on this edition of "60 minutes presents." tales of our four-legged friends. we take a trip through human and canine evolution. how are wolves and man's best friend alike? >> that was so cool. >> you'll be surprised at what we found out. >> can i see your face? >> as well as the remarkable ways dogs are helping scientists research some of the deadliest kinds of cancer.

it's so amazing to me how similar humans and dogs' immune response is. >> we're very similar perhaps more so than we'd like to admit. it's hard to imagine anything surviving on this expansive badlands in northern wyoming. sage brush blankets the high desert all the way to the rocky mountains but in the empty quarter of the cowboy state is a thundering herd of mustangs, untouched, wild and breathtakingly beautiful. what is happening to these thousands of wild horses? that's our story tonight.

good evening. i'm anderson cooper. welcome to "60 minutes presents." tonight three tales of our four-legged friends. later, we'll hear about horses but we'll begin with dogs. there is a good chance of those you watching have a dog nearby but what do you actually know where dogs come from? you're probably aware they evolved from wolves but how and when? it turns out much of that is a mystery there are intriguing clues however that have been discovered in the dna of dogs and wolves, clues that might give us a better understanding of how they and we evolved.

you heard of survival of the fittest, but as we first reported in november, a scientist at duke university says the term that may best describe dogs' revolutionary success is survival of the friendliest. there's no doubt dogs are an evolutionary triumph. there is an estimated billion of them on the planet and they've nosed their way into every corner of our lives, living with us, working with us. >> yes, good boy. >> and loving us. what is it you're trying to understand about dogs? >> i'm really interested in where dogs come from, and i think it teaches us a lot about where humans came from. >> brian hare an evolutionary buy ol' biologist at duke university. >> survival of the friendliest. >> what about survival of the fittest? >> so survival of the fittest is a misconstrual in the public mind of what evolution is.

it's the idea like the biggest, the strongest is the idea of who wins. not at all. dogs are exhibit a of this. >> hair says it might be hard to imagine but that sweet dog you loved started out as this. a wild predatory wolf and their evolutionary story began at least 20,000 years ago when humans were hunter gatherers. >> so what we believe happened and we have science to show some of this is that wolves chose us, a population of wolves actually became attracted to humans and they were at advantage because they were eating garbage and people left around homes and wolves sort of basically gave up on hunting and attracted and friendliest towards humans. they were at a huge advantage. >> some wolves were able to feed off scraps, they weren't aggressive and over time, they became domestic. >> that's exactly right. >> to better understand how the

two species diverged so drastically, brian hare came here to the wildlife science center in minnesota. >> do you want to guard and i'll dry? >> yeah. >> it's run by peggy callahan and her 23-year-old daughter meg both skilled at navigating a cage of hungry wolves. >> back up. >> back up. >> back up. >> nope, nope, i know you're hungry. don't get pissed at me. >> you might want to just hand it over. >> there are 110 gray wolves here. some rescued from the wild but most hand raised by peggy and meg. they're divided into pacts separated by chain link fences. this pact is named after the '80s horror movie "children of the corn." so i saw the movie "children of the corn" which is terrifying. which is this pact called "children of the corn"? >> for terrifying reasons. they attacked and killed their father and tried to kill their

mother. >> this pact? >> this pact. >> eye did their kill their father? >> opportunity. >> opportunity? >> yeah. >> wow. >> you come here to see me. >> peggy told us the only reason we were able to sit among the "children of the corn" because these wolves view her as the dominant member of her pact. >> why is it important in their mind you are dominant to them. >> i know they're capable of killing one another. their jaw pressure is enormous. >> by the way, even right now with the wolves coming behind you, you're aware they're behind you. >> yes, you have to have eyes in the back of your head. >> they're assessing who are we? who is dominant? can i take this person? >> absolutely. yeah. what i don't -- hi. i don't think they're planning anything but i think should an opportunity afford, they're incredible opportunists. >> peggy works hard to secure the upper hand. if you have any doubt about her position as the alpha dog, just listen. >> can you show me your howl? >> absolutely. [howling]

>> goose bumps every time. [ laughter ] >> that was so cool. >> wouldn't you learn to howl if that hatppened? >> what is the significance of the howl? >> they use it to mark territory. they will also howl at intruders to get them to leave. >> becoming dominant over a wolf starts early. if a pup needs to be taken away from its mother for health or research, meg steps in. >> told you i'd bring a wolf puppy to visit. >> when we were there last year she was taking 1 month old filo everywhere, even the morning coffee run. >> sometimes if he gets really mouthing -- ouch, like that. good boy. so it's just a little correction.

