TILLERY, N.C. - A Halifax County deputy found Bob, a black Labrador mix, on a back road a year ago when he was a pup just a few weeks old. He and two other male pups were starving in the wild, surviving by dining on their dead mother. The deputy took them to a volunteer-run shelter in the county.

Durham County deputies found Kenneth Harris near Bahama, where he had stolen lumber from a construction site. The deputies chased the small-time crack dealer to a housing project, where he turned himself in. He was sentenced in 2002 to more than eight years in prison under the state's four-strikes law.

During the course of two months this year, Harris and Bob helped each other on a path out of confinement, even though it was a path that would eventually lead them apart. They were among the first dog-inmate teams to participate in Caledonia Correctional Institution's "A New Leash on Life" program. Harris learned to train Bob to be a well-behaved pet that could be readily adopted, instead of destroyed in an overcrowded shelter. Bob provided Harris with a way to make his time in prison productive and rewarding, teaching him a new skill that he might turn into a career when he leaves prison.

State Department of Correction officials call the program a "four-way win."

The community gets trained pets, the prison keeps inmates productive, the inmates learn a new skill, and as Fay Lassiter, the assistant chief of program services for the Correction Department, put it: "The dog's sentence is commuted to life."

A Dominican nun started the first prison dog training program in Washington state nearly 25 years ago. Since then, several states have launched them, including North Carolina a year ago. The Correction Department has found homes for 42 of the 44 dogs in the program. Only two have failed to complete it. Leash on Life operates out of six prisons - four are minimum security, while Caledonia and Craven Correctional Institution are medium security.

Harris, 43, volunteered for the program as soon as he learned about it. He had trained dozens of beagles to hunt while growing up in northern Durham County, and had left several of them in the care of his cousin.

Prison officials looked at his record and saw he was a nonviolent criminal with good behavior behind bars and no history of deviant acts. Harris couldn't believe his good fortune - he would spend his days training dogs simple obedience, instead of taking a kitchen job or toiling in the cannery for vegetables grown on Caledonia's prison farm.

But there was one catch that Harris learned as the weeks went by: After taking care of Bob and training him to sit, to stay and to come running on a sharp whistle, Harris was going to have to let him go.

Bill Carroll, the program director for Caledonia, knew that was no simple matter. Midway through the program, Carroll watched Harris let Bob run loose on an unusually warm morning in February.

Bob took off after the other two dogs in the training program - Judy, a German shepherd mix, and Denise, a hound mix - and they chased and nipped at each other in reckless glee. But then Bob stopped in mid-run, plunked down in center field and looked at Harris. His playful brown eyes and happy-go-lucky grin said it all.

Harris walked to the dog, lay down on the grass and rested his head on Bob's hips as if the dog were a pillow. Carroll pulled out his camera and took a photo. What better way to advertise the program? he thought.

That afternoon, though, he thought about the scene differently. "I know it's going to be hard on the inmates, giving them up," Carroll said.

Harris and the five other inmates in the program began each morning feeding and walking the dogs before putting them through their obedience lessons. The dogs first learned to walk on a leash alongside their trainers, then to sit and to stay. Next, they learned to "place," which means go to a designated location. Each command took about a week and a half for the dogs to learn.

Greg Richardson, a Halifax County sheriff's deputy who works with the K-9 unit, trained the inmates. He taught them hand signals to use for the commands, such as a closed fist for stay.

One day, Richardson watched the dogs as the inmates walked them roughly 20 paces between two cones. It appeared that the dogs, as they walked alongside the inmates, were listening to the commands. But Richardson realized the dogs were merely counting their steps so they would round the cones with their trainers. That wouldn't work in the real world, Richardson told the inmates. That's why they had to change their routines, so the dogs paid attention to the commands.

Bob had a quirk that Harris needed to correct. The dog was so used to living in a kennel from his days in the shelter that he often ran back to it, particularly if Judy and Denise were there. One day Bob ran back to the kennel twice after Harris tried to get him to place on a small platform in the prison yard.

Harris and the other inmates took copious notes about what they and the dogs learned. They filled out journals that would go to the future owners so they would have a better understanding of their pets.

"He's going to be a real good dog to have," Harris wrote neatly in the journal after one training session. He called Bob his "old bigheaded boy" and told him he had to do well during their daily walks so they'd both succeed.

When graduation came, it went just as the program started, with an official event in the prison gymnasium. The prison choir, augmented by bass and keyboard, sang old gospel standards to a crowd of prison officials, local dignitaries and several volunteers from the Down East Animal Refuge in Scotland Neck. The prison cafeteria dished up roast beef and turkey with green beans and mashed potatoes.

It was a day to advertise the good work of the six inmate dog trainers, prison staff and Richardson, and to get the message out that there were strays who needed homes. Rain leaked through several cracks in the aging building's roof and collected in buckets along a wall lined with weight benches.

As Harris waited for the show to begin, someone asked him what he had learned from the program. Patience and responsibility, he said.

Harris and inmate Dennis Johnson, who trained Judy, showed the audience the dogs' achievements. Bob and Judy walked alongside their trainers, sat and placed on command. Johnson had taught Judy to jump through a hoop, which she did several times. (Denise, the third dog, missed the graduation; she had been claimed by her new owner a week earlier.)

Several volunteers from the shelter dabbed tears from their eyes. They knew the dogs had been successfully rescued.

Judy went to a young couple in the county, while Bob went to the father of Lawrence Solomon, superintendent at nearby Odom Correctional Institution. Solomon's father was not at the graduation, so Harris tried to tell Solomon how to care for Bob.

"He's strictly a one-man dog," Harris told Solomon. "It's going to take about two weeks before he'll do anything."

"I'll let you know how he's doing," Solomon said.

He told Solomon that he'll come take care of Bob after he gets out of prison in five years, if Solomon would like.

A short time later, Carroll introduced three new dogs to the training program. It was his way of getting Harris, Johnson and the other inmates to think beyond Bob, Judy and Denise. Harris didn't pay attention to the new dogs. He had one more thing to tell Solomon about Bob.

It's his secret to gaining Bob's trust. He reaches down and scratches a spot on the side of Bob's neck. Bob turns his head counterclockwise, and his eyes go unfocused in pure bliss.

"When he turns his head that way, you got it," Harris said.

But Solomon didn't try to scratch Bob, who was skittish around him. Solomon walked away to go back to work.

Someone would come by later to pick up Bob. Harris stepped back and turned his stocky, 5-foot-9 frame away from those around him. He grabbed a handkerchief in a hand big enough to palm a basketball in mid-dribble. Then he wiped at his eyes.