The Dog Squad

by Vikki Petraitis

  One night, Mark and two other dog handlers were called to Ascot Vale in pursuit of a crook. Following a scent, Renko tracked through a backyard and indicated the rear fence – the guy they were after had clearly gone over the other side. In the torchlight, the fence looked like the standard two-metre wooden variety, but there was some type of hedge on top of it. Unbeknown to Mark, there were strands of wire under the hedge. He boosted Renko onto the top of the fence and tried to push him through the greenery.

  Renko turned around and bit him on the hand – not hard, but hard enough to show he wasn’t happy with Mark. ‘Ouch!’ yelled Mark. The two handlers behind him laughed.

  He pushed the dog again, and again, the dog turned around and bit him. ‘Come on, boy,’ coaxed Mark. ‘Jump.’ He pushed again. Renko bit him again. More laughing from the handlers behind. Push. Bite.

  After some investigation with the torch, Mark realised that Renko’s leg was caught on the wire and the dog couldn’t go over the fence. Mark untangled the dog’s leg and pulled him back down again. As they walked off to find a safer way to get around the fence, the other handlers were laughing their heads off.

  It wasn’t the only time Renko bit Mark. Although the dog wasn’t much of a biter, every now and again, after the excitement of catching a crook, Renko would catch Mark unawares and bite him on the knee just hard enough to release some of his pent-up doggy energy. While these post-crook-excitement nips didn’t draw blood or break the skin, they certainly hurt. Mark didn’t know why his dog did it, but he always tried to keep his knees out of range until Renko’s excitement died down.

  Sometimes it’s the lighter moments that stick in the handler’s memory long after the ceaseless line of offenders has faded. Mark is city-born and bred, so he was in unfamiliar territory on one country job when he was called to search for a man who had just assaulted his wife. Renko led Mark and another handler into a paddock on a freezing cold night. The fog was so thick that neither handler could see his hand in front of his face. Just as they were about to call off the search since the low visibility made it unsafe for them to be working, there was a long, rumbling, farting sound.

  Mark had an immediate vision of the wife-beater standing somewhere close, taunting the cops under the cloak of foggy invisibility. ‘This bloke is taking the piss out of us,’ Mark grumbled to his colleague. Nonetheless, the fart meant the man was close, so the handlers kept stumbling through the paddock.

  The penny dropped when they came upon a horse pressed nervously up against a fence, trying to put as much distance as possible between himself and the police dog. ‘Um. It could have been him,’ said Mark, pointing to the hapless horse.

  It must have been, because the violent husband was nowhere to be found.

  One night, Mark took part in a training exercise around the abandoned outbuildings of Essendon Airport. On this occasion it was Mark’s turn to hide, along with one of the other handlers. They climbed a fence and hid behind an old car to wait for the dog to track them.

  The handlers were all familiar with the area, since they used it often to train. What they didn’t know was that one of the fences behind them had been pulled down sometime in the preceding few days. So while they were waiting silently, looking out for the dog, they both got the fright of their lives when Renko took a short cut and came up behind them.

  Luckily, the dog was good-natured about the incident and didn’t enter into the usual role-play, which might involve biting them.

  A job in the mid-1990s had much more potential for danger. Police had received intel that a pharmaceuticals factory in the eastern suburbs was going to be robbed. Five men planned to cut their way into the factory and steal several big drums of pseudoephedrine – the precursor drug for the production of methamphetamine.

  The job was planned for a Saturday night, and Mark and Renko were asked to assist in case any of the five thieves escaped arrest and had to be rounded up. This wasn’t a job for any old dog at the Dog Squad; some dogs are barkers, or have too much energy. This job required the dog and handler to lie in wait from late afternoon until early evening. Since Renko wasn’t a great barker, he would be perfect.

  Mark, Renko and two SOG operatives lay low in a nearby office building while other police officers were positioned around the site. Regular updates informed them that the crooks hadn’t left home yet. Waits like this are long and dull for police; but Mark knew the two officers he was waiting with, so that made the wait seem less lengthy. And like all dogs, Renko was happy to sleep any time the opportunity presented itself.

