The Untold Truth About the Dog Who Got Life Imprisonment

In 1924, residents of Pennsylvania woke up to the most astonishing newspaper headline. Governor Pinchot’s dog is serving a life sentence for killing a cat. The dog in question was Pep, a black labrador.

Accompanying the news was a mugshot of Pep complete with his identification number, C2559. Justice served. And so, Pep the black labrador spent the next 15 years of his life in lockdown. Restricted from seeing anybody for the threat he posed. All attempts to get him out on payroll denied and every attempt to convince the jury of his corrected behavior vehemently turned down.

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That is how the story would go if it were true. Yes, the newspaper fabricated the whole thing. A cheap attempt to sell more paper I guess. Sure, it’s true Pep was the governor’s dog. It’s also true that he resided in the Eastern State Penitentiary. But, it was all for a great course. The dog was a gift to the governor by a relative that bred labs. And the real reason he was at the penitentiary was to serve as a mascot to the prisoners.

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The governor was aware of the therapeutic power that dogs possess and believed that having a dog around the prison could help some prisoners cope with the conditions surrounding them as well as rehabilitating them. He was right. Pep went on to become a darling to many and even earned the nickname “Pep the black.” Unknown to the governor, the idea to use dogs to rehabilitate prisoners would be officially incorporated in many prisoners later.

Feature Image Source: NPR/DailyMail