A soldier’s best friend

Batavia native trains to be military dog handler
By Air Force Staff Sgt. Jessica Switzer Joint Hometown News ServiceSaturday, June 20, 2009 6:19 AM EDT

LACKLAND AIR FORCE BASE, Texas — It can be a terrifying thing to see a dog streaking toward you across a field, fast and low to the ground, lips peeled back from a mouth filled with huge white teeth.

Dog handlers wait with their dogs before participating in a series of tests determining the handler’s control on a working environment at the Military Working Dog Hospital at the Department of Defense Military Working Dog Center, Lackland AFB, Texas. (Photo by Michael Tolzmann)

But for the son of a Batavia couple, all he can think about as the 80-pound animal leaps toward his arm is making sure the dog gets a good bite.

Air Force Senior Airman Joseph Teresi, son of Joseph and Mary Beth Teresi of Lewiston Road, is a student military working dog handler with the 341st Training Squadron, the largest canine training center of its kind in the world.

Air Force Senior Airman Joseph Teresi, a Batavia native, is a student military working dog handler. He is learning to become a handler at the Department of Defense Military Working Dog center at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas. (Photo by Senior Airman Christopher Griffin)

The Department of Defense Military Working Dog Center has courses that train both new dogs and new handlers to work together as sentries and bomb and drug sniffers. The human students spend 11 weeks working with veteran dogs learning how to control and understand their future canine partners. The new dogs work with veteran handlers to learn patrol work and to recognize the scents of drugs and explosives and the behaviors that will tell their handlers they’ve found something.

The dogs learn to identify the scents of a variety of explosives and drugs, many of which are odorless to humans. The dogs also learn how to patrol and are taught “controlled aggression” — when it is and is not appropriate to bite a human and to let go of someone they have bitten, on command and with no hesitation.

A military working dog attacks a handler on command at the Department of Defense Military Working Dog Center, Lackland AFB, Texas. Military working dogs are taught deterrence and how to protect their handler. (Photo by Senior Airman Christopher Griffin)

“I work with a dog every day and put in long hours of dog training and grooming,” said Teresi, a 2006 graduate of Notre Dame High School. “I also conduct police patrols with my four-legged partner.”

Working with canines is a completely different military experience.

“It doesn’t matter how badly a day is going or how long I’ve been working, when I look down my leash there’s always a tail wagging,” said Teresi. “A dog doesn’t care about the bad; he’s there by your side. He becomes a four-legged best friend.”

Military working dogs bark as handlers walk by the kennels at the Department of Defense Military Working Dog Center, Lackland AFB, Texas. (Photo by Senior Airman Christopher Griffin)

Human students at the school learn the basics of their future partners including safety procedures, managing health, the gear they will be using, general record keeping for the animals and the principles of behavioral conditioning.

Then they begin to work with the dogs, learning basic obedience commands, how to control the animals, procedures for patrolling and searching an area and how to keep a working dog in top form.

A military working dog handler instructs his dog to detect explosives around vehicles at the Department of Defense Military Working Dog Center, Lackland AFB, Texas. (Photo by Senior Airman Christopher Griffin)

“Military working dogs are a vital resource unmatched by any piece of equipment,” said Teresi, who has been in the Air Force for three years and has been deployed in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom and Combined Joint Task Force Horn of Africa. “Sure, some day a machine may be able to smell a bomb, but it will never have a heart or the will to keep going.”

Friends and trainers honor working dogs

By LAVINIA DeCASTRO • Courier-Post Staff

Sirius ran into the World Trade Center’s Tower 1 on Sept. 11, 2001, and never came out.

Grace searched for people in the ruins left behind by hurricanes Ike, Hannah and Gustav.

CHRIS LaCHALL/Courier-Post
Gloucester Township Patrolman Mark Pickard shakes hands Saturday with Dave Hahn of Pitman. Hahn’s German shepherd, Schultz, was one of the guests of honor.