  At around 7 p.m., the thieves finally cut their way through a cyclone wire fence at the side of the factory. The first crook crawled through the cut fence and fell into a muddy pit up to his waist. Right next to him, a heavily camouflaged SOG operative who was hiding behind a tree tried not to fall over laughing.

  As soon as the thieves were through the fence, two of them set off to guard the perimeter; according to police intel, these perimeter guards would be armed with handguns. Mark and the other cops could see the shadows of the men moving past the windows. Renko didn’t bark, and Mark was confident that he wouldn’t. Luckily the lookouts didn’t look in, because they might have seen the three cops lying on the floor next to a sleeping German shepherd. Renko snoozed his way through the wait; there was no heightened state like he would sense on a normal job. If Mark had been agitated or ready for action, Renko would have been on high alert.

  It was another couple of hours before the thieves finally cut their way through the roof. It was around 1.30 in the morning by the time they fired up the oxyacetylene torch inside the factory to burn their way into the safe containing the pseudoephedrine. It had been a very long wait for all the hidden police officers.

  Once the torch was lit, the factory boomed with choruses of ‘Police! Don’t move!’ The yelling and excitement could be heard in the office building where Mark and Renko were waiting, and Renko’s interest was piqued. So was Mark’s; he had been getting a blow-by-blow description over the police radio, and was alerted once the three crooks inside the factory were nabbed. The two perimeter guards were still at large. They must have heard the commotion as well.

  Scrambling to the door of the office, Mark, Renko and the SOG guys flew outside just in time to see one of the lookouts running straight past them. One of the SOG guys called for him to stop, but the man didn’t. Renko strained at the lead; he had locked on the running target and was pulling excitedly for his handler to let him go. Mark knew that as soon as he did, Renko would shoot off like a rocket after the crook. He waited for the command.

  ‘Dog,’ said the SOG operative. And it was game on.

  Mark gave Renko the command, and then watched his dog chase the crook and catch him in just a couple of long bounds. Renko went for the man’s arm and took him down straight away. Mark and his heavily armed colleagues ran over to the felled man.

  As soon as Mark could see the man wasn’t armed, he called the dog off. Although he wasn’t a barker per se, Renko barked continuously at the crook as he was being cuffed. The dog thrived on showing off his prize, the fruits of his doggy labours. ‘Look what I caught,’ he might have said if he could. Also, Mark had long suspected that Renko fed off the fear of his captives; the more scared they were, the louder he barked.

  The cuffed lookout quickly confessed that he’d ditched the handgun in a garden bed as soon as he’d heard the commotion of the arrests inside the factory. One down, one to go.

  After the arrest, it was hard to refocus a dog that was excited about the crook he’d just caught. Mark gave Renko a pat and a ‘good boy’, and then it was time to catch the last crook. There was a synchronicity in the relationship between handler and dog, and after five years together, Renko sensed from Mark that the job wasn’t done yet.

  To help his dog refocus, Mark moved him well away from the crook he’d just caught. Mark checked the wind direction and worked into it, letting the scent flow in their direction. He let Renko off the lead fo
r a free search. Renko ran in an arc, head in the air, wind scenting. The dog then changed direction and moved back, narrowing the search area as he was trained to do. He ran through garden beds, across paths, and through stones and gravel.

  Suddenly, Renko’s head shot up and he started to move more quickly. ‘He’s got something,’ Mark called to the SOGs.

  The area behind the factories was pitch black. Mark and his colleagues followed the dog – the SOGs with their guns drawn and ready. Renko indicated the crook with a flurry of raucous barking. He loved getting up so close that the crook saw only his gigantic snapping, snarling, spitting jaws. Mark reckons that police dogs get a lot of satisfaction from causing crooks to shake in their boots.