i pinch and growl and the second he stops growling, like oh, i whine to him and rub his bully and stuff. >> that's what his mother would do? >> exactly, yeah. i'm sorry. some wolf looked just like you back talking me, not you. >> don't be fooled. dominance has its limits. this is mj. >> the dominant female? >> yes. >> she was hand raised and likes a belly rub, too, until she doesn't. >> she's tolerating this with us -- oh, oh. no, she's not. okay. enough. okay. she just said stop. >> i heard. to see just how far dogs have evolved because of domestic, duke university brian hare set up a puppy kindergarten. >> oh my goodness.

>> students help raise lab puppies cruising the quad, going to basketball practice, even the track team's photo shoot. >> yeah! [ cheers ] >> part of the program is aimed at training service dogs for the organization canine companions but there is research being done, too, to compare the puppies to hand raised wolf pups, brain hare's team runs them through a series of behavioral tests. >> look, look. okay. >> yes, good job. >> watch again. >> puppy look. >> notice how this puppy looks back and forth from the researcher to the bowl and immediately follows her point. filo the wolf puppy might look lik a dog but watch him take the same test. >> what is it? >> you can see filo didn't follow the point here. >> but a puppy at this age would? >> totally.

it looks like puppies come in the world better prepared to understand us because of domestic and interacting with us. >> you've done testing with dozens of wolves.l,haou >> you can spend 24 hoa day with, say, a wolf puppy and even after you've done that for several months, they're not attracted to new people, they don't want to be with people. they want to be with wolves. that's not what happens in the case of dogs. as a species, they're actually what is known as zeniphilic. they're attracted to people. >> how much of that is in their genes. in 2010 to figure that out, hare's colleague, a genetics started comparing the dna from dogs to wolves. you've located some specific genes that led to friendly behavior. >> that's right. when we sequenced a bunch of dogs and a bunch of wolves, we used that to then search for mutations in the dog genome that only dogs had and we came out with a really nice hot spot of mutations on chromosome number six in the dog genome and that's

highlighted here. >> you can pinpoint genes in dogs that make that dog friendly to humans in a way that wolves are not? >> absolutely. >> wow. >> this was a major finding in my opinion. >> that is something that would have evolved over time. >> that's right. so we can imagine back in the predog era where there were wolves running around and some of those wolves were maybe making their dens closer to human settlements, i hypothesized that if i could go and sequence those wolves, they would carry maybe two of these mutations and the rest of the wolves, maybe none. >> bridget calls these friendliness mutations. does my dog really love me or acting out on it's genetic code? >> she absolutely loves you. she has the genetic

predisposition to whole hearted ly love you. >> what came next stunned her and us. she found the location of the friendliness mutations in dogs corresponds to the same genes that when deleted in humans caused a rare condition called william syndrome. her study established one of the first genetic links between dogs and humans. meet 36-year-old ben. >> how are you, sir? >> well, how are you? >> what a surprise. >> ben is no stranger to "60 minutes" when he was 11 in 1997 there was a story done on the syndrome. >> how are you? ♪ ♪ >> people with williams syndrome like ben are often unusually outgoing and friendly leaving some to call it cocktail party syndrome. we were with ben at his favorite pub when he jumped up mid dinner

to join the band. ♪ ♪ >> what it is that makes you unique? >> my way of giving happiness to people. my friendliness, my kindness. >> i got to say just meeting you, you've made me smile from the moment we met. >> when people are happy, it makes me feel like i've achieved something. >> william syndrome is a lifelong condition that often causes serious medical problems and intellectual disabilities. ben's mom says ben and others like him are so trusting and friendly they can sometimes be taken advantage of. can you explain what is different about ben genetically. >> ben is missing 25 genes on chromosome 7. that's 1% of their genetic makeup that is missing.