Elias apprehended a burglar inside a service station and helped keep $75,000 worth of drugs off the streets.

All three are service dogs.

All three were among the first 20 canines to be inducted in the area’s first wall of fame dedicated to service dogs during a ceremony on Saturday in Gloucester Township.

“Our canine heroes have a home now in Gloucester Township,” Mayor Cindy Rau-Hatton said.

The ceremony, held at Veteran’s Park, took place during the annual Gloucester Township day.

This is the fourth consecutive year in which service dogs were honored in the township, but the first time a wall of fame was dedicated to them.

“Every year, it gets larger and larger and we include more dogs,” said Lillian Kline, president and founder of Our K9 Heroes, the nonprofit organization that sponsored the event.

The wall of fame with the names of the first inductees will be located inside the municipal building, Kline said.

“They’re all dogs that we have honored in the past,” Kline said.

CHRIS LaCHAL
Lillian Kline of Pine Hill and her German shepherd, Hope, take part in a procession honoring working dogs. Kline is president and founder of Our K9 Heroes, which sponsored Saturday’s event in Gloucester Township.

Inductees include dogs from New York, Pennsylvania and New Jersey, Kline said. Among them were two Philadelphia Police Department dogs, four Camden County Department of Corrections dogs, an Evesham Township Police Department dog, two Gloucester Township Police Department dogs and various therapy and mobility assistance dogs, including Kline’s own dog Hope.

Kline, who suffers from cerebral palsy and arthritis, has had six service dogs.

The idea to honor her canine companions came after one of her dogs, Tara, was attacked.

“They were a bunch of young punks,” Kline said of the attackers. “They wanted to see if she would bite.”

After the 1994 incident, Tara was too traumatized to return to work, but Kline kept her until she died at the age of 12.

“After her assault, I made a promise to her that I would honor those who were like her,” Kline said.

Her work resulted in the first ceremony of its kind — dedicated to all working dogs, not those those that performed extraordinary deeds.

“This is very nice, to honor the police dogs and the service dogs, especially the service dogs,” said Bobbie Snyder of Williamstown, who has three yellow Labradors trained to perform various duties. “A lot of people would be lost without their service dogs.”

Kline also received an award for the time and effort to recognize these often neglected canine heroes.

“This is a woman who has not let her disability keep her from giving back to the community,” Councilwoman Crystal Evans said.

Reach Lavinia DeCastro at (856) 486-2652 or ldecastro@courierpostonline.com

Video of a Police Dog Funeral

Touching video here of a funeral for a Las Vegas Metro Police Dog named Ben.

Northern Ohio Hero Dog Awards honor police forces’ bravest canines

Posted by Kaye Spector/Plain Dealer Reporter
NORTH RIDGEVILLE — Dar the police dog is a tenacious fighter. In July, he endured repeated punches and an accidental Tasering to chase down and help detain a suspect who had assaulted his human police partner.

Lisa DeJong/The Plain Dealer
Zeus waits to receive the 2008 Top Honor for Narcotics Detection Award during Saturday’s ceremonies . Zeus and her partner, Officer Ronald Campbell III, are from the Fairport Harbor Police Department. Zeus has been in service for five years and had helped in narcotics detection for agencies including the Coast Guard and customs agentsBut on Saturday, Dar was the picture of calm and restraint as he and Shaker Heights police Sgt. Richard Mastnardo accepted top honors in the Northern Ohio Hero Dog Awards.

The competition is sponsored by the German Shepherd Dog Club of Northern Ohio and Medina-based Bil-Jac Dog Foods. Categories in the nine-year-old award program include Pursuit, Building Search, Tracking, Narcotics Detection and Lifetime Achievement.

Twenty-one officer-dog teams were honored on a grassy patch outside the Super 8 motel on Lorain Road, while a crowd of about 80 watched under sunny skies. Most were there for the dog club’s annual show, which featured competition and classes.

