I swipe an alcohol-soaked gauze pad over my younger brother’s left thigh, an inch below the hem of his SpongeBob boxers. As I screw the needle into the injection pen, Alex feeds me instructions. It’s my first time, but already it’s his 37th.


“Here are the rules: Insert the needle quickly and gently, but only when I say so,” he says, taking the pen to pantomime the motion. He removes the first of two protective caps and turns a knob on the pen—one, two, three, four, five clicks—and watches intensely as his dose is released into the barrel.

Juries love dog testimony. As witnesses go, nothing beats a
canine for sincerity and trustworthiness, and nothing brings a little light into a dismal courtroom like the goofy grin and thumping tail of a hound.




"The jury eats it up," says police K-9 handler Pat McAlhany, a veteran of the Miami-Dade County Sheriff's Office. "From a prosecutor's standpoint, there's nothing better than my actually bringing my dog into the courtroom for a demonstration."