>> that deleting in ben's dna involves the same genes that contain the friendliness mutations discovered in dogs. ben, what do you think about that? there might be a link of friendliness in dogs, there might be a link to friendliness in humans? >> it just makes me feel so happy and proud that dogs and people have similarities. >> when the discovery was announced in 2017, terry was head of the william syndrome association. she reached out to some members to see how they felt about it. >> and one of the parents that i called said are you kidding? you know, i'm sure that if a tail was put on my son, it would be wagging all the time. i think that really put it into prospective. >> understanding why dogs are so friendly brian hare tells us is helping unravel the mystery of how homosapiens came to be the most dominant species on earth. what is our understanding of dog evolution tell us about human evolution? >> i think what dog evolution

teaches us is that actually how you get ahead in the game of life is you evolve a new way to be friendly that leads to a new form of cooperation. humans, 100,000 years ago, our species was not alone. there was at least three 0 o for other human species and the question is why are we the only one left? we think and what dogs point to is that we were the friendliest species that ever evolved among humans and that we survived because we are friendly. >> survival of the friendliest. a successful evolutionary strategy many humans today would be wise to remember. when we come back, see how the genetic ties between dogs and humans may help us both in the fight against cancer. how friendly is anderson cooper's dog lily? >> should i brace myself?

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if you've ever lost a dog to disease, it may well have been cancer. some 4 million dogs are diagnosed every year, often the same kinds humans get. we share many of the same genes with our canine companions. as we discovered last fall, for cancer research that's an opportunity scientists are trying to make the most of. it's called comparative oncology now funded by the white house's cancer moon shoot initiative doctors and scientists studying naturally developing cancers in humans and dogs and using it to

speed potential treatments to them and us. g ow mht sm li on odd place to conduct cancer research. >> can i see your face? >> last summer in norwalk, connecticut we met scientists from the national institute of health swabbing and collecting dna samples from all sorts of breeds. >> awesome. >> they've been doing this for nearly 30 years and collected 30,000 samples so far, leading the team is elaine a senior genetic studying at nih. >> why is there scientists at nhi studying dogs? >> we are studying human disease and doing it through dogs so dogs live in our world. they get all the same diseases we do. they eat our food. they're exposed to the same environmental pollutants and have the same genes we do and

have mutations that make us susceptible ia cancer or neuro muscular diseases, everything humans get, dogs get. >> it easier to study the genes in dogs than humans because for the last 200 years they've been bred to emphasize specific traits, that's why they have these distinct noses and tails and sizes from great danes to chihuahuas. so before victorian times, the dogs were the same. > all the most all the variation in the rings today all happened in the last 200 years. >> incredible that much variety. >> so it's probably going to be a small number of genes responsible for most of the major differences. >> it turns out one gene determines if a dog has cream colored hair or black.

other genes determine long hair or short and her team at the nih discovered some physical traits in dogs like ear position hold surprising clues about human health. >> this was a study looking at prick ears versus floppy ears due to a mutation in one gene called msrb 3. >> so a mutation in one gene. >> one gene, isn't that amazing? >> makes the difference between pointing ears and floppy ears? >> isn't that amazing. when this gene is more dramatically mutated in humans, we get a form of deafness. >> really? >> yeah. >> she told us some of the most promising genetic research in dogs involves cancer. some breeds get certain types of cancers more often making it easier to locate some of the genes responsible. scottish terriers are 20 times more likely to get bladder cancer than the average dog. >> if i looked at humans, the story would be so much more complex.

there would be different genes in different populations and different mutations and different contributions of environment. when i look at one breed, i get simple stories. >> dogs are diagnosed with with melanoma, brain and breast cancer and the deadly bone cancer osteosarcoma. >> mason oversees oncology trials funded by the white house's cancer moon shot initiative. she showed us just how similar osteosarcoma looks in dog and people. >> there is a lot of purple dots here. these are the nucleus of the cancer cells that look identical. >> a microscope couldn't tell the difference between a dog and human? >> correct. incredibly similar. >> it's aggressive and malignant. nearly 10,000 dogs in the united states are estimated to get it

each year but only 1,000 people adults. christie was diagnosed in 2020 when she was 11. >> which leg was hurting? >> the left. >> in your thigh? >> here. >> christie was used to getting bruised on the soccer field so they chalked it up to a sports injury but after months of physical therapy, they discovered osteosarcoma. >> she came in and said christie has a cancerous tumor in her femur. i was like what? >> i am not a crier, i was processing it and saw her cry and i started crying. >> she was like wait? i have cancer? >> doctors removed the remaining bone and replaced it with this nine-inch metal rod. months of grueling chemo withered her to 72 pounds but her pediatric oncologist said the cancer came back this time in christie's lung.

