Shar Pei and other dogs get a second chance

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Nobody has broken out of the Idaho State Correctional Institution in more than 20 years. Prison officials like to think a hard-bitten corps of sentries with names like Cookie, Bongo and Chi Chi has had something to do with that.

The institution is the only state prison in the U.S. to use snarling, snapping sentry dogs to patrol its perimeter.

In a program begun in 1986, 24 mean dogs — mostly German shepherds, rottweilers and Belgian malinois, with a few boxers and pit bulls — roam the space between the inner and outer chain-link fences 24 hours a day, ferociously defending their territory.

Get too close to the fence and they will bare their teeth, bark and lunge. Set foot in their space and they will attack.

The animals themselves are former death row inmates — dogs that were deemed too dangerous to be pets and would have been destroyed at the local pound if they had not been given a reprieve and assigned to prison duty. Read more

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