The Dog Squad

by Vikki Petraitis

  The almost unstoppable man stopped – but only for a moment. Temporarily felled by the blow to the head, the man dropped to the ground and Rip lost the grip on his arm. But the man was only quiet for the few moments it took to regain his sense of outrage and begin fighting them again. This guy’s nuts! thought Andy.

  Rip latched onto the violent man’s leg as Andy continued to try and subdue him. Finally, the offender rolled onto his stomach, which gave Andy the opportunity to wrench his arm up behind his back and snap a handcuff on. By this time Andy was exhausted, trying to hold the man down.

  In the struggle, Andy noticed two security guards watching from the street. He called out for them to help. The two men watched from afar instead of rushing over, but they did direct a police divisional van that was on its way to the scene. Backup arrived, and Andy was able to hand over the violent offender to the relieving officers.

  Afterwards Andy and Rip watched from the sidelines as the man was taken into custody, and Andy reflected that this guy was the first really angry man that Rip had ever come across. Andy was a little concerned; this kind of incident could change a dog forever. They can begin to suspect that all offenders will be like the angry man and ramp up their aggression. This kind of attack could also break a dog; he might worry that he would get a flogging at every take-down.

  Despite his exhaustion from wrestling the crook and trying to cuff him, Andy knew he had to give huge praise to Rip, who had done exactly what was expected of him. ‘Good dog!’ he cried, and then began the rolling-around play that Rip was so fond of. When a dog sees his handler protecting him, it can be a real boost for the bond between the two.

  Andy’s shaking adrenaline rush happened after Rip was safely back in the car. He later found out that the offender had been smoking ice, which was then a relative newcomer on the drug scene. It made sense; there was something beyond crazy about the way the man had taken on the dog and lifted him off the ground.

  Despite being bitten, the man was still fighting the local cops back at the police station, resistant and aggressive to the last. Andy had to check out the man’s bites for his report after the arrest. Surprisingly, the lumber jacket had protected the man’s arms from the biting, which explained how he could have lifted Rip off the ground. There were a couple of bite marks on the man’s legs, but all in all he got off lightly considering he took on a police dog. Rip wasn’t an enthusiastic biting dog, nor was he the most aggressive dog. With a different dog, the damage could have been a lot worse. The man had been lucky.

  Still high on ice, the man posed for his mugshot with fists raised in a boxer’s pose, dried blood dripped down his face from where Andy had hit him with the torch to save Rip from a kicking. The next day, without the drugs, would have been a different story. The man would have been black-and-blue and bitten, and probably more than a little sorry for himself.

  Andy had not come across ice and its effects before; and, for that matter, he wasn’t looking forward to coming across it again.

  When Andy scaled a fence while chasing a crook and landed badly on his knee, Rip thought it was a game. The handler and dog had been chasing two crooks in a stolen car, ending up in a building site for a block of new units. The stolen car stopped and a man jumped from the passenger side and took off, while the female driver tried to run in the opposite direction. Andy grabbed the woman and cuffed her. As soon as reinforcements arrived to take the woman into custody, Andy let Rip out from the back of the station wagon.

  The dog immediately picked up a scent, and Andy and Rip ran up a laneway until Rip indicated that the man had gone over a fence. Both dog and handler began scaling fences in pursuit. One fence is just like the next – until you land funny, twist your knee and go down.

  Andy found himself lying on the ground in agony, unable to get up. He moaned and swore and clutched at his knee. Rip thought it was playtime; he jumped happily on his handler, rolling around and having a great old time while Andy writhed in pain.

  Andy managed to stop swearing long enough to call for backup on the radio and call for another dog and handler to continue the search. When backup arrived, the local uniform cops were cautious about approaching Rip. After a discussion, the locals backed a police car up the laneway, while Andy ordered Rip to sit and stay. The cops loaded Andy into the back of the car, and then got inside the front. When they were clear, Andy called for Rip to jump into the back with him. Then they drove back to Andy’s Dog Squad station wagon.