Dar, a black and tan German shepherd, sat alert and quiet at Mastnardo’s side as club officer Marcie Shanker told the crowd how the dog helped collar a man who later was convicted of carrying a concealed weapon, assault, drug trafficking and drug possession.

Mastnardo, in a police car with Dar, had stopped a man riding a bike and the two began struggling after the man tried to reach into his pocket. The man punched Mastnardo, and Dar came out of the car.

In the struggle, Dar was accidentally Tasered, but when the man fled, the dog continued to chase him even after being punched repeatedly in the head. After a chase, police arrested the man and found a gun nearby. Mastnardo believes Dar knocked the gun out of the man’s hand and prevented the officer from being shot.

“Dar’s courage and drive to protect his partner is a testament to the breed as well as the many hours of training and bonding between Sgt. Mastnardo and Dar,” Shaker Heights police Lt. Jim Mariano said in Dar’s nomination.

Other dogs were recognized for feats such as tracking two men to their house after they had held up a pizza deliverer, intimidating a man who was violently resisting arrest and finding 30 kilograms of cocaine on a private plane. Gunner the dog and his partner, Euclid Patrolman David Trend, found two burglars in a cluttered, pitch-black warehouse.

“It’s great that there’s clubs out there that honor what these dogs do,” Trend said after the ceremony.

Each honoree received a plaque, a certificate and a gold medal hanging from a red-white-and-blue ribbon. But the best swag — for the dogs, anyway — was in the goodie bag: Bil-Jac dog food, treats and a plush toy.

K-9, handler work together to keep servicemembers safe

by Staff Sgt. Dilia Ayala
332nd Air Expeditionary Wing Public Affairs

4/17/2009 – JOINT BASE BALAD, Iraq — It is often said a dog is a man’s best friend. For a Joint Expeditionary Tasking or JET Airman here, his dog is not just a friend, but a tool that could mean life or death for servicemembers patrolling the Iraqi streets.

At the ready
CAMP TAJI, Iraq — Senior Airman William Bailey, a military working dog handler and Joint Expeditionary Tasking Airman from the 732nd Air Expeditionary Group attached to the Army’s 1st Calvary Division, and his MWD Robby, an explosives detector dog, train together here March 24. A native of Richmond, Va., Airmen Bailey is deployed here from Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, N.C. (U.S. Air Force photo/Tech. Sgt. Lionel Castellano)

Senior Airman William Bailey, a military working dog handler and JET Airman from the 732nd Air Expeditionary Group attached to the Army’s 1st Calvary Division here, and Robby, a nine-year-old Belgian Malinois patrol, explosives detector dog, work together to keep servicemembers safe

“My mission here is to search for and expose explosives in any form,” said Airman Bailey. “(Robby and I) go on cordon walks, air assaults, raids, anything that the Soldiers on the ground need help in protecting themselves by the detection of explosives.

Man’s best friend
CAMP TAJI, Iraq — Senior Airman William Bailey, a military working dog handler and Joint Expeditionary Tasking Airman from the 732nd Air Expeditionary Group attached to the Army’s 1st Calvary Division, praises Robby, his nine-year-old Belgian Malinois patrol, explosives detector dog, after he successfully completed an obstacle course as part of daily training here. Airman Bailey and Robby are deployed here from the 4th Security Forces Squadron, Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, N.C. Airman Bailey is a native of Richmond, Va. (U.S. Air Force photo/Staff Sgt. Dilia Ayala)

“We go out and find the bombs before something could go off and injure our fellow men and women fighting together,” he added.

The duo is constantly training to ensure they are always mission-ready.

“We do training daily,” said the Airman, deployed here from the 4th Security Forces Squadron at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, N.C. “Training is constant with us; we have to stay proficient in our duties because of the dangerous aspect of it.

