The Dog Squad

by Vikki Petraitis

  When the crook was arrested, he was like a wild man. Bob looked at his dog, behaving just as wildly: barking and leaping about at the sight of the man. He wondered if Blitz had somehow picked up on the crook’s wildness and had responded in kind. ‘Looks like the dog was right after all,’ Bob said, within earshot of the policewoman who had accused Blitz of being a junior dog.

  Thinking about the incident later, Bob realised he knew that Blitz had found something, despite the air wing not being able to see the offender. He also knew that a good handler has to make sure he interprets what his dog is trying to say. To others it might have sounded like wild barking, but Bob knew all along that if Blitz could talk, he would have been yelling: ‘He’s up there! He’s up there!’

  One case of aggravated burglary had both Bob and Blitz puzzled. A thief had broken into a number of houses in Camberwell. Blitz would pick up a scent at one house, but then he’d get to the street and lose it. Then there would be a report of another burglary – and then another. And it was always the same; Blitz would pick up a scent from the house, but he would lose it once he hit the street.

  After a lot of frustrated searching, Blitz led Bob into a fancy maze garden near the latest burglary. Suddenly, the thief popped up out of nowhere, armed with a screwdriver. He took one look at Bob and Blitz and must have thought better of taking them both on, so he chose to run instead. Blitz chased him out onto the street, and then Bob heard a sickening thud. Blitz had taken him down and the guy had hit his head on the gutter.

  A policewoman at the scene looked at the guy lying on the road, rubbing his head. ‘Are you sure it’s him?’ she asked.

  A detective at the scene checked the man’s wallet and found some identification, which was probably stolen. The detective asked the man his address, and the man rattled off the same address as was written on the ID.

  ‘If this is your real address, what colour is your front door?’ asked the detective.

  ‘Um . . .’ said the man, still rubbing his head. ‘Brown?’

  ‘You’re under arrest.’

  Once they got his story, it turned out that the burglar had stolen a BMW, which he would drive from house to house and load up with stolen gear after each break-in. It explained why Blitz kept losing the scent outside each house.

  Near the end of Blitz’s career, Bob was home one day when one of his neighbours came over and told him that they thought they had disturbed someone about to break into their house. The neighbours had confronted two men wearing camouflage gear in their driveway. The men had said they were looking for their lost dog, but after they were gone the neighbours had noticed that the chain that secured their gate had been cut. Even though he was off duty, Bob knew it was a job for him. Still dressed in his trackies, he loaded Blitz into the back of the car, asked the neighbours to mind his kids and drove off in pursuit. Before long, Bob spied an old car driven by a man in camouflage gear – just like the description. Bob checked the car over his police radio; it was stolen.

  Bob gave his position over the radio, explained the situation, and alerted police communications at D-24 that he was in pursuit. The stolen car stopped at a park and the offenders ran off. Bob jumped out after them and gave Blitz the command to take the offenders down. But the dog didn’t move; instead, he stood looking at Bob, puzzled. ‘Why aren’t you in uniform?’ Blitz seemed to say. ‘Are we working? Is this a job? I’m really confused.’

  But as soon as Bob started running Blitz’s natural policing instincts took over, and he ran after the crooks. As Bob raced to catch up, he saw Blitz had taken one offender down. Bob had no phone or radio on him, but he saw a woman with a mobile phone. ‘Ring the police!’ he shouted to her.

  The woman rang the police and reported that a madman in trackies was attacking some people in the park with his dog. Luckily, D-24 knew that there was a dog handler on the job and sent reinforcements. Bob and Blitz took off after the second crook and tracked him for around half a kilometre. Blitz located the crook hiding under a car – two for two. Not bad work for a Sunday off.

  When the local police arrived to take the offenders away, they asked Bob if he was going to put in for overtime.

  ‘Nah,’ said Bob. To him, it was part of that front-row ticket to the greatest show on earth; there was nothing he’d rather do. And he’d gotten out of washing the car. The neighbour wrote a letter to the chief commissioner calling Bob the local hero. The chief commissioner’s staff officer emailed thanks to Bob. But Bob would do this work for free. In fact, he often jumps in his police car to head off to a job – dog in the back – and laughs to himself: ‘This has got to be the best job in the world.’

