Navy SEAL Dogs (2 page)

Now Brett was seeing Chopper do something entirely different. The dog's body had gone rigid, and he had assumed the stance of a show dog in the ring: Chopper's head was raised, and he was staring straight ahead. His front shoulders were at attention and stretched forward, and his rear haunches were also straining forward. Brett could feel all that strain and tension on the leash. Then he heard Chopper emit a low, whiny whimper.

Brett knew immediately what the dog was telling the platoon. They were not alone. The enemy was close by, somewhere out there in the dark night.

Brett called out, “Hey, Chopper,” and the dog looked at him briefly before resuming his stance. Brett filled the rest of the men in on what Chopper had detected with his nose. The platoon immediately fell out and assumed an antiambush formation, finding cover behind rocks and trees. Brett waited a moment, then unclipped the lead, held the dog by the halter, and whispered,
“Reviere,”
a command that means “Search!” Brett released him, and Chopper eagerly sprang forward and disappeared into the darkness.

Suddenly Brett and the other men heard a ferocious commotion, a combination of dog snarls and human shouts and agonized screams coming from down a shallow embankment yards ahead of them. The forward members of the team advanced to the embankment, and shortly afterward the others heard a few bursts of gunfire. Then the night was dark and quiet again, until the stillness was broken by a SEAL team member calling, “Target is clear.”

Chopper emerged from the embankment breathing a little more heavily but unscathed. His head held high, he trotted back toward Brett. The handler knelt and clipped the dog back into his lead.

“Braafy!”
Brett used a word that Chopper recognized as praise. He petted the dog and ran his hands along Chopper's flanks. Chopper curled into him and lifted his snout into the air. A few other men passed by, each with some sign of praise or thanks for Chopper. Chopper sat there and took it all in, but for him, it was just another day at the office.

Most of the team then busied themselves with defending the perimeter while a small group checked out the embankment. They discovered that four insurgents had been using the embankment as an “ambush nest”—until Chopper came along and caught them by surprise. He had held them at bay, snarling and biting, until the forward members of the team arrived with their loaded rifles.

There was a Russian PKM machine gun, several AK-47s, and hundreds of rounds of ammunition in the embankment. The team cleared the four dead bodies from the site and detonated the munitions and weapons. It was a good night's work for a hardworking platoon, with an unforgettable assist from a well-trained warrior dog with a lifesaving nose.

 

PART I

NAVY SEALS AND DOGS

 

1

A VISIT TO CHOPPER AND BRETT

Southeastern California, 2010

The dog lay in the shade of a palm tree, his head up and his ears at attention. He was scanning the desert scrubland, vigilant, the muscles beneath the heavy fur of his flanks taut and ready. Even from behind him, I could see his tongue lolling out of the side of his mouth, flopping like a pink fish.

“Chopper,” the man beside me said.

The dog turned to look at us, his expression keenly alert, his dark eyes intent.

“Heerre.”

The dog sprang to his feet and made his way across the dusty yard. Under other circumstances, I might have tensed up at the sight of a 75-pound package of fierce determination approaching. However, I could see a very tiny softening of the muscles around his eyes as he neared us and recognition dawned in them. He knew who I was.

He also knew not to approach me first, even though the two of us had spent the first few months of his life in the United States together. As commanded, he came up to Brett, his former SEAL team handler. He sat down alongside the man he served with on dozens of dangerous missions for six years. Now they were living on a small ranch outside Ranchita, California. Brett and Chopper had ceased being on active military duty only three months earlier, but they both would have chafed at being called “retirees.”

Chopper sat, still very much at attention, until Brett told him it was okay. Then Chopper looked at me, and I gave his head a few rubs with the flat of my hand. I ran my hand down his shoulder and along his rib cage. He was still in fine fighting form, but I noticed that he relaxed a bit and leaned into me. I smiled at this sign of affection and appreciation for the attention I was giving him.

I noticed that the fur around Chopper's muzzle and eyes had lightened a bit since I'd last seen him. It was no longer the deep ebony that had glowed like a spit-polished dress boot. The slight unevenness to the side of one of his large ears was still there, though. Some scuffle as a pup in his kennel outside of Tilburg in the Netherlands had left him with an identifying mark. In my mind it was never a flaw. Rather, it was a mark of distinction.

