The Dog Squad

by Vikki Petraitis

  And she stayed standing. After that challenge, other facets of the testing – public speaking, problem solving, and interaction with dogs – seemed like a walk in the park.

  Michelle was interviewed by the head of the squad, Senior Sergeant Shaun McGovern. ‘You’re a detective,’ McGovern began, ‘why do you want to leave detective work to come to the Dog Squad?’

  ‘I want to work with dogs,’ Michelle replied. It was as simple as that. She played down her experience with dogs in the interview because she got the impression that the squad wanted to work with clean slates – in other words, no experience. While she didn’t hide her Certificate III in Dog Behaviour and Training – indeed, she wrote it on her application – she didn’t mention it in her interview. She understood the need to start from scratch; she was keen to learn and ready to take all their training on board.

  After the interview, two sergeants arrived at Michelle’s house to check out her backyard for its suitability to house a police dog. The yard needed some new fencing and a concrete slab on which to house the kennel. If she was accepted into the squad, Michelle was happy to make any changes necessary to get her home police dog ready.

  It was only a few days, but it felt like much longer. Michelle carried her phone with her, scrambling to answer it every time it rang. When she finally got the call to say she had been selected to complete the eight-week induction course, she was so excited. The opportunity to work with dogs had become such an intense goal, it was hard to believe she had achieved it. She couldn’t have imagined not being accepted; there was no other direction she wanted to go in. Candidates who passed the course had a good chance of being offered the next available Dog Squad vacancy.

  ❖

  Once the induction course had begun, Michelle was amazed at how similar the processes for police dog training were to the work she had done with regular house pets. Tracking, searching and bite work – something that she had never done before – presented the greatest challenges. A couple of times she overheard trainers say, ‘Gee, where did she learn that?’ when she showed a particular adeptness with the dogs. Although she was not the type of person to sing her own praises, she was glad that her abilities were being recognised.

  Within weeks of finishing the training course, a vacancy came up in the squad and Michelle was in. She was only the fourth female to be accepted into the squad in its history. With the wisdom of hindsight, she feels that she was chosen not only for her skills and her ability with dogs, but also for her sense of humour and ability to fit into the mostly male environment. Michelle was used to working among men; she reckons the most important thing is not to take yourself too seriously.

  As soon as she started, Michelle was given a feisty German shepherd called Luger. He was a year old, and her first impression of him was that he looked like a wolf. He was so big that if he stood on his hind legs and put his paws up on her shoulders, he was about the same height as her.

  On their first walk together, Luger kept looking up at her for a bit of reassurance. It was almost as if he was asking: ‘How long are you going to be around for?’ She suspected that he’d been passed around among a few different puppy walkers. Luger’s favourite thing was a hollow weighted toy shaped like a snowman called a KONG. He would do anything for a play with his KONG, so Michelle made that his main reward. In training, every time Luger tracked someone, the person he tracked would throw out the KONG for him to play with. As well as play, Michelle gave Luger lots of praise.

  Right from the start, Luger was a very affectionate dog, and would lean into Michelle if he sat next to her. He loved a belly rub and seemed very relaxed. But around sixteen months of age, Luger began to develop different characteristics. He needed to mark every tree he went past, which is not a good trait in a working police dog; they should be totally focused on the task at hand, not on marking territory. And then Luger became aggressive – never to Michelle, but to everyone else. Michelle tried to tone down the aggression, but she concluded that it was simply part of his personality. Thankfully those qualities made Luger a born police dog. He was majestic in his stance, he was bold and he never backed down. At home he was always a beautiful and friendly dog to everyone, strangers and all. But once he jumped in the back of the police car and switched into work mode, something changed in him.

  It was four months of training before Luger was ready for the road. Like most handlers, Michelle felt a bit of trepidation on the first night they went out on patrol alone. In training, someone would lay a track and the handler would know where it was. In the real world, there was no indication of where the track might be. Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference between a dog tracking or simply taking you for a walk.

  The squad’s often-repeated mantra was ‘Trust your dog’. She had to learn to trust Luger. This was tested when she was called to her first job: to track down a guy who had just beaten his wife. Michelle got Luger out of the station wagon and clipped on his tracking harness; right away, the dog was in working mode. He was off in an instant, with Michelle flying along behind him. They ran through a park, up and down residential streets, through a park again, and then into a front yard. And there was their suspect, hiding behind a car.

  This really works, thought Michelle in awe.

  Being new to the work, Luger found the suspect and then looked at him as if to say: ‘I found you; where’s my KONG?’ The second crook that Luger caught was crouched down, hiding, with his hat in his lap. Luger thought the hat was his reward and ran off with it. It took a while for Michelle to train her dog that the person he was tracking was not his playmate at the end of the chase, but someone to be wary of.

  While his early take-downs were playful, as Luger matured, so did his aggressive nature. When he bit a security guard who came too close on a job, Michelle quickly learnt that she had to be really careful around everyone. The thing about Luger was that he was a big, strong dog, and he wouldn’t give any warning. If he perceived a threat, even if Michelle didn’t, he would take things into his own hands – or paws, as the case may be. Michelle had to be very aware of anyone approaching her and the dog; with Luger by her side, she had to keep a 5-metre radius clear around them at all times.

