Soldier Dogs (15 page)

It’s earlier that same morning, around 6:30
A.M.
, not too warm just yet for the birds in a pleasant grove of trees to pack up their songs for the day. Shade is a precious commodity at Lackland, and about ten new handler course students are starting their day under the trees, bonding with the dogs. They’ve been assigned these dogs for a few weeks now, and some are really getting attached.

The students smooth their hands down their dogs’ coats repeatedly, and they talk to them. It’s a practice called rapport work. The touch and closeness helps establish the students as people the dogs should care about. And it helps the students get to know their dogs as well. Some dogs don’t even seem to notice all the attention and spend the time barking at another dog or running back and forth as far as their leash will allow. But most dogs revel in it.

I approach a navy student handler whose dog is standing still, eyes slightly shut, as he enjoys the military’s version of a dog massage. The dog is a large shepherd with bushy fur around his ears. His real name is Hugo P128, but Navy Master-at-Arms Seaman Glenn Patton calls him Chewbacca because of the dog’s similarity to the hirsute
Star Wars
character. Patton beams as he strokes his dog.

“Oh, I love him. I’d take him home if I could,” he tells me when I ask how they’re getting on. As we talk about his lifelong love for dogs, and how he has dreamed of being a military dog handler for years, he turns his head slightly to the left, and I notice that the upper third of his right ear is missing.

The top edge of what’s left of the ear is jagged and red, almost like someone or something recently bit it off. This turns out to be
an accurate assessment. He explains, after some coaxing, that another dog had bolted away from his handler the previous week and tried to attack Hugo. Patton came between, and the aggressor bit into his ear and ripped it off.

I found out later that a group of handlers and instructors searched for the ear in the vicinity of the attack for a long time and couldn’t find it. In an effort to leave no stone unturned, the perpetrator dog was brought to the vet and given an emetic to induce vomiting. But when he threw up, there was no ear.

Patton says the mishap hasn’t discouraged him from his calling. “In a weird way, it’s made me love it even more. It shows me that my love for the program is as deep as I thought it would be. It doesn’t bother me what happened. I just keep loving working with dogs and can’t believe my good luck that I’m here.”

“Get her!”

Laika lunges toward me. I start shaking my giant, sleeved arm at the Malinois as instructed, so she’ll be attracted to that part of my body and not (oh, just for instance) my ear. As she runs toward me, Brooks tells me to freeze. I stop moving so she’ll get a good bite on the targeted body part.

Laika is on a long leash just in case, but the impact is strong. She sends me reeling back a step, and the sleeve crashes into my body. She starts tearing at the sleeve, and as I agitate it again she digs in, front paws pushing against my stomach and then my thigh for more leverage. Her bite is steady and strong. The power of this dog’s mouth is awesome. Without the sleeve, I’d be a bloody mess.

Having Laika on my arm starts to be almost fun. Brooks tells me I can growl at her, so I do and she digs in harder. Then he tells me they always praise a dog, so I tell her what a good girl she is before I realize that as the bad guy I’m probably not the one who is supposed to praise her. But she continues biting just as hard, unfazed by my complimentary words, and perhaps a little concerned about my apparent mood swings. Then Brooks comes over and gives Laika a friendly “atta girl” pat.

“Decoy, stop resisting!” he shouts to me, and I stop moving my arm. “Out!” he calls to the dog. Laika stops biting, but on the way down, quickly butts my torso with her nose. “Sit!” She sits. “Stay.” I back away several steps when Brooks tells me to. Laika trots off with her handler, and as she does, she turns around and looks at me with what could only be described as a “Wait till next time” expression.

     21     

L
aika’s reward—aka “pay”—was twofold: biting my arm, and the praise from Brooks. If she wanted a piece of me again, maybe it was only because dogs love the rewards of the job.

I came to Lackland wondering what style of training would be used on the dogs. These are strong dogs with great fortitude and will. I expected to witness some manhandling but hoped there would be nothing too brutal.

So I was surprised to see that training here is mostly about positive reinforcement. Dogs who did well got their rewards and heaps of happy praise. In detection work, failure to notice a scent just meant no reward. There was no yelling, no dragging the dog over and shoving his nose in the odor. The patrol side was only slightly different. Praise and Kongs and bite sleeves flew all around, but if a dog didn’t listen to a command during bite work—for instance, if he didn’t stop when a trainer shouted “
Out!
”—he’d get a quick, light jerk on his choke chain, and he’d be walked back to start the exercise again.

“It’s much more fun, much more rewarding, less inhibiting
than other training methods,” says Arod. “Since you don’t use compulsion or what would be considered traditional punishment, it doesn’t affect the softer dogs badly.”