a lot of time get new tumors. >> are there new treatments for osteosarcoma? >> no, we've been using the same treatment for 60 years or so? >> really? because it's a smaller cancer. >> there are not many to study and since it's rare, not a lot of funding goes to a lot of trials for it. >> but there were trials in pet dogs of an experimental immune therapy for osteosarcoma in 2012 led by mason used by listeria. >> this is listeria and causes food poisoning. this particular listeria is genetically modified so it is far less potent. >> it's been modified to contain a specific protein called her 2 found on the cancer cells. once injected into the dog's bloodstream the listeria awakens

the immune system making them feel sick and patrol the body. sandy a 9-year-old golden retriever joined a trial and had her front leg amputated of the cancer. t us sandy's immune system reacted to the listeria as she hoped. >> her body temperature started to increase, peaked around about four hours and started to drop down again. we sort of want to see that because it tells us that the immune therapy is in fact stimulating her immune response, which is what we want to happen. >> when sandy was first diagnosed, her life expectancy with the standard care of amputation and chemotherapy was around a year but that was four years ago. there is no sign of cancer? >> no.

>> and you've had four great years with her? >> yeah. >> did she get extra treats when she got through it all? >> she got everything. [ laughter ] >> she still does. >> i bet she does. >> dr. mason believes studying and treats naturally occurring cancer in pet dogs are more beneficial than lab mice that have to be artificially given cancer. >> we have to find a better way to determine which are the best treatments to take forward into the human. >> this is not giving dogs rare forms of cancer and then studying them and testing them in a lab? >> exactly. these are naturally occurring cancers. these are clinical trials just as you or i would go on into a clinical trial if we had a cancer and we do exactly the same in the veterinary field.

>> results from the first listeria trail in pet dogs were encouraging showing the dogs tolerated the immune therapy and it significantly increased duration of survival time. those results were submitted to the food and drug administration. >> let's just confirm your birthday. >> in 2021 the fda approved a phase two clinical trial using modified listeria to treat young adults and children like christie gomes who reoccurring osteosarcoma that spread to her lungs. >> do you want cartoons on the tv? >> yeah, please. >> we were with her with the third listeria chance fusion. >> that dark one is going into your vain. first she was given medication to make her sleepily. >> when the infusion happens do you remember afterward or sleep through it. >> just sleep. when i wake up, it hits like a truck. >> is that right? >> yeah. >> you get a headache? >> uh-huh. bad headache. and nauseous and i hate nauseous and headache, two things i don't like is two things guaranteed.

>> when she was dosing, the listeria started dripping into the i.v. it's started now? >> it has. >> it's amazing to think that you're both on the cutting edge of medicine. >> i know. and i don't think she -- i don't think she realizes how important this is. [crying] >> mommy. [crying] >> it hurts. >> an hour later, that truck christie told us about, it hit her hard. [crying] >> but similar to what happened to sandy the golden retriever, the listeria appeared to have awaken christie's immune system and after ten minutes her headache got better and a few hours later, she was able to

leave the hospital. it's so amazing to me how similar and dogs' immune response is. >> we're very similar. you know, i think perhaps more so than we might like to admit. >> were national cancer institute is spending more than $20 million to analyze cancer samples from pet dogs all the over the country and over sea comparative oncology trials to improve treatments in humans and dogs. one of their targets is brain cancer. this is otto, a 7-year-old box there belongs to dan. he was diagnosed with a deadly brain tumor in 2021. >> take the pointer finger on your left hand and take your nose. >> this is julie who is 59. she was diagnosed in 2020 with a similar nearly incurable brain cancer. she's had surgery, radiation and chemotherapy but the cancer came back. julie and otto enrolled in clinical trials that use virtually the same experimental treatment. a neurosurgeon and veterinary surgeon teamed up to treat otto and dogs with brain cancer and shared data with safety and dosing with a neuro oncologist julie and others. they met out to for the first ents, simicas,.

species. what's it like to meet otto? >> i'm crying. >> inflammation in julie's brain makes it difficult for her to speak. i never thought i'd be having conversation with a person and a dog who have the same treatment. >> who have the same treatment. >> i didn't realize until now. >> yeah, i didn't until after his first surgery. >> yeah. >> what sort of an impact that he was going to have. not only for him but other dogs and humans. >> but two months after that meeting, otto's symptoms worsened. it appeared his cancer returned. dan took him for a final swim in his favorite river and then said good-bye to the dog he called his best friend and a medical pioneer. >>'sood otto.

worsened, as well.red ho she told us she's grateful to have been part of an innovative interspecies battle. >> i helped fight cancer. >> it gives you satisfaction to know you helped fight cancer? >> yeah. >> i've had two dogs who have had cancer and the idea that that cancer can be studied and treated and it can have an impact on humans is incredible. >> yeah. may be the key, right? >> yeah, dogs may hold the key. >> christie gomes who is now well into her freshman year in high school says she agrees. >> we have to have more common things than we think. >> not that they just need us for food. >> we need more connection than that. >> christie's last scan showed

