VANDALIA, Mo. -- It's well past visiting hours at the women's maximum-security prison off a desolate stretch of Highway 54 in northeast Missouri. But a guard waves an odd caravan into the complex's inner yard.

Janet Cole and Mary Ruth of CHAMP Assistance Dogs Inc. usher a group of canines into the prison this frigid Tuesday night as they do every week.

The dogs, primed by the smells and sights of a place they find friendly, wiggle and thump their tails. They're glad to be back.

Inside, a dozen female inmates await them eagerly. The mask worn to survive institutional life comes off. The measured emotional control expected in such places crumbles. Girlish chatter, howls of happiness, and maternal coos take over.

"We long for the training days, we can't wait to see them," gushed inmate Laura Marcrum, 40, of Memphis, Tenn.

Welcome to Housing Unit Two, B-wing, also known as "The Dog House," where 12 female offenders train dogs to assist the disabled. It's the first Missouri Department of Corrections program of its kind.

Feeling human again

The women, many of them serving life sentences, say the program makes them feel "human" or "normal" again: the dogs offer a much-needed emotional outlet; the work lets them see themselves as something other than a person who committed a crime.

"To give something back of such magnitude, you know your heart is going out those gates to somebody else," Marcrum said.

The first program to partner dogs with offenders was started in 1981 in Washington state by Sister Pauline Quinn, now of Maine, who said a dog helped her recover from a childhood of abuse and homelessness. Years later, she devised a way to let dogs help institutionalized women feel better about themselves.

Since then, similar programs have sprung up in a handful of states.

Vandalia's training program got under way in late May.

Cole, the Florissant group's executive director, said she was wary when Vandalia assistant superintendent Laraine Lamb approached her about starting a program in the women's prison.

"I give her all the credit," Cole said. "She wrote a dynamite proposal" that won over Corrections director Gary Kempker.

Lamb wanted to see development of the emotional bonds between women and dogs, bonds that tend to carry over into other relationships.

"So much of what they're doing mimics parenting," Cole said. "We're teaching positive reinforcements."

Not limited by time

CHAMP, or Canine Helpers Allow More Possibilities, is one of three St. Louis-area organizations that provide service dogs to the disabled. The nonprofit organization trains or places for training 16 to 18 dogs at a time, many of them from shelters or dog-rescue groups. Thirteen dogs currently in service do everything from switch on lights, to fetch medicine, open refrigerator and cabinet doors, even call for help on a special 911 phone.

What CHAMP found in the inmates was a consistent and dependable group of potential trainers who weren't limited by the time constraints of people on the outside, Cole said.

Inmates at the prison were so eager to participate they left the prison's "high-paying" jobs in computer programming or garment making to work with the dogs for virtually no salary. Work credits earn the inmates points for canteen items like soda or cigarettes.

"This work is more positive," said inmate Shelly Fossell, 32, of Festus. "It changes people's lives."

In a place where hugs or any demonstration of physical affection is not permitted, the dogs fill the emptiness of prison life, inmates said.

Emotions are "a part of life you don't expect to have taken away from you," said inmate Lisa Suter, 35, of St. Charles. "That we're able to touch and express the love we feel ... I cry just thinking about it."