To serve and protect
CAMP TAJI, Iraq — Military working dog Robby, an explosives detector dog, charges a simulated aggressor to protect his handler, Senior Airman William Bailey, a MWD handler and Joint Expeditionary Tasking Airman from the 732nd Air Expeditionary Group attached to the Army’s 1st Calvary Division, during a training session here March 24. A native of Richmond, Va., Airmen Bailey is deployed here from Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, N.C. (U.S. Air Force photo/Tech. Sgt. Lionel Castellano)

“Obedience (training) is done daily, and explosive detection (training) is done as often as possible,” said the native of Richmond, Va. “It’s vital.”

Paired for almost a year now, Airman Bailey said the team hit it off from the first time they met.

“We have a great bond together,” he said. “We’ve been together since June of 2008. We just mesh together perfectly.

“(Being deployed with Robby) has been a fun experience,” he said. “(Military working dog handlers) get a little extra privilege by having a little buddy with us the whole deployment. It’s nice to have that bond especially on those tough days when you’re feeling a little bit down. You just look down at the dog and see how happy he is to just be hanging out with you. It just brightens your day.”

Tackling an obstacle course
CAMP TAJI, Iraq — Senior Airman William Bailey, a military working dog handler and Joint Expeditionary Tasking Airman from the 732nd Air Expeditionary Group attached to the Army’s 1st Calvary Division, prepares to let Robby, his nine-year-old Belgian Malinois patrol, explosives detector dog, complete an obstacle as part of their daily training here. Airman Bailey and Robby are deployed here from the 4th Security Forces Squadron, Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, N.C. Airman Bailey is a native of Richmond, Va. (U.S. Air Force photo/Staff Sgt. Dilia Ayala)

As a JET Airman, Airman Bailey has had the opportunity of being attached to the Army, and he said he has thoroughly enjoyed being a part of the Army’s 1st CAV MWD team. His Army counterpart feels the same way about Airman Bailey.

“It’s great having him as part of the team,” said Army Staff Sgt. David Harrison, 1st Calvary Division kennelmaster, who is deployed from Fort Leonard Wood, Mo. “He goes out on missions and does his part like any Soldier would. There isn’t a difference.

“We work well together,” added the Castle Rock, Colo., native. “We are helping keep our fellow servicemembers safe.”

As his deployment nears its end, Airman Bailey reflects on his appreciation for his K-9 Robby.

Side by side
CAMP TAJI, Iraq — Senior Airman William Bailey, a military working dog handler and Joint Expeditionary Tasking Airman from the 732nd Air Expeditionary Group attached to the Army’s 1st Calvary, keeps his MWD, an explosives detector dog, fit to fight by running with him through an obstacle course here March 24. A native of Richmond, Va., Airmen Bailey is deployed here from Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, N.C. (U.S. Air Force photo/Tech. Sgt. Lionel Castellano)

“It’s been a great experience; I’ve had a lot of fun,” he said. “I was a little nervous (about being deployed to Iraq) this being my first time over here, especially with the dog. It has created a lot of good memories.

“The bond that I share with (Robby) is probably the most meaningful part of the job,” said the Airman with a smile. “If I didn’t have him, than I’d have to learn how to smell bombs. It would be much more difficult, more time-consuming, and a lot more dangerous. He’s been doing this all his life, and he loves to do it.”

Together, Airman Bailey and Robby will return together to Seymour Johnson AFB and continue working as a team — and preparing for future deployments.

This article is here-Air Force K9 Team

Deputy dogs K-9 officers are their partners’ best friends

 
From news-press.com

BY GABRIELLA SOUZA • GSOUZA@NEWS-PRESS.COM • AUGUST 25, 2008

It isn’t their wagging tails, panting tongues or floppy ears that make them special.

It’s the pounds of drugs they’ve seized, bombs they’ve sniffed out and the people they’ve protected.

“They’re able to do things people can’t do,” said Sgt. Frank Glover, who trains dogs in the Lee County Sheriff’s Office’s K-9 unit.

The unit has been around since the early 1970s. It has 23 dogs that specialize in one of the following: patrols, bomb sniffing or narcotics.