  Blitz worked at his peak all through his long career on the police force. He was never sick, and he was the most reliable dog Bob had ever seen. When Blitz retired, Bob worried that he might never get another dog as brilliant as Blitz. Handler folklore says that you only get one really great dog. It’s hard not to compare. Bob looks back on his time with Blitz and realises that both he and his dog were in their prime – their heyday.

  Blitz was almost eleven years old when he retired. He had caught a lot of good crooks in his day, and saved a few lives along the way. As with the nature of the Dog Squad, Blitz was quickly replaced. Bob’s next dog was a German shepherd called Yaegar. It was with a bit of trepidation that Bob began working with a new dog; in the back of his mind, he was not confident that Yaegar could even come close to Blitz in skill. For over a decade, it had been the Bob and Blitz Show.

  Bob hadn’t had Yaegar long when they were called to a hunt for a missing woman. She was suicidal and had taken tablets and wandered off into the bush near Marysville. The search began from the spot where her abandoned car had been located. The sergeant running the search was ex-search and rescue, and he preserved the scene to allow the dog to go in first. Fifty metres along a track, Yaegar took off up a hill. Without pause, Bob followed him through the new growth in Marysville’s post-bushfire landscape.

  Sure enough, Yaegar led Bob right to the unconscious woman, who was near death. Bob radioed his location to the helicopter, which was searching from the air, and the woman was winched to safety. She lived. And Bob knew he had found a good replacement for his beloved Blitz.

  When Yaegar grew more advanced in years, Bob was interested in working with fellow handler Michelle Dench to develop new techniques in the training of police pups. He took on a lively little police pup called Quade.

  Working with two dogs, Bob can see Yaegar being a role model for Quade. When Bob gets into uniform, Yaegar gets very excited and flies off to the car. The pup has picked up on the excitement and races towards the car too. If the pup is quick enough, he will leap into the same cage as Yaegar, rather than his own. Bob reckons that if the handler loves his job and the older dog loves his job, the pup picks up on it and will duplicate it. For now, they are one big happy family.

  BOB’S TRAINING TIPS

  Be consistent. If you are going to do something, find out how to do it properly and do it all the time.

  If you let a bad habit develop, the dog will always do it.

  Make sure that when your dogs are on lead there are things that they are allowed to do and things they are not allowed to do.

  Vary the dog’s routines.

  Sergeant Bob Carter and Blitz in action, about to jump on board the police helicopter.

  Bob and Blitz tracking.

  Bob and Blitz in the early days.

  CHAPTER 10

  General purpose work to drug detecting

  ‘A dog is always trying to tell you something,’ Leading Senior Constable Andy Adams says. Over the last twenty years he has had four dogs – two general purpose dogs, and two Passive Alert Detection (PAD) dogs. Over the years of training and handling dogs, Andy has honed the communication between him and his canine charges.

  Andy’s first dog was a German shepherd called Matt that had been donated to the squad. While Matt did well in training, the dog had difficulty tracking in a wo
rk environment. Andy suspected that he was picking up the scent of animals, and that was what he chose to follow rather than human scent. It took a while to pick up on it because during training he tracked so well.

  Because Matt had been donated to the squad, his history was uncertain. After a bit of research, they discovered that Matt had been found in bushland by park rangers. No doubt he had hunted small animals to survive. This natural instinct was still strong in the dog and proved too hard to override; his urge to track animals was dominant over all else.

  Matt’s fate as a police dog was decided when Andy was called to track an offender through a paddock. The trail was recent, which should have given the dog an excellent chance of picking up a scent. Andy cast Matt, and the dog ran around in a wide arc but didn’t pick up a scent – at least not a human scent.