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there are more than 75,000 wild horses roaming public land in the west, wild horses are the descendants of domestic expl explorers. by 1971 their numbers were dwindling in congress stepped in passing a law to protect this romantic fragment of our

history. it worked almost too well. today, federal land managers say the number of wild horses is nearly three times what it should be and left unchecked, their population can double every five years. as sharon first reported in november, there is a program in wyoming designed to reign in the wild horses and an unlikely group of men. >> it hard to imagine anything surviving on this stretch of badlands in northern wyoming. sage brush blankets the high desert all the way to the rocky mountains but this empty quarter of the cowboy state is a thundering herd of mustangs. untouched, wild and breathtakingly beautiful. but wild horses can also reck the rangelands they home. government land managers say in the west, wild horses are competing with cattle and wildlife for increasingly scarce water and food and their over population often further strains the environment.eralurro of lan

management regularly rounds up wild horses, mainly by using small helicopters to locate, capture and truck them off to corrals or enclosed pastures like this one. a horse can live for about 20 years and most of these horses will remain here until they die. te wind river wild horse sanctuary outside wyoming is run by jess and his family. talk about the horses here. for most of them, this is it, right? >> yes, ma'am. we have the 225 long-term residents -- >> long-term residents. >> long-term residents. >> sounds like a nursing home. >> that's what i call them. they're part of our family and they will be here long term. >> and there they go. >> yes, ma'am. >> the 1400 acre facility is on an indiana reservation. the family is one of dozens of contractors paid by the government to feed and care for mustangs after they've been removed from the wild. activists want the horses to remain free. why not just let the wild horses be wild and run? >> the harsh reality is ecosystems are delicate balance of each species co-existing

together in the environment. in grass d water and ld horses . they're smart, they're fast, they eat a lot of food and need to be properly managed. >> keeping count of all those horses is holly, the division chief of the program that oversees wild horses for the burro of land management. how many wild horses is the government now caring for? >> so we are currently caring for over 57,000 wild horses. >> and caring for them is not inexpensive? >> no, the cost to care for wild horses in our off ranch corral and pastors was two of thirds of our budget last year, a little over $70 million. >> $70 million to care for the wild horses? >> taxpayer dollars. >> to relief some of the burden on taxpayers in 2021, the burro says 3,742 mustangs came off the government roll through an

incentive program that pays individuals $1,000 to adopt one. wild horses attract relatively few takers but these horses did. picked for their youth, balance and temperament said to be trained of all places prisons like the wyoming one. it's a 640-acre compound of tighty buildings, manicured lawns, cattle and enough hay to feed them. it may look like a dude ranch but this is a state run minimum security prison with felons working the land and horses. there are no towers and armed guards. a simple 4-foot cattle fence marks the perimeter between the prison and the town of river ton, wyoming. >> wyoming has a tendency to do things differently. we're a smaller state. and i think it's one of those things until you see it, you can't actually believe it yourself. >> curtis moffitt spent his

entire career in corrections. he's the only one that doesn't ware cowboy boots to work. what struck me is the 4-foot high cattle fence. what stops an inmate from running or making a ride into the sunset? >> realistically himself. most of the guys are at the end of the sentence. they don't want to destroy that or catch another number, do another five years or so. it's on them to make sure that they're going to do things the right way. >> most inmates have earned the right to be here. transferred for good behavior from more restrictive state prisons. and each day about 30 inmates report to work in a maze of

chutes and pins with wild horses weighing up to 1,000 pounds. their job is to transfer these wild mustangs from wild burdens of the state to show horses that could catch thousands out auction. >> these guys are here to do their time but really about changing their life, put a change in them in a positive direction. >> travis is the cowboy in charge. he's the manager of the farm. >> come on, beauty queens. >> he spent his life teaching the art of training horses. it shows in a stride kinged by old frank tours in a voice firm and calm as much for the inmates as horses. >> do the rope a dope and throw the rope into your hand. do not get kicked. >> it takes time to train a wild horse but he says there's nothing special about how it starts. >> you walk them in there like you just kind of rip off the band-aid and human goes in there. don't chase him. whoa. >> what's the next step? >> you teach them to yield to pressure. you stop the forward movement. teach them that if they move forward towards you, the pressure goes away. and then from there you get to where you can touch them and get to where you can pet them, introduce a halter, get them halter broke and have that trust like they understand if they give up their right of flight to stay with you. there is some trust there. >> are you talking about the

