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training reward. The water was four feet deep and full of dogs, but Tom thought, Why not? What’s to lose ?
    He rolled out of bed early the next morning, before any of the other dogs and trainers were out. As always, Tuesday jumped up immediately and followed him to the yard, where he watched intently as Tom lowered the water in the swimming pool to a few inches deep. It was already hot in the concrete prison yard, and Tuesday didn’t hesitate. When Tom said, “In,” he stepped into the pool.
    “Out.”
    He stepped out.
    “In.”
    He ran across the pool.
    “Come back, Tuesday,” Tom laughed.
    Tuesday ran back across the pool. Tom’s intention was to relax Tuesday, to take his mind off work and let him be a dog, but Tuesday was looking at him so enthusiastically from the water that Tom said, “Sit.”
    Tuesday did. Then he smiled that big doggy smile, with his tongue out and his lips curling into his eyes.
    “Down.”
    Tuesday flattened himself in the water.
    “Side.”
    Tuesday jumped up and loped to the side of the pool. Tom burst out laughing. “You sly dog,” he said, bringing the hose over to the edge of the pool. “Do you want more water?”
    Tuesday started to walk toward the hose.
    “Stay,” Tom said. Tuesday did.
    “Side,” Tom said, when the water was a foot deep. Tuesday stood to Tom’s right, facing the same direction, with his collar beside his leg, exactly as he was supposed to.
    “Let’s go.”
    Tuesday didn’t hesitate. He walked around the edge of the pool at Tom’s side. By the time the other dogs arrived, Tuesday was rampaging through three feet of water to fetch his rattle ball, the tool Tom used to train his dogs to retrieve.
    “What happened to Tuesday?”
    “Candy bar,” Tom said, holding out his hand for payment.
    “Not yet, man. Not yet. He’s still got a long way to go.”
    At first, Tuesday did most of his training in the pool, but after a few days he was trotting around the prison yard at Tom’s heel, just as he had trotted beside his first raiser. The only problem was that whenever anything was thrown into the pool, Tuesday jumped in after it. The Labrador retrievers would step in to fetch, only to find Tuesday leaping past them, splashing water everywhere in his enthusiasm to reach the object first. The men who had been calling him pansy were now yelling at Tom, “Hey, man, control your dog!”
    “He’s not out of control,” Tom replied with a smile. “That’s just his pool. Maybe your dog shouldn’t be so timid.”
    And that’s how, with the help of a weathered-but-tender trainer, the pansy became King of the Pool, the prison yard alpha and ultimate fetcher of other dogs’ toys.
    “Once we broke the ice with the pool and we already had the bond between us, Tuesday would do anything. It was so simple to train him. It was actually no work at all.”
    That’s right, bonded . And why not? “I bonded with every dog I’ve had,” Tom said.
    He was heartbroken when his first dog graduated, but he held himself in check, not wanting to make a scene in front of the guys. He trained his second dog, a guide dog, for sixteen months, and he broke down in tears when the dog left him. The other prisoners made fun of him, at least until they reached the point where they could cry themselves, but Tom didn’t care. It was the first time he’d cried in twenty years, and it felt . . . human.
    Tuesday was one of the hardest to leave, because he was such a loving dog. He was needy, but he was always there for you. That was important, because Tom hadn’t adopted Tuesday on a whim. He needed a distraction, because five months after lying under Steve Buscemi’s bunk with Tuesday he was eligible for parole. According to Tom, the months before a parole hearing were by far the worst time in a prisoner’s life. Prison is monotony, a mind-numbing, soul-crushing nothing with freedom as the only reward. Most guys had an end date. Tom didn’t. He was a lifer. He had parole, and with