  Matt took off after something, but the minute he began zigzagging in the way a rabbit might run, rather than tracking in the straight line the way a crook might run, Andy knew that Matt was not up to the job. Andy says that having a dog that doesn’t work properly is like a carpenter going to work with a blunt saw – just plain frustrating. You need to have the right tools for the job, and a police dog is the most valuable tool when he does the job properly.

  Back at the Dog Squad office, Andy told his boss that he needed to change dogs. Andy’s next dog was a Rottweiler called Rip. He proved much better suited to the job of a general purpose police dog.

  In the early days of their partnership, Andy and Rip went on patrol in the police helicopter. Force Command was trialling having dog handlers doing shifts with the Police Air Wing; that way, if their particular skills were required, the handler and dog could be dropped off, right in the middle of the action.

  Not long after take-off, the helicopter was called to a stolen car chase. A helicopter can easily follow a stolen car from the air; even if the thieves lose their ground pursuers, it is much harder to lose a helicopter. Helicopter pursuit is particularly effective at night; if the thief turns off the headlights of the stolen car to evade cops on the ground, the helicopter can easily see the flash of brake-lights every time the vehicle slows down. The air-wing observer can then direct police pursuit vehicles, which are also easy to spot because of their flashing blue and red lights.

  On the night Andy and Rip flew with the helicopter, the stolen car chase ended near a neighbourhood kindergarten. The offender crashed the car and, from the air, the crew could see him fling open the door and run off into a nearby yard.

  The skilled Air Wing pilot landed the helicopter in a park next to the kindergarten, and Andy and Rip jumped out, ready to give chase. The pilot took off again to take the helicopter to a more spacious sports oval nearby.

  Other police officers arriving at the scene were at a loss; the car thief seemed to have vanished. Andy ran to a nearby fence with Rip on the lead. The dog indicated – his particular indication was pulling on the harness with more force than usual – and sniffed excitedly along the fence, pawing at the spot where he knew the offender had gone over. Andy believes that a dog will track harder with a crook who has let off a fear scent, and this guy – after being chased by police, crashing a car, seeing the helicopter come down to get him, and hearing the wild barking of an excited police dog – had no doubt left a significant fear scent in his wake.

  Rip jumped up, paws on the fence, and Andy boosted him over and scrambled after him. The feisty police dog took just seconds to race across the yard to catch the man. The offender grabbed a garden spade and tried to hit Rip. In return, Rip bit him. Andy called the dog back to him as the uniform cops raced in to make the arrest.

  Rip loved playing, and that was his reward. As incongruous as it might seem after taking down a crook, the first thing that followed was always a game. Andy took the excited police dog around to the front yard for his reward. ‘Good dog!’ Andy yelled over and over again. The dog and handler chased and wrestled and rolled on the ground.

  The arrival of the helicopter in a suburban street at night had brought a crowd of neighbours out in their dressing gowns and slippers to watch the show. Andy was used to looking foolish in front of the public and his police colleagues; he knew that the reward for catching crooks needed to be so worthwhile that Rip wanted to do it again and again.

  A couple of minutes later, Andy got up from his rolling around, dusted off his now-dirty uniform and put Rip back on the lead. He often joked that you could never wear a uniform two days in a row in the Dog Squad. Local cops drove Andy and Rip to the footy oval where the helicopter was waiting, and dog and handler climbed back on board ready for the next job.

  Late one night, thieves broke into a milk bar in the eastern suburbs. It was a beautiful still night, with no breeze whatsoever. The thieves were only in the shop for a couple of minutes before the owners – who lived behind the shop – disturbed them. They fled with an armful of goodies.

  Andy and Rip arrived around fifteen minutes after the owners had called the police. Andy immediately harnessed Rip, and cast him in the direction that the offenders had fled. Rip sniffed around enthusiastically, but didn’t pick up a scent. Andy decided to release the dog for an open search. This meant that, instead of nose to the ground, Rip sniffed in the air trying to locate a scent. As they worked their way down the street, Andy saw Rip put his nose back down to the footpath and start free tracking – which was just like regular tracking except the dog wasn’t attached to his handler via the tracking line.