Training for the dogs can take five to eight months, depending on what area the dog is going into, Glover said. Bomb-sniffing dogs are required to have a few more weeks of training, he said.

“You develop a huge bond with the dog because of the time you spend at work and at home,” Glover said.

Buddie

Lee County Sheriff’s Office retired K-9, Buddie. (KINFAY MOROTI/news-press.com)

Working with people in jail every day might make a person a little anxious.

That’s what happened to Buddie, a 9-year-old pure-bred black Labrador who worked at the Lee County Jail in downtown Fort Myers.

Seven years of work took its toll on Buddie and he began to freak when he saw inmates.

“He worked a little too long,” said Sgt. Paul Kelly, Buddie’s owner and handler. 

Now, Buddie’s anxiety has turned into a hunger for attention. It was that affection that drew Kelly to Buddie, who is the one and only dog he handled.

Buddie constantly sticks his muzzle in your hand to pet him and if that doesn’t work, he’s not above rolling onto his back, begging to be scratched.

“He’s just a spoiled old baby,” Kelly said.

Kelly said Buddie’s post-retirement activities include chasing a tennis ball and eating — his favorite food is peanut butter.

“If you went and got a bone right now, the drool would be going,” Kelly said.

• Buddie spent seven years with the sheriff’s office, working in narcotics and at the jail. He is trained to sniff out ecstasy, marijuana and cocaine.

• Buddie was known to go on narcotics searches at area schools. He once found marijuana in a North Fort Myers High School locker.

Nicco

Lee County Sheriff’s Office retired K-9, Niko. (KINFAY MOROTI/news-press.com)

Nicco has come a long way from eight years ago, when the yellow lab was found tied to the door of a Cape Coral veterinary office.
For the first two weeks, Nicco wouldn’t let anyone touch him. But eventually he came around, turning into the lovable, affectionate dog that Cpl. Mark Nelson and his family have grown to love.

“Out of all the dogs Mark has worked with, he has made the biggest transformation,” said Nelson’s wife, Adalberta.

Now, Nicco, who was sheriff’s dog No. 5 for Nelson, spends his days protecting the house, although he doesn’t bark when someone comes to the door. His other duties include serving as a jungle gym for the Nelsons’ grandchildren and company for Adalberta Nelson.

Nicco still might be a little wary of you at first. 

But once you’ve found his sweet spot, you’re golden.

“Scratch above his butt and you’ll be friends forever,” said Mark Nelson.

• Nicco retired in June after eight years in the unit. 

• As a dog on the bomb squad, Nicco ensured the safety of President George Bush, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf.

Orson

Lee County Sheriff’s Office retired K-9, Orson. (KINFAY MOROTI/news-press.com)

Sgt. Ed Ahlquist feels guilty every day when he leaves for work.

 Until this summer, Ahlquist started the day getting into a K-9 patrol car with Orson, his chocolate labrador partner, at his side.

But Ahlquist has taken a job with the sheriff’s office’s training division, which means Orson sits by the door, waiting for his partner to get home.

“It was tough to give him up,” he said.

He was named Orson by a breeder who had tried to make him into a show dog.
“But he couldn’t sit still enough,” Ahlquist said.

Orson became as much a family dog as Ahlquist’s partner. Ahlquist’s daughter even learned to walk by hoisting herself up using Orson’s ears.

Now, Orson has become somewhat of a retired athlete, swimming in the Ahlquists’ pool and going on runs with Ahlquist.

Ahlquist said he never expected to be part of the K-9 unit, but it has worked out in his favor.

“It was the best decision I’d ever made,” he said. 

“After a month and a half, I realized he was the perfect dog.”

• Orson once seized 4,000 pounds of marijuana during a traffic stop.

• Orson and his partner Ed Ahlquist received a narcotics unit citation in 2005 after seizing 100,000 Ecstacy pills.

• Orson was a sheriff’s dog for almost seven years.

To see more photos from this article or read the article on news-press click here: 

Lee County K9’s Honored