  And that was all it took. The crook behind the bush jumped out, hands in the air, almost tripping over his own feet to give himself up. ‘Get the dog away! I give up!’ he yelled, voice quivering.

  The crook was led away by the SOG while Mark put the lead back on Renko.

  All the way back to the car, he told the dog what a good boy he was. Renko wagged his tail like a windscreen wiper. He had a strut about him – head held high and a definite prance in his step. The thrill of the chase and the capture was what made the job so good for the dogs; it was what made them so keen to hop in that car every shift. Even on days off the dogs wanted to go to work anyway.

  After the successful factory arrests, Mark and the other police involved got a letter and an invitation to have afternoon tea with the chief commissioner, Neil Comrie. The letter praised the work of the arresting officers and estimated the potential street value of the drugs the pseudoephedrine could produce to be in the millions.

  One of Renko’s triumphs involved a crook and a river. The case involved a guy who had stolen a car with a cement mixer on the back. He’d driven the car so fast that the cement mixer had tipped over and was dragged along behind the car – bouncing and sparking against the road. The thief had abandoned the car on a country road and fled on foot. That was when Mark and Renko joined the chase.

  Mark and Renko tracked the crook across a moonlit paddock and came to a wire fence. In some kind of perverse universal law, the first wire a dog handler grabs in such situations is always the electrified one. Sure enough, Mark grabbed an electric wire and got an unpleasant jolt. The second section was not electrified. He carefully separated the wires so Renko could jump through. On the other side of the fence, the ground sloped gently down towards a river. Mark couldn’t see the man, but he knew he was there because Renko knew he was there.

  Indeed, the guy was so close that Renko air-scented him. Pulling on the lead, Renko led his handler to the bank of the river. Renko leapt straight into the water without hesitating, Mark in tow. Mark waded waist-deep, while Renko dog paddled like a champion towards a tangle of reeds and tall grasses. Mark squinted in the moonlight, trying to find the car thief; he didn’t want to use torchlight and give his position away. Ignoring the icy winter water, Mark followed Renko into the reeded area. He tried to help the dog by pulling back handfuls of reeds, and revealed a man in his thirties, scrambling to get away but with nowhere to go.

  Renko couldn’t really do much, given that he was busy dog paddling and scrambling to find a foothold among the reeds. Mark wrestled with the crook to try and get him back to the shoreline, but the man had other ideas. Meanwhile Renko was doing his best to be a part of the take-down team. He scrambled against the reeds to give himself height and the ability to put some weight behind his body; he also barked loudly to put the fear of god into the crook. Luckily the guy was so focused on the snapping, snarling jaws of the police dog that he didn’t notice the comparatively scrawny body; the wet German shepherd was half his normal fluffy size.

  Renko and Mark finally got the crook back to dry land. On the bank, Renko gave an almighty shake, showering the soggy offender with doggy run-off. The car thief was the worse for wear; he had a nasty wound on his knee, either from the car crash or the chase down to the river. Mark led the limping offender back to the car and a waiting police escort, who would take him to hospital to get his knee stitched up.

  Driving home, soaking wet but happy, Mark reflected on how much he loved his job. Then he turned up the heater full bore. After having been towel-dried, Renko slept all the way home.

  Mark almost doubted Renko one day. They were on a job in Flemington where the sale yards used to be; the area had been filled with new terrace houses. At the rear of a row of houses was a laneway lined with roller doors, which gave the terrace owners access to parking in their backyards. The terrace houses all had small front yards.

  Police were searching for a bandit who had been involved in an armed robbery of a western suburbs petrol station. The guy had stolen a car, been chased by police, and then had dumped the car and disappeared into the housing estate.

  Mark had cast Renko, and the dog had picked up a track that led to the terrace houses but then seemed to go nowhere. They had gone up the back lane and around to the front again, but there was no sign of the man. Mark was frustrated because he knew that Renko had picked up something. If only the dog could talk . . .

  Though the other cops gave up and left the area, Mark decided to hang round a bit longer. Sometimes when the heat clears the crooks emerge.

