By Shannon Collins
JOINT BASE SAN
ANTONIO-LACKLAND — As a loaded trailer pulls up with an overwhelming sound of
barking, the son-in-law of a Richmond woman knows man’s best friend is about to
transform from playful pooch to a military working dog on a mission.
Air Force federal
employee Joshua Brock, whose wife, Lauren, is the daughter of Kelli Bigby,
Millwood Pass Circle, Richmond, is a military working dog instructor in the Dog
Training School here with the 341st Training Squadron, Department of Defense
Military Working Dog Program. It’s the world’s largest training center for
military working dogs and handlers, dating back to 1958. The DoD Military
Working Dog Veterinary Service and the Lt. Col. Daniel E. Holland Military
Working Dog Hospital — the largest of their kinds — are also located here.
Within the 341st
Training Squadron, there are five courses with about 140 students, 107 staff
members and nine teams with about 18 dogs each: the Dog Training School,
Handler’s Course, Kennel Master’s Course, Specialized Search Dogs Course and
Combat Trackers Dogs Course. In the Dog Training School, the dogs learn
obedience, patrol techniques, drug detection and explosives detection in 120
days. The students will work with four different dogs to learn the different
personalities and learn different ways to utilize the dogs. Most of what the
students and dogs learn will be on the 3,000 acres of training areas during
practical scenarios in mock airplanes, warehouses, dorm buildings and open
fields.
The mission here is
to provide trained military working dogs and handlers for the Department of
Defense, other government agencies and allies through training, logistical,
veterinary support and research and development for security efforts worldwide.
Brock said his
favorite part about being a part of the DoD military working dog program is
being around military members.
“I love still being
around military members,” said the Air Force veteran. “It’s just something I’ll
never lose and will always respect because I’ve been in the same situation.”
Brock said the most
challenging part of the job is the different personalities of the dogs.
“Every dog is
different, so your training is different,” he said.
The dogs are usually
German Shepherd, Belgian Malinois, Labrador Retriever and occasionally a
mixed-breed or other sporting or herding-breed dog. They range in age from
one-year-old to 13 years old and include both males and females. They are
spayed or neutered before being adopted into the military working dog program.
They currently house more than 850 dogs at Lackland.
When the military
working dog handler is assigned to a kennel at his duty station after
completing training here, he or she is assigned to one dog and will deploy to
war zones with that dog. They deploy as a pair and the bond they share is vital
for them to be able to successfully accomplish the mission. Brock deployed to
Afghanistan as a handler and said the bond is indescribable.
“The bond you build
with a dog is indescribable,” he said. “I’ve deployed with my K-9, Kormi, and
it was the best time. I’ve deployed both to Iraq and Afghanistan, one as a
straight-leg cop and the other as a handler. By far my K-9 deployment was the
best.”
The first Air Force
sentry dog school was activated in Japan in 1952. The Army continued to train
and supply sentry dogs to Air Force units in the U.S. until the Sentry Dog
Training Branch of the Department of Security Police Training was established
at Lackland in October 1958. By 1969, they adopted the patrol dog as the
standard military working dog and added a drug detection course.
In 2005, they added
a new type of detector dog to the Department of Defense inventory in response
to the rising threat of improvised explosive devices attacks during the wars in
Iraq and Afghanistan. Aptly referred to as Specialized Search Dogs, these highly
skilled counter-terrorist search assets are trained to detect arms, ammunition,
and explosives — both of the conventional and homemade varieties. They differ
from their standard Explosive Detector Dog counterparts in the fact that they
are far more independent and work primarily off-leash via voice and directional
commands issued by the handler. In 2010, the dog program here began assisting
the Marine Corps in training Combat Tracker Dog Teams to recognize and follow
suspected terrorists. Upon deployment, Combat Trackers assist unit commanders
by tracking enemy insurgents, bomb makers and snipers. These special
forces-like military working dogs are force multipliers that offer the
abilities to both stop current attacks and prevent future ones. Military
working dog handlers learn to work with the dogs of all specialties.
The Best Working Dog for Cattle
The
Hangin’ Tree Cowdog breed was developed as a
mix of Catahoula Leopard dog, Border Collie and Australian Kelpie. They are
short or slick-haired dogs with bob tails that come in many different colors
from black, reds, merles and unique blends of these colors.
