Brooks explains that as the dog runs at you, the sleeve needs to be a few inches away from your body so there’s a cushion when the impact occurs. More experienced handlers and trainers can be running away from the dog and turn at the last second for the dog to bite into the sleeve. New students just stand there facing the dog, knees bent, ready to absorb the impact. In either case, as the dog runs toward you, you want to agitate the sleeve, shaking your arm so the dog is attracted to the sleeve and not to any of the many unprotected parts of the body.
As I watch dogs fly by on the field of dry grass on this scorching Texas summer day, I realize a lot of things can go wrong if you don’t do this decoy business right. (Brooks tells me that “decoy” is a more appropriate term for what I’d been calling the “dog catcher” or once even, carelessly, the “victim.”) Besides the scars so many handlers and trainers bear, Brooks says these men and women are notorious for having shoulder problems.
Then he asks someone nearby a question: “You want to catch a dog?”
I look around for the decoy candidate he’s talking to, but there’s no one else close enough to hear that question.
“You want to try it?”
Oh God, the man is looking at
“Sure, that’d be great!” Suddenly the hot day feels much warmer.
Brooks calls over a husky student wearing army camouflage and asks for his sleeve. It looks like the arm of the Tin Man from
Brooks hands it to me, and I try not to notice that there’s blood on the outside. The jute should be a nice haylike color. And it mostly is. But there’s one area that’s the color and demeanor of the piece of absorbent material that’s on the bottom of a package of hamburger meat. I didn’t want to ask what happened. Better not to know right now.
(I later learn that the blood is from the friction of a dog’s gums against the jute, not from a handler mishap. It’s uncommon that a dog bites in such a way that the gums scrape and bleed, but the sleeve I was wearing was pretty tattered and had clearly caught hundreds of dogs, and rubbed at least one dog’s gums the wrong way.)
I slip my arm into the thing. Inside there’s foam cushioning and a bar of protective steel running the length of it. The cushioning has a sticky, grungy, spongy wetness from the sweat of the handlers who’ve been practicing this morning. Outside, the jute is shredded and damp from the saliva of dogs with great big canine teeth and an even bigger prey drive. The dog I’m about to catch—a smaller, older Belgian Malinois named Laika H267—eyes me and my giant arm from afar. She looks like she wants a piece of me. I tuck away any thoughts of arms as hamburger meat and get my instructions from Brooks.
He is confident and calm in manner and has done this for years. He has an enthusiasm about working with dogs that’s conveniently contagious. “They actually pay us to work with dogs like this! There aren’t too many people who like what they do, and I love what I do. It doesn’t get any better than working with these dogs.”
My arm is in good hands.
I’m positioned, knees slightly bent, arm a few inches from torso. Bring on the Malinois!
Then I remember the missing ear.
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
“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
REWARD-BASED TRAINING, MOSTLY
Laika’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