  Similar measures were taken to get Rip safely into Andy’s car. When Rip was inside, the local cop locked him in. Another handler had been called in to drive the station wagon and Rip back to the Dog Squad.

  Andy was taken to hospital for a full reconstruction on his badly damaged knee. When the surgeon spoke to him before the operation, he said, ‘You can’t jump fences anymore. You need to look at a different line of work.’

  For Andy, leaving the Dog Squad was out of the question; it was the best job in the entire police force and he couldn’t imagine a life away from the dogs. Every day, he got to go out and use his dog to catch crooks. Nothing beat that.

  The day after his surgery, Andy rang his boss. He had an idea about what he wanted to do. The Dog Squad had talked about the possibility of training Passive Alert Detection (PAD) dogs. For the first time they were going to train labradors, using food rewards rather than play. Working with PAD dogs was nowhere near as gruelling for handlers as working with the general purpose dogs, which was ideal for a handler with a dodgy knee.

  ‘I want to work with the PAD dog program,’ Andy said.

  ‘No worries,’ said his boss. ‘Whatever we can do to get you back to work.’

  With Andy on leave and not able to return to general purpose work, Rip was passed on to another handler.

  Despite Andy’s keenness, it took nearly a year of rehabilitation before he returned to the squad. He had to be fully fit to work with dogs. And his knee had to be as close to perfect as possible – the big police dogs would often run into a handler’s legs, or jump excitedly, wanting a pat or a play.

  While Andy had been off work, two of the squad’s handlers had been to Sydney to learn PAD dog training methods. In New South Wales, labradors had proven valuable in finding narcotics on people in areas of known drug activity. The New South Wales arrest rates were much higher than Victoria’s, and the Victoria Police wanted to duplicate their results.

  Not only had PAD dogs made a big difference in finding drugs on dealers, they had also done their part to sniff out small amounts on first-time or early users. Statistics had shown little re-offending in these first-time users after the shock of being stopped by police. One smart young man in a business suit was walking down a street in the CBD when a PAD dog alerted by sitting down next to him. When questioned by the dog handler, the mortified young man – who admitted to smoking a joint before work – suddenly realised that he could be caught out right near his office, just because the dog could detect the lingering odour. Realising that his new firm would not look kindly on his occasional use of marijuana, he vowed never to smoke it again. The dog handler let the man off with a warning, and had no doubt about his sincerity.

  Two PAD dogs had already joined the squad when Andy returned from leave: shiny black labradors called Trakka and Abbey that had been bred by the Customs breeding program. Trakka was given to Andy.

  Trakka was a methodical dog. Instead of the frantic quick searching that some PAD dogs seemed to do, Trakka would move slowly and systematically around and never miss anything.

  Training PAD dogs, Andy found out, was very different from training general purpose dogs. While he had rolled around like a maniac playing with Rip after jobs, these drug detector dogs got food rewards. Voice praise was still important, but the ‘Good boy!’ was always accompanied by a couple of pieces of kibble. Trakka also enjoyed a nice pat on the head.

  A big part of PAD dog training is getting them to differentiate scents among other distractors. The dogs learn to pick par
ticular scents from a wall of other strong, distracting scents, like curry and pepper. Urban legend says that coffee or Tabasco sauce will mask the scent of drugs, but nothing does. The dogs are trained to find a certain scent, and they will always detect that scent if it is there.

  Once training was complete, one of Andy and Trakka’s early jobs was at a house in Lilydale where they had been called to do a search for drugs. Police had taken out search warrants on the crook’s house a number of times, but no search – even with dogs – had found anything. The crook looked smug as Andy entered with Trakka.

  ‘Is there anything you want to tell us about?’ Andy asked him.

  ‘I don’t know what you’re looking for,’ said the crook, feigning innocence, ‘but you’re not going to find it.’

  Andy smiled. He knew that if it was there, he would find it.

