COLDWATER -- Inside Florence Crane Correctional Facility, muscular, tattooed arms stroked the taut bodies of 14 greyhounds now retired from racing. Once condemned to die, a few dogs licked the hands of the men who had saved them.

Nearly 30 inmates at Crane are part of a new program run by the Michigan Department of Corrections and the nonprofit National Greyhound Foundation. It saves dogs' lives while giving their inmate handlers a new way of looking at themselves and the world.

"Responsibility," "teamwork" and "love" are the words inmates used last week when they talked about the greyhound training and adoption program. If that's what the dogs are teaching them, all of us will benefit when the men return to their communities and neighborhoods.

Offenders also are learning job skills they could use as dog trainers when they leave.

"This has humbled me," said Daniel Ferguson, 39, of Ypsilanti, who is serving 3 to 15 years for unarmed robbery. "It used to be all about me. Now, the dogs come first."

At 2 to 5 years old, the greyhounds are too old to race. Before coming here, they also were unsuitable as pets, skittish around people and untrained to follow even basic commands.

Since last August, inmates at the Coldwater complex have trained nearly 100 retired racing greyhounds, which then were placed in homes. The dogs live in a housing unit with their trainers, sleeping in portable cages near inmate bunks. Two handlers are paired with each dog and inmates chronicle the dogs' progress in journals.

After three months of training, the dogs graduate and are put up for adoption. Another group comes in.

"Bittersweet," said Robert Conley, 36, of Lansing, who is serving an 11- to 30-year bit for criminal sexual conduct. "We've bonded with the dogs, but we're happy that they're going to a good home. And now, we'll be able to save more lives."

Inmates apply to get into the program, and the foundation trains them. There's no cost to taxpayers, other than the $1.50 a day inmates get paid for the work. The foundation pays for the dogs' food, veterinary bills and other expenses.

Warden Carol Howes and Deputy Warden Paul Klee told me the greyhounds have mellowed the entire prison.

"It brings some humanity back into Corrections," Klee said. "Simple things that you and I take for granted, like petting a dog, these guys don't get a chance to do."

Prison systems in Indiana, Ohio and Florida have similar programs, said Beverly Sebastian of the National Greyhound Foundation, who worked with MDOC Director Patricia Caruso to bring the program to Michigan.

Sebastian wants to expand the program to 29 other states. It already has saved thousands of dogs. In saving those lives, inmates are learning how to live, too.

For information about the program or how to adopt a dog, go to www.4greyhounds.org. JEFF GERRITT is a Free Press editorial writer. Contact him at 313-222-6585 or gerritt@freepress.com.

At least they didn't use the "R" word or say the dogs were abused.

Jenna

I noticed the same things you guys did.

You never know, maybe they actually get the skittish ones!!

Overall nice article. Hopefully, it will expand to other facilities and other states.

Good article.

Good program