  Renko kept indicating at the front yard of one of the houses, but the yards were so small, and the houses were so close together, there was nowhere for a grown man to hide. But Renko was insistent; he kept coming back to a yard about three metres wide. The terrace houses had small verandahs, but Mark had judged them to be too small and low for anyone to get under.

  Mark took Renko back to the laneway. Renko indicated the same house, but from the rear. Mark still couldn’t see where anyone could hide. He wondered if the offender could be on the roof, but gave up the idea because the roofs were too high.

  Back at the front of the terrace, Mark was exasperated. ‘Silly bugger! What are you doing?’ Mark frowned at Renko.

  With that, the dog shimmied down into a crawling position and crawled under the verandah. Then there was a yell: ‘Get that dog away!’

  Mark hit the ground and grabbed for his torch. On his stomach, next to his disappearing dog, Mark shone the torch and saw a small man wedged under the house. Mark was amazed. He called Renko back and watched his clever dog reverse shimmy his way out – closely followed by the crook, who quickly gave himself up.

  ‘You have to trust your dog,’ is the squad’s mantra, and this time Renko was absolutely right.

  Mark had a lot of faith in his dog, and it was a two-way street; the dog gave him confidence too.

  One morning, Mark let Renko out for a run before work and found his dog had dug himself a hole in the garden bed. When a dog does this, it can be a sign that he is sick. Renko had lost a bit of weight, but he didn’t seem sick. Mark took him to the vet just in case.

  At the vet, they did checks and found a large tumour in Renko’s chest. The Dog Squad quickly authorised an expensive operation to try and save his life. Renko died under anaesthetic.

  Mark couldn’t believe it. That very morning he had let Renko out as usual, and a couple of hours later, he was dead.

  ‘When I buried that dog in my backyard,’ Mark said later, ‘I bawled my eyes out. You realise what that dog really means to you. The dog is a part of your team. You rely on them. I had so much invested in that dog emotionally. There was a mutual understanding and the team worked. It’s hard to put it into words.’

  When the dog dies, so does the team. Mark would be forever grateful that the police force was prepared to spend thousands of dollars to save Renko’s life.

  A handler without a dog is a wasted resource at the Dog Squad, and within days a new dog arrived. Mark found out that an energy was transferred from one dog to the next. It was the beginning of a new relationship. Handlers are doomed if they compare dogs; each new dog has to be taken on its merits. Mark’s next dog was a big short-haired German shepherd that his young son could cuddle and pla
y with. The pup’s name was Cody.

  MARK’S TRAINING TIPS

  The best way to train dogs is to always be consistent. If you start training with a particular command or word, stick to it so the dog doesn’t get confused.

  Don’t be hard on the dog, either by yelling or physically punishing it. Dogs respond best to a positive atmosphere and rewards.

  ‘Trust your dog’ is a common refrain among the Dog Squad. It’s something handlers have to remember often, especially as they regularly patrol alone. Photo courtesy of Christopher Chan

  CHAPTER 8

  Nat the crook catcher

  Matt Steele had been in the police force for eighteen years when he applied for a position at the Dog Squad. Before that, he had worked in police surveillance at the Bureau of Criminal Intelligence, and spent most of his career covertly observing crooks. He had become expert in following people, in seeing things that regular folks just didn’t see. And he wasn’t always just an observer; Matt had a knack for ending up right in the middle of the action. He’d been shot at a couple of times, and a bloke once tried to push him off the gangplank of the Abel Tasman ship.

  Surveillance operatives become experts in human behaviour; watching people is an art form. Once Matt was on patrol with a partner, driving around suburban streets in a marked police car, when he saw a guy leave a house wearing shorts and a hoodie – on a 30-degree day.

  ‘That’s strange,’ said Matt. ‘Why is he wearing a hoodie on such a hot day?’

  His partner shrugged. ‘Maybe his house was cool and he didn’t realise it was hot outside.’