were hit four times with improvised bombs, he said. Gene, like Chris, had done combat deployments, too, so they all knew men who could use service dogs.

Even the dogs -- by chance, most were Labrador retrievers or Lab mixes -- won something by being selected for the program: Most came from shelters, and Bailey, a yellow lab, was adopted the day he was scheduled to be killed. The civilian trainers who have been teaching the Marines how to work with the dogs were told Bailey was taken to the shelter by a young Marine who was going off to war.

Even those who weren't shelter dogs came out ahead. Dixon was donated by owners who used to show him. He had spent most of his life locked in a kennel. Now he has more spring in his step, more a feeling of purpose, Mark said.