“He's doing good,” I said to Brett.

“Always. He's a good ol' boy,” said Brett. He pushed his sunglasses up and squinted into the distance. “He likes it here. Looks a little like the sandbox, but there's a lot less action. I thought we'd both miss it, but we don't at all.” Brett had spent more than a dozen years as a West Coast SEAL team member, the last of his time as a handler working with Chopper.

Having served my own time as a SEAL team member, I knew exactly what Brett meant. The transition from active duty to civilian life takes time for both servicemen and military working dogs (MWDs). Given my experience as a trainer of both Navy SEAL dogs and their handlers, I also understood quite a lot about the deep bond that the two had formed and would share for the rest of Chopper's life.

My trip to visit Chopper and Brett wasn't just a social call. It was a part of a responsibility I take very seriously. I founded a nonprofit organization, the Warrior Dog Foundation, to make certain that retired MWDs are able to live out the remainder of their lives in a positive environment. Though I knew that Chopper was well cared for, I still wanted to check in on him, just like I do with fellow members of SEAL Team Three, or members of other SEAL teams I've come to know in my new role. Whether you're a canine or a human, if you've been a SEAL team member that means you're a brother, and we are all our brothers' keepers for life.

Visiting Chopper and Brett was a privilege and an honor, and, most importantly, it was a great pleasure to see them still together.

*   *   *

In most ways, Chopper is still more fit and more capable than 90 percent of the dogs in this country. Even so, that isn't good enough for the kind of demands a military dog has to meet downrange in places like Afghanistan. Not only is the work extremely demanding, but also the stakes are so high that anything less than the absolute best is not acceptable. It wasn't a question of heart. Chopper still has the drive and determination, but the inevitable toll of age and years of stress has started to creep in.

I knelt down alongside Chopper and draped my arm around him,
“Braafy,”
I said. It always amazed me that something as simple as that short statement of approval could mean so much to a dog that, over the years, teams like Brett and Chopper had developed such a bond of trust that the dog would willingly and gladly place himself in positions of peril.

A few minutes later, Brett and I sat down on the deck he'd recently built. Chopper resumed his perimeter position in the shade. Brett told me a little bit about the enclosure he had built out of split rail and wire. Then he nodded out past the line of post holes that he'd dug and the piles of dirt like overturned funnels flanking them.

“I'm not sure if I'm keeping the coyotes from getting in or Chopper from getting out,” he said. “I'm likely doing those varmints a favor either way. Chopper would give them more than they bargained for, no doubt.” Brett's voice still had a mild twang that revealed his Smoky Mountain roots.

Inevitably, our talk turned to war stories and to stories of Brett's work with Chopper. Brett recalled one incident, while he and Chopper were still training together, that forged his bond with the dog.

“That time you took us out on that training exercise doing the house-to-house maneuvers.” Brett shook his head and smiled. “He got hold of that target and I thought I was going to have to choke him out to get him to release it.”

“They do like to bite,” I said flatly, underscoring my understatement. “And Chopper does more than most.”

“I remember looking him in the eye,” said Brett, “and neither of us was willing to give in. Then it dawned on that dog that
he
was the one who was going to have to give in, and it was on account of
me,
and not because
he
wanted to. Then I knew I had him.”

Brett said he believed that was the moment when he and Chopper came to truly understand one another. “I think of it this way,” he said. “My daddy raised me to fear and respect him, and I did. But with how you conducted the training, Chopper obeyed me because he got the idea that it was the right thing to do and not because he was afraid of me.” Brett paused, then said, “Never in my life would I have thought a dog could communicate so much with just a look and his posture.”

“It doesn't always happen,” I said, “but when it does, it almost defies explanation.”

“Hard work and love,” Brett added, summing it up pretty nicely, I thought. “Hey, Bud,” he said gently to the dog. Chopper turned to look at Brett, his eyes and ears alert. Brett smiled and said, “Good boy.”