Months after my visits to Lackland, I ran into dog trainer Victoria Stillwell at the American Humane Association Hero Dog Awards in Beverly Hills. She has drawn a tremendous audience by espousing positive training only. We got to talking, and I thought she’d be pretty happy with the positive training I generally saw wherever I went for the book research. But she said she still thinks there’s room for improvement in military working dog training. “You can train even really aggressive dogs in a positive manner. You don’t need to jerk a collar. Dogs should not have to have choke collars at all.”

Doc Hilliard, who has been instrumental in developing training techniques for the dog school, says that patrol can be done without any sort of correction for some special dogs, “but takes a lot of time. We don’t have this kind of time, and the dogs we get are not prepared for pure positive training.”

In my travels to military dog training areas, I have never seen anything more than a collar jerk. Even when a dog ran hundreds of yards away from his handler during off-leash exercises in the Arizona desert, he did not get chastised when the handler and an instructor found him. In fact, he got extra care. “Get him water. Take his temperature. Put him in the trailer so he has some AC.” It was no act put on because a reporter was there. You could tell this was just protocol. I was amazed at the restraint. Even I might have had a few words with Jake had he made me run a few hundred yards in 112-degree weather.

Military working dog training has changed dramatically in the
last twenty years, according to Doc Hilliard. As he explains it, traditional methods used to involve compelling a dog to perform obedience by using corrections, normally by jerking or by tightening a chain choke collar. The reward was understood to be release from this pressure, combined with petting and praise. While the praise was positive, the system was fundamentally “compulsive” in outlook because the dog was not given any choices; he was compelled to do as the trainer demanded.

The system worked, but sometimes produced dogs who feared their trainers and did not like work. These days, the dog program is moving toward more “inducive” systems of training, in which training is broken into three stages. In the first stage the dog is taught what commands mean by using a reward like a Kong or a ball. This reward is used to “lure” the animal into a correct position (for example, lying down) and then the dog is rewarded. If the dog does not carry out the command, there is no penalty other than simply not giving the dog the reward. In the second phase, trainers layer on some physical correction such as a soft pop on the leash. They teach the dog that this pop on the leash is associated, for instance, with breaking the down position before permission from the handler. This is how a dog comes to understand that certain actions are associated with collar pressure and certain others with lack of collar pressure.

In the final phase, the dog learns that he must carry out commands, no matter what the situation or how many distractions. In this phase, sharper collar corrections are used, and the dog is not given the option to do as he wishes. However, throughout all three phases, even the last, rewards such as a toy are still given to the dog when he performs correctly. As a result, trainers produce a dog who
understands his work clearly, understands that corrections will be associated with mistakes or disobedience, but fundamentally likes his work because he has a clear understanding of what is expected—and because he often receives rewards.

That’s not to say harsher methods are never used, at least once the dogs are beyond boot camp level. There are “harder,” very aggressive dogs for whom I’m told nothing else has worked. The trick, say the handlers, is to remain calm and in control while getting the dog’s attention via a little “ass whupping.” A dog who’s not backing off an attack on another dog or handler can be thrown on his back and slapped (not hard) on his face, for instance, and no other handlers are likely to cry foul. The idea is not to hurt the dog, but to let him know in no uncertain terms that this behavior will not be tolerated.

But every so often, a handler will go too far. These seem to be blissfully rare events, but they’re disturbing nonetheless. An out-of-control handler may kick or punch a dog, pick him up high and slam him hard to the ground, use a cattle prod, or even helicopter a dog. (The latter, unfortunately, sounds like what it is, with spinning and fear involved. It can end with a slam to the ground if the handler has really lost it.)

These methods are not only highly discouraged, an individual can be brought up on Uniform Code of Military Justice charges for abusing a dog. The consequences can range from being given extra work to loss of rank or even dog-handler status, or full court-martial that could result in a felony conviction. Marine Captain John “Brandon” Bowe says most cases never go to court-martial but are taken care of in a process called nonjudicial punishment (NJP). “Dog handlers tend to be a cut above, so NJP usually solves matters.”

Justice can come from unexpected places. It is not unheard of for instructors or other handlers to mete out quid pro quo punishment. Kick a dog hard in the belly when he’s already on his back, for instance, and don’t be surprised when what goes around comes around.

I heard about a situation that didn’t involve abuse, but accidental neglect. A handler forgot his dog in the dog trailer on a hot summer day. The AC wasn’t on, because the dogs were all supposed to be out of the trailer. The dog could have died but was found in time. So he would never forget his dog again, the handler was tied up, shoved in a kennel, and driven out to the training area. He stayed there for a few hours. There are no reports of him forgetting another dog.