  Being a good biting dog made him perfect for siege work. It also meant that Michelle felt totally safe when she was with Luger. He was such a powerful dog that in all the jobs she and Luger were called to, no one was close to getting near her.

  Michelle and Luger were called to a job outside the Nunawading police station, where a man armed with a handgun was holding police at bay. As Michelle pulled up, the man fumbled with the gun and dropped it. Michelle brought Luger around from the side and, while other officers surrounded the man with their guns trained on him, Luger leapt on him and took him down. Game over.

  ❖

  One day Luger surprised Michelle by being on his very best behaviour; she was glad, because it was the very day she needed him to shine. The occasion was a training day at the squad, and it was to be attended by the media. Victoria Police had decided to run a dog recruitment drive. The campaign would run along the lines of: ‘Do you have a German shepherd that you think may make it as a police dog? If so, would you be willing to donate it to the Dog Squad?’ To accompany the drive, the media wanted photographs of handlers and their dogs for the newspapers.

  Michelle was asked to pose for some photos with Luger near the agility equipment. She had given him a bath earlier that day so he would look his fluffy best, then she had taken him over to the kennel block at the back of the squad compound. When the photographers were ready, Michelle put Luger on a lead and walked him over to the agility equipment, which he loved. She was pleased when Luger was well-behaved and walking nicely – not trying to pull her arm off like he usually did. It was a hot day and she thought that perhaps the heat had taken a toll on her normally feisty dog.

  At the agility equipment, Luger posed politely for photographs, and then Michelle was asked to put him through his paces for the watching m
edia. Luger jumped the first hurdle as usual, and then Michelle walked him over to the ladder and plank, and gave him the climb command. Luger trotted up the ladder, across the plank and then down the end ladder without missing a step. Her dog was on his best behaviour for the journalists. Normally he would go a million miles an hour and jump off the end, missing the last three steps altogether.

  One cameraman wanted to get better pictures, so he asked Michelle if she could get Luger to climb the plank again, but this time have him sit in the middle for a photo op. Michelle didn’t hold out much hope; she knew that once Luger started climbing, he couldn’t wait to get off and get his reward at the other end.

  Mentally crossing her fingers, she gave Luger the climb command. When he reached the middle of the plank, she gave him the stand command, and was greatly surprised when he stopped beautifully in the middle of the plank with his chest puffed out. He turned his head and looked at her, and seemed to be waiting for some sort of approval. The cameras clicked and flashed, and at that moment Michelle realised that the dog was not in fact Luger. It was PD Castor, an almost identical dog to Luger – especially after a bath when they were both brushed and fluffed up to the nines.

  As dog and handler posed for their photos, Michelle didn’t give anything away. The laughing would come later with her colleagues in the squad rooms – after the press had gone home.

  Luger’s dominance sometimes got in the way of his police work, and finally Michelle went to her boss to discuss the matter. Luger was more suited to pure siege work than tracking and searching. Michelle had wondered what it would be like to train a puppy from a young age as a police dog. She put a proposition to her boss to take on a pup and train it alongside Luger.

  Right from the start, Michelle’s dog training expertise had gained her a lot of respect from her colleagues. They would often come to her for training tips, and time and time again, she was right on the money with her advice. When Michelle asked her boss for a pup, she was also asking to bypass the usual procedure of a pup spending the first year of its life with a volunteer puppy walker. Michelle was interested in the broader development of the police puppy potentials. As a trainer, she knew that the age between six weeks and sixteen weeks was the most crucial time in a pup’s social development. Ideally, a dog at this age should have met at least 200 different people and 100 different dogs. They also should have experienced as many different places as possible.

  Michelle also wanted to try food-tracking training. Usually someone would run a track with the dog’s toy, and the dog would follow the track to get the toy. New techniques were being trialled elsewhere where food rewards were being used rather than toys. One of the squad’s members had done a course on it in Queensland, and Michelle was keen to test these principles on a puppy.

  When the boss agreed, Michelle was given her choice of pup, and she waited patiently for several months for the right pup to come along. One day, two little ones arrived at the squad straight from the breeder, ready to be allocated out to puppy walkers. Michelle went over to have a look at them. Standing in an enclosure, there were two eight-week-old German shepherd pups – one quite dark and the other sandy coloured. ‘Which one of you will be my next police dog?’ Michelle asked them.

  As if on cue, the little sandy one made a high-pitched yelping sound as if to say, ‘Me!’ While the darker coloured one scratched himself, the sandy one pranced around, cried and generally made it clear he wanted to be chosen. Then he climbed up the low cyclone wire fence and got out of the enclosure. Of course, it was the little energetic pup that Michelle chose.

  His name had to start with an A because of the squad’s naming system. Michelle chose Archer, after the North Melbourne footballer Glenn Archer, who was a tough back-man, and had a reputation as one of the most courageous players ever. These were qualities she wished on police dog Archer.