  Trakka began sniffing at the plaster wall in an empty bedroom. Andy didn’t know what to make of it; there was obviously something there but it was just a blank wall with no visible cavities. Andy took Trakka around to the other side of the wall and the dog sniffed enthusiastically. His nose took him straight to a power point, and then he sat down next to it. Andy knew his dog had found something. When he glanced over at the crook, who had turned pale, he knew the dog was right on the nose. Andy gave Trakka some kibble.

  ‘Got a screwdriver?’ Andy asked the crook. At the same moment, he saw a Phillips head screwdriver on the bench and grabbed it. ‘Not to worry, I’ve got one,’ he said in a cheerful voice. He unscrewed the power point cover, and used his torch to look into the cavity beyond. His torch illuminated a round package of something wrapped in Glad Wrap, almost the size of a tennis ball. Given Trakka’s reaction, the package was clearly drugs.

  Harking back to his old general purpose days, Andy grabbed Trakka for a pat and a play. While Trakka certainly enjoyed a pat, and seemed pleased that his handler was happy, a couple of bits of kibble was all the reward he needed. It would take Andy a couple of months to stop roughhousing with his sedate lab after a drug find. While a pat on the head might be quite continental, kibble is a drug dog’s best friend.

  While Trakka was a good-natured, inoffensive, handsome dog, there was a certain drug dealer in a certain house in a certain town south-east of Melbourne who really didn’t like him. The crook was oblivious to Trakka’s gentle ways and saw only an arch-nemesis every time the dog appeared on his doorstep. Which he did, four times. At final count, the score was: Trakka, 4, drug dealer, 0.

  On the first search, Trakka paid a lot of attention to some spare tyres piled up under a large table in the garage. He crawled right to the back of them and indicated the presence of drugs. Andy pulled out all of the tyres and dragged them into the backyard one by one, until there were around a dozen of them lying on the grass. The tyres all had rims and were inflated. Andy got Trakka to sniff each wheel; the dog indicated at two of them.

  Conveniently, the drug dealer had a cheap tyre remover installed in his garage. Inconveniently, Andy and the other police officers searching the house didn’t know how to use it. The uniform cops drove into town and picked up an expert from the local tyre shop, who came around and removed the tyres from the rims. Each tyre was tightly packed with cannabis. You’d think crooks would learn, but they don’t.

  The second time Andy and Trakka searched the house, Trakka indicated under the seat of a quad bike in the garage. When police removed the seat they found a hollowed-out section of foam that had been tightly packed with cannabis.

  On the third visit, the hapless drug dealer greeted Andy and Trakka with: ‘You again!’

  Andy shrugged. ‘You know we’re going to find your stuff. Do you want to just tell us where it is?’

  The crook declined Andy’s kind offer, but it didn’t matter. This time, in the garage, Trakka indicated near the radiator of a Toyota Hilux. But it wasn’t drugs he’d located. When the local cops removed the Toyota’s bull bar, they found cash hidden in the hollow, right where Trakka had indicated.

  On the fourth visit, Trakka sniffed out a small amount of cannabis in the house. Out in the garage, he indicated a car battery sitting on the workbench. When Andy took a closer look, he saw that the car battery had been hollowed out. The crook had fitted it with an internal hinge and magnetic clip on the lid. While the battery was empty, it smelt of cannabis.

  The cops put it back where they found it, and didn’t mention it to the crook. ‘We’ll know where to look next time though,’ said Andy.

  One unexpected thing about the Victoria Police PAD dogs was that they proved very good at finding money. Generally, a drug dealer’s cash is tainted with drugs, and the dogs would pick up on the scent. Finding large amounts of cash along with a drug bust added to the evidence at the eventual trial. The dogs would also find paraphernalia like drug scales, which also helped build the case against drug dealers.

  Trakka once found cash in a house in Fairfield. They had searched the house and Trakka hadn’t found anything. As Andy led the dog out the back door through the laundry, Trakka indicated a floorboard. Andy led the dog away while other police moved in to have a look. They found a loose floorboard and lifted it. Andy watched as the cops pulled out a Tupperware container filled with wads of cash amounting to around $30 000. Out in the backyard, Trakka alerted again by sitting next to a board leaning against the wall in the shed. Behind it was a paper bag filled with more cash.

