Trained in prison, Lab will now serve soldier wounded in Iraq

By MEGAN HOLLAND

Wyatt, a 2-year-old Labrador mutt, has spent most of his life in prison.

At Hiland Mountain Correctional Center, that is — Alaska’s women’s prison.

On Friday, he was released and began a new career: a service dog for a soldier wounded in Iraq.

Hiland Mountain officials handed Wyatt’s leash to Sgt. William Ondell of Eagle River in a ceremony held in the prison gym with dozens of yellow-clad female prisoners in attendance.

Wyatt is the first graduate of the service dog program at the prison — an outgrowth of a highly touted program that trains abandoned dogs from the Mat-Su animal shelter. The goal is to make them better candidates for adoption.

Wyatt, a big, brown mutt with a head the size of a soccer ball, ended up at the shelter as a young stray. Now he will flick light switches with his nose and fetch cell phones and keys in his mouth in his new life beyond bars.

Ondell’s wife, Reece, said she’s most looking forward to Wyatt helping with her husband’s post-traumatic stress disorder. "He has a lot of anxiety and the dog will help him stay relaxed," she said

On Friday, the dog lay splat on the floor for most of the half-hour ceremony, ignoring the prison orchestra, ignoring the pomp and circumstance of Gov. Sarah Palin entering the room, ignoring even a 3-month-old puppy down an aisle.

"Wyatt is very calm. He doesn’t get excited," said Tamara Riley, the prisoner who trained him for the past year and a half.

During his training, Wyatt rarely left Riley’s side. He spent his days like she did: For eight hours, he rested on a pillow underneath her sewing machine at her prison job making uniforms. He took his place under the cafeteria tables at meal times, never begging for food. He attended orchestra practice with her and listened to her play the violin. And, he slept in a kennel in her room at night.

She’d reward Wyatt with beef jerky she bought at the commissary.

"He’s unbelievably in-tune with whoever he is with. He’s a very intelligent dog," she said, picking dog hair off her shirt. "I’m so glad he went to the people he went to."

Because Wyatt needed to be trained for the outside world, not just the rote daily living of a women-only prison, corrections officers took him home sometimes, and on errands to the grocery store. Other officers took the dog to the male prison at Point MacKenzie to get him used to men.

Sgt. Keith Conlin is one of the people in charge of the dog-training programs. "It calms the prisoners’ attitudes," said the corrections officer. "The same thing that dogs do to people on the outside happens in here, the effect dogs have on us.