  It was exciting taking home a little police puppy and beginning the training process from scratch. Right from the start, Michelle wanted Archer – who she quickly dubbed Archie – to be neutral in any environment he went into. She also wanted to develop his drives from the start, and to develop his nose so he’d be a good tracker. Archer had a fine police-dog pedigree, so he was in with a good chance of success right from the start.

  Next to this new, hyperactive puppy, Luger looked really laid back. In the early days, Archer was destructive, naughty and shoe-obsessed. One night Michelle found twelve of her shoes on his bed. Archer chewed her decking, chewed her outdoor furniture, and spent a lot of time carrying around things in his mouth, like his food bowl. Anything he could get his mouth around was fair game. Michelle was just amazed at how different these dogs were; however, she was very grateful that they quickly became the best of friends. It was a daily ritual that they would have a play wrestle, or would both be tugging on the same old rag. Archer would always win the battle, even as a pup. Sometimes at night they would even try and sleep in the same kennel. This friendship has never wavered.

  Michelle began training Archer from the first day he came home, giving the pup lots of challenges to keep him busy. She took him into police stations to socialise him with members. Most of the time he would grab the station rubbish bin and run around the offices with it, or grab an office chair, but his youthful good looks and puppy-dog eyes usually meant his police colleagues would quickly forgive him.

  Archer also gained a bit of a reputation as a ballbuster – literally. On several occasions at the local park, boys having a kick of the footy with their dads saw a sandy-coloured blur descend on their football, leaving it mysteriously burst. With bite marks. Small puppy-sized ones.

  But despite his puppy antics, Archer responded strongly to the same toy Luger had favoured – a KONG. It wasn’t long before Michelle had to switch training rewards, because Archer struggled to focus if he thought the KONG or any other toy would be his reward. Using food rewards initially for obedience training allowed him to stay calm enough to concentrate and learn the exercise. Archer was a quick learner and his drive and motivation were strong. Michelle says that dogs are selfish animals and will do things in their own best interests; her favourite saying is ‘people don’t work for free, and neither do dogs’. Archer figured out quickly that if he followed a command from Michelle, he would get a reward.

  Once his training was complete, Archer was ready for real police work and Michelle was in the position to work two dogs. Every shift, she would load Luger and Archer into separate cages in the back of her police Dog Squad vehicle, and when she was called to a job she would pick which dog was best suited to the task at hand. At jobs, Michelle likened it to a golfer with a set of clubs, or a carpenter with different tools for different jobs. She chose Luger for siege work, and Archer for tracking and searching.

  Archer was only fourteen months old when he was qualified as a police dog. Michelle was very careful about the jobs she chose for him in those early days.

  One night, Michelle and her two-dog team were called to investigate a school alarm – the canteen had been broken into. Since Michelle suspected it might have been kids, Archer was the perfect dog for the job. There were other police at the scene checking out the school buildings, which presented a challenge for the dog handler because of the number of scent trails present. Luckily Michelle was one of the first responders, and she cast Archer to see if he picked up anything. When cast, Archer almost dances like a ballerina, dainty footed and nose on the ground, prancing in the wide casting arcs. As soon as he picks up a scent, he gives a flick of the head and pulls hard on the tracking line.

  At the beginning of the search, Archer indicated human scent all around the school, so Michelle widened her casting arc to find out where the young thieves had exited the grounds. Archer eventually picked up a scent trail leading away from the school and started tracking. Michelle didn’t hold out much hope of finding the offenders. There were no other units patrolling to stop them from getting away, and they had a decent head start.

  Archer tracked a fe
w hundred metres down the middle of a backstreet leading from the school. This was very exciting for Michelle because Luger had always struggled with tracking on concrete. Archer eventually turned left into a court and started tracking up a hill on a nature strip. He suddenly became very excited and lifted his head, which told Michelle that he had found someone and that they were close.

  Michelle was fascinated with Archer’s hunt mode. She watched with pride as her protégé homed in on the scent, then took a dive into some bushes. All Michelle could see was his rear end wriggling back and forth, powered by his madly wagging tail.

  His front half reappeared again, his mouth firmly clamped around a backpack. Pleased as punch, Archer started prancing around the front yard with his tail wagging and chest out. Michelle shone her torch into the bushes and saw two teenage boys hiding there. Archer was too young to care about the teen crooks. In his mind, he had done his job and the bag was his reward. His bite had pierced the bag as well, puncturing a chocolate Big M that was inside. His reward suddenly became a tasty one. It was the most fun Michelle had ever seen a dog have with a bag.

  The boys admitted to breaking into the school and stealing the contents of the bag from the canteen. While Michelle sternly questioned the young offenders, she was secretly bursting with pride for her little dog. He works, she thought.

  Archer’s second catch was equally impressive. Two offenders had run off towards the local train line after being disturbed spraying graffiti on someone’s picket fence. The job was about fifteen minutes old when Michelle arrived. As she put on Archer’s tracking harness, she was keen to see how he would go. Once in his harness, he was off. The dog tracked along the train line for over a kilometre. Then he went through a walkway and into a residential street, tracking for quite a distance before he turned down a driveway into a block of units.