  What Andy enjoys most about working with a PAD dog is that his dog can find things that an ordinary search will fail to find. These additional finds highlight the true value of the dogs.

  While the police bosses applauded the finding of large amounts of cash or drugs, Andy was more impressed when Trakka found drugs in bizarre places.

  Once Trakka found blocks of heroin packed into tins of coffee hidden under the floor of a wardrobe. During another search, Trakka sat down sedately next to the TV. ‘That’s weird,’ Andy told other police officers helping with the search. ‘Must be something there.’

  Another cop unscrewed the back of the old TV to find it had been filled with marijuana. They would never have looked there. There was no smell, or anything else to indicate the hiding place – and it never would have been found without a lab that wanted his kibble reward.

  In Trakka’s eight-year working life Andy reckons that the dog probably found drugs worth millions of dollars, and significantly reduced the amounts of drugs on the street.

  ANDY’S TRAINING TIPS

  As pets, dogs are there for you to enjoy.

  Find a leash or harness that works best for you so that you are not pulled all over the place by your dog.

  If you allow your dog to be off-lead, make sure that it will come back to you on command.

  It’s not okay to let your dog go up to other dogs and say: ‘Don’t worry, he is friendly!’ Understand that the other owner might not want your dog sniffing around their dog, and that my dog might not like other dogs sniffing him.

  It is common courtesy to let on-lead dogs pass without an off-lead dog harassing them.

  CHAPTER 11

  Teaching a new dog new tricks

  Leading Senior Constable Michelle Dench has been a handler at the Dog Squad for over six years. When she first joined the police force her ambition was simple: she just wanted to be a good cop. In the early days she worked the van like all new recruits, and then she completed detective training school. Michelle hoped that becoming a detective would push her policing skills in new directions. Dealing sensitively with people – especially victims – was one of the most valuable skills she learnt. She also developed a profound awareness of the impact of crime on regular people in the community. While detective work matured Michelle as a police officer, she felt a little stifled by the amount of time she spent sitting at a computer rather than out catching crooks.

  As a kid Michelle had always had pet dogs. Her first dog was a German shepherd. Following that she had a selection of dogs, both big and small. As an adult, she got herself a
labrador. Looking back with the wisdom of hindsight, she realised she did everything wrong with that dog. She listened to the advice of her vet, and didn’t take the dog out until it was sixteen weeks old. She now knows that decision to be the equivalent of taking a ten-year-old child out for the first time and expecting it to know the social rules.

  When she got her next dog Michelle didn’t want to face the same problems, so she enrolled in a dog-training course. She loved dog training, and was amazed at how quickly her dog learnt obedience and tricks. She realised that the whole process of training her dog was surprisingly easy when she put the effort in early.

  Michelle embraced her new-found skills so enthusiastically that she enrolled for further training. It was then that she got the idea of combining her love of dogs and dog training with her career in the police force.

  Because of the Dog Squad’s tendency to choose big fit blokes, when Michelle applied she suspected that she would need to be better than those blokes who were applying alongside her. Knowing that fitness was a big part of the application process, Michelle hired a personal trainer to design her a program for maximum fitness. For a couple of hours a day for many months, she did strength work and cardio in preparation. Michelle also never missed an opportunity to try and duplicate the kinds of tasks she might have to do on active service in the Dog Squad.

  The next time a dog handlers’ course was advertised in the Police Gazette, Michelle felt ready. The fitness test was the first component of the course, and Michelle covered that easily. The next component required the potential squad recruits to put on the bite arm – the big padded arm cover – and get charged at by a snapping, barking German shepherd. Michelle’s biggest fear was that the dog would bowl her right over. Her heart raced as a huge black German shepherd leapt towards her. She managed to plant her feet and hold her position as the dog slammed into her and clamped its huge jaws over her arm.