The breed has the
instinct to work with animals and can be trained to work cattle. A unique
attribute is their characteristic to bite the head and heels of cattle.
Hangin’ Tree Cowdogs
are known for their courage and ability to handle any kind of cattle, from
weanlings to cow-calf pairs. They are also alert, loyal, and have the ability
to work long hours in the field. It is their combination of stamina,
trainability, and instinct to work cattle that has made the Hangin’ Tree Cowdog
a prize breed for cattle ranchers.
The catahoula
is a medium to large sized dog. they are well muscled yet
trim, powerful but agile with great endurance. They are independent,
protective, territorial, and may show aggressive behavior. Their head is
powerfully built with well developed cheeks with short-medium length ears that
are pendulous. Their coat is short to medium length, and may come in any
color imaginable. The same goes for their eyes.
The most enduring dogs who will outwork and outfight
all other breeds of stock dogs, especially when protecting their master,
livestock, and property. They are bred to handle wild cattle and hogs in
the roughest, most remote country. They are also used as bay dogs to hunt
coon, bear, mountain lion.
Catahoula have a wealth of herding instinct and natural
drive but do require training to learn how to channel that drive and move
cattle correctly.
1 - Start working
with your Catahoula on simple obedience commands as soon as you bring the dog
home. Teach the puppy the meaning of "sit," "lay down,"
"come" and "stay." Work the puppy in five-minute sessions
three or four times a day. Keep a collar and leash on the dog during all
training sessions to keep the dog close at hand. Catahoula are very focused and
may ignore you in the field if they do not have a good obedience foundation.
2 Teach your dog specific herding commands,
including "come bye," "walk on" and "away." To
teach "come bye," hold the stock stick in your hand and point the tip
off to the left. Tell the dog "come bye," walking your Catahoula in a
wide arc to the left. Treat the dog to a small snack when it moves to the left
consistently when you say "come bye."
3 - Reverse the
process and move the dog to the right to teach the Catahoula "away."
For the "walk on" exercise, walk forward with the dog, holding the
stock stick in front of you. Loosen your grip on the leash, encouraging the dog
to walk forward in front of you, telling the dog to "lay down" when
it walks out approximately 20 feet in front of you. Call the dog back and
praise with a treat.
4 - Move the dog to
a small, enclosed yard and let a few ducks or geese loose in the yard. Drop the
leash and tell the dog to "walk on," moving the ducks forward. If
they stray left or right, call out "come bye" or "away" accordingly.
Once the dog has pushed the ducks around the yard for five minutes, call the
dog to you.
5 - Instruct the dog
to lie down for a few minutes to rest, and then command the dog to "walk
on" and work the ducks again. Catahoula
are very determined and will herd the ducks incessantly, so work the animals
for no more than 20 minutes to prevent burnout. Repeat the duck herding
exercises daily until your Catahoula is consistently moving the ducks according
to your commands.
6 - Swap the ducks
for cattle once the dog is confident moving smaller animals. Turn two or three
cows loose in a small corral, and walk the dog into the pen, closing the gate
securely behind you. Make the dog lie down in the center of the pen and walk toward
the cows, calling the dog to "walk on" once you are within 10 feet of
the cattle.
7 - Point the stock
stick at the cattle, firmly giving the "away" and "come
bye" commands to keep the cattle moving. As soon as your Catahoula is
confidently moving this small herd, let the rest of the herd free to build your
dog's confidence and experience herding cattle.
Of all the big game
species hunted in the United States, the mountain lion is probably the least
understood. These elusive carnivores are rarely seen because they travel mainly
at night and are very sneaky. Even when they travel in broad daylight, few people
ever see them. Since no one sees them, it is hard to know how many of the big
cats roam North America. Even biologists who study the big cats aren’t sure how
many cats there really are. Some experts in Colorado claim there are a few
thousand cats running in the backcountry of Colorado, but they are so difficult
to locate that determining how many there are is simply an educated guessing
game.