horses or inmates. >> the horses. we are in the people business and helping horses is extra but the guys really learn a lot of life lessons from the horses. they learn to try. they learn to not lie to themself about their feelings. they learn to control whether it's the highest of high emotions or the lowest of low emotions. >> no one here breaks a horse. the method used at the farm is called gentling. force is replaced by patience, persistence and an even keel. in any pin on any day, you can see it play out. a ballet in dusty boots. a delicate dance of inches repeated 100 times over days in the making for this. the first human touch. next door a mustang in full gallop a run away train yields

and stops on command. >> there you go. >> we're watching all these things step by step by step but this doesn't happen overnight. >> no, sometimes it will take four weeks. sometimes it will take four months to do these steps and a wild horse takes a little bit longer sometimes. >> michael davis has been riding horses his whole life. he's serving 15 to 20 years for voluntarily manslaughter. he's eligible for parole in a little over three years. >> if you're mad, if you're scared, a horse knows before you ever even touch him. how they know, i don't. you have to control your feelings considerably with the horse because it is so easy for them to pick up on your moves. >> so you're good at controlling

your feelings with the horse but with people how are you doing? >> not real great. >> still have your moments? >> still working on it. we're getting better. >> davis is an old cowboy, one of a few inmates here who can handle this. this horse has never had a man on its back until now. hey! whoa! a remarkable skill that can't be acquired without a few scars. >> i got a broken ankle, a separated shoulder, a broken collarbone, stitches in my head, broken hand, fingers, lots of fingers. >> what's the program taught you? what's it meant to you? >> a little piece of freedom. i mean, i'm wearing boots and jeans instead of hospital scrubs. and i mean, it's hot out here but it's as close to being outside as i can get until i get outside. >> out here it's easy to forget this is a prison with 300 inmates under the watchful eye of warden moffett. people at home will say these guys are felons and did terrible things and committed awful crimes and ruined families. why should they be allowed to be out here to be trusted to work

with horses? >> we don't provide the sentence. we don't provide the punishment. the judge decides that. our job is to supervise them while here and return them to society where they're responsible individuals and can be law-abiding citizens. i think this program goes a long way to do that and i want to make sure they get out and we can believe that they're going to be successful and they're not going to reoffend. >> you want to make sure, right, that the horses aren't returned and the inmates don't return. >> right. >> is that fair to say? >> right. >> in wyoming, the return rate is below 30% and fewer than ten inmates have made a run for it. >> come back down to a walk. >> staying on the right side of the fence is not lost on paton an inmate serving seven to ten years for aggravated assault. he transferred from a maximum-security prison a year ago and came here with no experience working with horses. what's it like to step into a pin the first time with a wild 800-pound horse? >> adrenaline heart pounding excitement but i was excited to

do it because once you get a horse to go the direction you want and come and join up to you and turn around and he's right there and it's like wow, this animal, this connection, this feeling i can't explain it. >> what has this taught you about yourself? >> it's taught me responsibility. it's taught me what i want to do for a career when i get out of here. this makes you look at life a whole different way. whoa. >> and his patience and feel are paying off. at auction a horse like this could sell for thousands but it's not without a little heartache. is it hard to see them go? >> it is. but at the same time, we're not doing this just for us. we're doing it for them, too. it's a second chance for them, as well. have you ridden him without a tie down? >> yes, ma'am.

>> this september the owner held the second auction of the year. hundreds of buyers came to the prison from all over the country to inspect the horses and query the trainers like kicking tires in a car lot. then each mustang takes the map stage trotting and loping, sold to the highest bidder. >> sold out 2500. here we go. >> in all 34 horses fetched $65,000 for the burro of land management. an achievement almost as good as the look on the inmates' faces. remember michael davis? the old cowboy who couldn't be bucked? we noticed he wasn't at the auction. the warden told us he was suspended for not getting along with others. generally a horse and rehabilitating a man doesn't happen on the same clock. by high noon every mustang had a new home and for this wild bunch, gentling had the virtues. i think i know the answer if you're a betting man is a

psychologist ask change a man, a doctor or a horse? >> a horse. 100%. that's purely travis talking but the horses are a major role in what betters those men. they can teach you life lessons every step every way. teach you that you got something in ya you didn't think you had. they can teach you it okay to be afraid but can still be done. nothing is impossible. there is so many life lessons.

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