Dogs trained in prison change veterans’ lives

CUMBERLAND, MD. — In 2018, Al Moore was gulping down a dozen medications to cope with physical pain and sometimes crippling post-traumatic stress disorder that he developed during 30 years in the Marine Corps.

Those drugs have been replaced by what Moore describes as “the most holistic medicine you can have.”

“We call him ‘Kevin the wonder dog,’” Moore’s wife, Dawn, said Thursday, pointing to the Labrador retriever whose eyes were fixed, as usual, on her husband. “He’s always wondering, ‘What can I do for you?’”

Kevin, a 3-year-old service dog with a golden fur coat, wakes Moore up when he has nightmares, keeps him steady when he gets dizzy on stairs and turns on lights when he enters rooms. He makes Moore feel comfortable in public spaces such as grocery stores and doctors’ offices, where he once couldn’t go without Dawn.

“It not just saved my life, but my family’s as well,” Moore told a room full of prisoners and staff at the maximum-security prison in this small town, moments before Kevin was reunited with the inmate who trained him.

Kevin is one of 23 service dogs trained at the Western Correctional Institution through a program run by America’s VetDogs, a nonprofit that pairs service dogs with veterans who are struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder. Sully, former President George H.W. Bush’s service dog who became a viral sensation at his funeral, was trained through the same program at a prison in Hagerstown, Maryland.

On Thursday, Moore, who’s had 19 surgeries in the past 27 years, addressed the inmates: “You guys are my heroes,” he said.

Sitting in the audience in the prison library, Herbert Wilson-Bey grinned. Kevin was the third service dog Wilson-Bey had trained, raising him from age 6 weeks to over a year old, until he was mature enough to be paired with a veteran.

Wilson-Bey, 44, grew up in Baltimore and has spent his entire adult life in prison after being convicted of robbery and murder at age 17. Training the dogs, he said, has been one of his first real responsibilities.

WASHINGTON POST BONNIE JO MOUNT / Doug, a puppy training to be a service dog, rests during a ceremony recently at Western Correctional Institution in Cumberland, Maryland.