One mountain
hunter recently learned how elusive mountain lions can be when he
headed west to chase them. His friend and him found a fresh tom
mountain lion track that headed up the center of a driveway to someone’s
secluded backcountry home. After talking to the homeowner and showing him the
track, he was amazed. Although he knew mountain lions lived in the area, he had
lived in the house for ten years and had never seen a cat strolling through the
woods.
Once dogs have treed
a mountain lion, they surround the tree and bark at the cat until the hunter
arrives.
For many outdoorsmen
who don’t know any better, mountain lion hunting appears to be an easy sport.
Most people think you only need a couple good hunting dogs and a gun. After
spending a week chasing the crafty wilderness cats, this mountain lion hunter can
testify that chasing mountain lions is one of the toughest hunting sports out
there.
Being a good lion
hunter requires having good lion hounds. Most non-resident hunters hunt lions
with a hunting outfitter because most of us don’t have a pack of
well-trained lion dogs. Most serious mountain lion hunters use red bone, blue
tick, or black and tan hounds. Leopard curs are also becoming quite popular.
These breeds have incredible noses. Once they smell a fresh lion track they can
follow it for dozens of miles if needed until they find a cat. They are also
very high strung. One dog has more energy than ten people, and ten mountain
lions for that matter! However, hound dogs don’t train themselves.
Most lion
hunters have at least two or three dogs and most houndsmen spend most of the
offseason training dogs. They first train them to be good trackers. They do
this by trapping live raccoons, dumping a healthy dose of cat urine on them,
and letting them go. After they have been running for awhile, the hunter lets
his dogs out and the fun begins. As soon as the dogs smell the track and catch
the scent of the raccoon, the chase is on. Sometimes the dogs have raccoons
running up trees in an hour; other times it takes longer to locate the unlucky
raccoon. The goal is to get dogs to trust their nose and follow the track until
they find the reward - the raccoon. This style of training gets the dogs ready
to chase mountain lions. Houndsmen may go through this training exercise dozens
of times during the summer and fall before the winter mountain lion season
opens.
While they are
training their dogs to tree raccoons they are also teaching them not to track
other game like elk, deer, or other critter they may encounter while running a
mountain lion in the winter.
Any houndsman will
tell you that they pray for snow like a school kid does at Christmas. Fresh
snow is the key ingredient to mountain lion hunting. When a fresh snow blankets
the mountainside in the middle of the night before a hunt, hunters are given a major
advantage. If a mountain lion passes through an area the night before the hunt
starts, the hunter will know the track isn’t very old because the snow is
fresh. A fresh track in fresh snow is easier for the dogs to track than a track
on dry land or old crusty snow.
Ideal hunting conditions are a new 3-8 inches
of snow on the ground when a hunt begins first thing in the morning. When a
fresh track is located, the hunter will know the track is probably less than 12
hours old, so the cat can’t be too far away.
When locating lions,
it is not uncommon for hunters to travel several hundred miles over the course
of a weekend. Once a
fresh lion track is located in the snow, the dogs are turned loose.
Dave Carlson
PO BOX 606
Yarnell, AZ. 85362
928-427-0179
Here’s
what I offer to you, I can give your dog the opportunity to see if it has any
potential for lion hunting and if it already has some skills, I’ll help to
develop them. I make him part of a pack of dry ground hounds that can catch a
lion when it’s catchable. You owe it to your dog to give him a good start and
the opportunity to learn. They learn nothing on the end of a chain in your back
yard.
My only promise to you is your hound will hunt a
minimum of 12 days a month and if and when it’s in shape up to 20. Can you hunt
12 days from your house for $400 at today's gas prices. I hunt an average
of four days a week, this is all done on horseback in dry Arizona conditions,
as you can see in the videos I sell this is rough country. Speaking of the
videos they are made up from the report card videos I make and send to the
owner clients so they can watch the progress of their hounds. I’m very fortunate
I can hunt from my yard and have had lions kill deer in the yard twice, I have
a wife who gets pleasure from seeing me happy and I’m happy watching the dogs
learn. I may not be any more skilled then you at lion hunting but my life
allows me to give your dog the time that most others just do not have to give.
If you send your dog for 60 days or more of hunting plan on
spending at least a day here when you pick him up because I would like you to
hunt for at least part of a day to see how he handles and what commands he has
learned. [an Arizona hunting license is required.
