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parole, there was no promise. And that’s hard. Especially when, as Tom believed, making parole was the luck of the draw.
    “I’ve seen guys going in there who just beat up a corrections officer and make parole,” he said. “Other guys go in with recommendations and certificates from every program and not make parole.” It’s not about you. That’s what the prisoners say. It about whether the parole board was made happy last night.
    So prisoners up for parole nervously walked their cells. And worried. And started arguments because they were on edge. And worried that the arguments were undermining their cause. And started more arguments, because they couldn’t let the last ones go. They tried to get their thoughts in order, both on paper and in their head, even though they didn’t believe it would do any good, but the feeling of helplessness, of being nothing more than a number you can’t even know, kept getting in the way. That behavior isn’t just counterproductive—it can eat through your life, as I can attest from my long years of isolation and obsession in the depths of my wounds. Thinking and rethinking without the ability to act, and dwelling on your isolation in a faceless system, leads quickly to frustration, anger, and despair. Prisoners up for parole describe the last couple of months as agony—and the short, impersonal parole hearing as a letdown, no matter the result.
    With Tuesday, though, Tom didn’t just adopt a distraction. He adopted the perfect companion. When their owner gets nervous, most dogs mimic them, getting nervous themselves. Not Tuesday. He has the ability to act as ballast, to balance the relationship by going in the opposite direction. When Tom got nervous, Tuesday became calm. As Tom grew distracted by the hearing, Tuesday focused. He knew Tom needed him, and I suspect his desire to help, as much as the swimming pool, provided the push back into training. Tuesday was determined to succeed, in other words, not for himself, but for his friend.
    He focused on his commands. He pulled less on the leash. He ignored the swimming pool, loping along instead at Tom’s side. He jumped on the cot as the date approached and the nights grew long, and more and more often Tom let him stay. When Tuesday put his head on Tom’s lap in the television room, Tom knew it was no longer just because the poor lonely dog wanted companionship; it was because he wanted Tom to know he had a friend.
    The day arrived. The guards knocked. Tom gave Tuesday a last hug, stroked him under his chin, and went to meet his fate. He turned back to see Tuesday sitting in the jail cell, staring after him with those gentle, intelligent eyes, and he returned hours later to find Tuesday in the exact same place. When he received his parole notice, Tom broke down. He hugged Tuesday, who was of course at his side, and thanked him for his service. Even after almost thirty years inside, he was not a broken man, like so many other prisoners. He was not angry, at the system or himself. “The only way the prison system could win,” Tom said, “was to get me to hate, and being around the dogs and everything, the hate was totally out of the picture.” When Tom walked out the door and found his wife waiting for him, he had no problem giving her a hug, because he had been working on relationships for years. He was that rarity in the modern prison system: a totally free man.
    Today, Tom owns his own business training dogs with his wife. He focuses on troubled dogs that others have given up on, especially pit bulls. He understands that everybody deserves a second chance, and with love and patience almost every animal can succeed. After all, he turned his life around. He spent a decade giving back to society by training service and explosives-detection dogs, and that, he said, “got my mind right and focused on the positives.” When he walked out of prison, he knew he could succeed. He had a perfect 7-0 record, after all, and he had