*   *   *

Brett reached into a wooden planter on the picnic table and pulled out a tennis ball. Then he let out a soft whistle. Chopper stood and assumed the position, his ears tilting forward and pointing heavenward, his expression intent. Brett reared back and fired the tennis ball over the enclosure's fence and into the lot beyond. I watched the ball as it arced and then bounced wildly, and then I followed Brett's gaze from the ball's landing zone to the dog, who no longer sat obscured in shadow but was in the warm glow of the setting sun.

“Okay,” Brett said at last.

Like a tightly pulled bow and arrow finally being released, Chopper sprang out across the lot, kicking up dust. At the fence he didn't hesitate but easily bounded over the top rail, looking like a champion horse at a jumping contest. I had to laugh as, in his eagerness, when Chopper stooped to clamp down on the ball his front legs splayed out while his rear ones kept churning, and he nearly tumbled over.

His prize captured, Chopper trotted back, munching on the ball, his mouth twisted into a kind of silly, giddy grin. He hopped the fence again and came onto the deck to show us what he'd managed to capture. He sat at Brett's feet, then lowered himself into a relaxed, paws-crossed lie-down, still working on the tennis ball.

Brett looked at me half embarrassed, half pleased. “That's one thing I let him do now,” he said.

I nodded. I knew as well as anyone that, in training, Chopper would have been told to drop the ball fairly quickly at his handler's feet. He wouldn't get the reward of gnawing on it. Brett stroked Chopper's head, working his fingers around the backs of his ears as Chopper cocked his head in pleasure.

Finally, Brett said,
“Los,”
and Chopper released the ball. Brett picked it up and offered it to me. I took one look at the spit-frothed ball and declined.

Laughing, I said to Brett, as he stood to throw another one for Chopper, “Wilson. U.S. Open Hard Court. You've got expensive tastes.”

Settling back into his seat after letting Chopper go bounding off, Brett grinned with satisfaction and said, “Nothing but the best for my boy. He deserves it.”

I couldn't agree more.

 

2

A LIFELONG LOVE OF DOGS

I had a pretty typical suburban childhood growing up in Waterloo, Iowa. I have two older brothers, Joe and Jake, and a younger sister, Lindsey. We were close as kids, but we also pursued our own interests and went our separate ways a lot of the time. In one thing, though, we were completely united. We pestered our parents, George and Sandy, nonstop, about getting a dog.

Ever since I could remember, I couldn't get enough of hanging out with other people's dogs. As a result, I got to see dogs that were pets and dogs that were working animals and some dogs that were both. At this point, all I knew was that I was a kid that liked being around dogs. I had no idea that this was the beginning of my education about canine behavior and my first glimpses at the unique bonds humans form with dogs. I had no idea, either, that one day I would have a career that revolved about dogs and that very bond.

We had friends and neighbors who had dogs, mostly bird dogs that retrieved the birds their owners hunted. I joined our friends' duck and pheasant hunts and was fascinated by the dogs' amazing athletic abilities and their desire to seek out and retrieve a kill. I marveled at their willingness to endure harsh temperatures, thick undergrowth, and other obstacles to get the job done. I wondered what motivated them and could not have been more impressed by their drive and desire.

I also got to spend a fair bit of time with farm dogs, since Waterloo is pretty close to rural farm country. My dad's side of the family had a farm on the outskirts of town, and I'd go and ride tractors, pick vegetables, and check out the various farm dogs. They weren't working dogs, strictly speaking, but they weren't typical house pets either. They basically had to survive out on the farm on their own, and they did a good job of it. From watching them and the bird dogs, I developed the idea that dogs should be useful and that they were often happiest when they had some kind of job to do—whether it was retrieving for a hunter or taking down a critter for themselves.

I can still picture some of those farm dogs, trotting along, their noses in the air scenting for prey. They'd stop and go stock-still and then pounce into two feet of snow and come up with a field mouse or something else. The way they carried themselves as they proudly bore away their prize said something about what was going on inside them. Of course, on a farm, that kind of prey drive had to be discouraged sometimes. I spent a lot of time dogproofing the chicken coop and keeping dogs away from it and the hens inside. I learned, early on, that dogs are genetically designed to be very good at tracking things and using their noses as a guide.