  As soon as Rip picked up a scent, he took off at a gallop. Andy ran along the footpath behind him until they veered off into a park. Andy saw Rip pause and sniff the ground for a couple of seconds, then he sprinted off across the park. When Andy reached the spot where Rip had stopped to sniff, he saw some melted icy poles on the ground. It was the human scent on the icy poles that had stopped the dog in his tracks.

  By this time, Rip was across the other side of the park. Andy yelled for him to sit and stay, which he did, giving the handler time to catch up. Leaving Rip off the harness, Andy gave the track command and the dog began free tracking up a street adjacent to the park. He continued up the street and turned left at an intersection. About a dozen houses up, Rip turned into a driveway.

  Andy followed him up the driveway and under a carport to a side door. Rip sniffed at the door, which was his way of saying, ‘They went in here.’

  Andy could hear voices inside. ‘Good boy!’ he said softly, giving Rip a quick pat on the head. He clipped on the lead and took Rip back down the driveway to the footpath outside the house. Andy told the dog to sit and stay. He needed to creep up to the house to see what he could find out. Through a gap in the curtains, he could see into a lounge room. As far as he could tell, there were two men inside, and they were talking about the pile of cigarettes Andy could see on the coffee table. ‘You only got menthol cigarettes!’ one of the men complained, before offering a string of expletives.

  Andy was unfamiliar with the area, and didn’t know where he was. He crept out of the front yard and walked to the nearest intersection to find a street sign and radio his position to the local cops. They couldn’t believe Rip had tracked the crooks so far away from the milk bar.

  The local police arrived and arrested the two men for burglary and theft. They were no doubt wondering how the police came to be knocking on their door an hour after they had made a clear getaway.

  Rip’s most impressive day on the job was taking down an ice addict. Despite research that says ice doesn’t make users stronger, the experience of cops on the ground begs to differ.

  Andy and Rip were called to a burglary at a car wrecking yard in Rowville. There were footprints on a wrecked car indicating where the crook had climbed on it to jump the fence. Andy cast the dog on the footpath on the other side. Rip began with his nose down, and then his trot became more urgent and he raised his head. To the novice, this change in behaviour would go unnoticed, but to an experienced handler who knows his dog, this raising of the head is significant. It meant R
ip had begun air scenting. Dogs follow a scent trail on the ground, but when they get closer to the crook, or the crook has stopped, his scent fills the air as well. Hence the head lift. The crook was close.

  Andy pulled the dog to a halt and called out. ‘I know you’re there! Come out or I’ll have to send in the dog.’

  A young man suddenly stood up from the grass where he had been hiding, and appeared in Andy’s torchlight. He looked to be in his early twenties and was wearing a thick padded lumber jacket. Andy knew he had to keep the situation calm, not least because he had to walk the guy all the way back to the police car. Unfortunately, right from the start, that plan didn’t work.

  ‘You can just get fucked,’ said the young lad, bouncing with pent-up aggression. ‘Put the dog on me – I dare you!’

  As the man rushed towards the handler and the police dog, there was little time to think. Andy was about five or six metres away, holding the tracking line; there was no choice but to let Rip go.

  Andy couldn’t believe his eyes. The man charged at them, holding one arm raised and bent in front of him, almost like he was offering it to the dog. Happy to oblige, Rip grabbed onto the man’s arm, biting down hard. Unbelievably, the man then raised his arm higher and lifted the dog off the ground – all 38 kilograms of Rottweiler. Andy was stunned. No one took on a police dog, and here was this madman offering his arm!

  Rip’s legs were all the way off the ground, and he had the man’s arm in a firm grip, but he wouldn’t let go. Even so, it seemed nothing was going to stop this guy.

  To Andy’s horror, the man began kicking and kneeing at Rip’s exposed belly. It was up to the dog handler to save his canine colleague. He dropped the tracking line and raced at the man. Andy was holding his heavy Maglite torch, which he’d been using during the search, and he aimed it at the crook’s collarbone. Andy missed and gashed the man’s head with the torch.