Navy SEAL Dogs

by Mike Ritland

  For one particular exercise, we’d traveled to another compound-type training area. The buildings in this compound were constructed out of cinder block and had small windows where some blocks had been knocked out of the walls. The discarded blocks lay on the ground inside the structures. For this exercise, I told the handlers to keep the dogs on leash until the moment they thought best. What I was hoping would happen was that a handler would release his dog prematurely and I could turn that into a teachable moment for everyone. I’d been standing on a few of those blocks, with my body half inside the room and half hanging out the window and onto the grassy area below. My plan was that as soon as a dog came into the room, I’d jump out the window. Then I would turn around to catch the dog that was sure to follow me out the window.

  The point, of course, would be to make it clear to that handler that he’d made a poor choice. Not only had the “bad guy” (me) evaded capture, the MWD had been hurt in that fall from the window. In the exercise, the window was only 30 or so inches off the ground, so no harm would come to the dog. Of course, in real situations windows can be much higher off the ground, and dogs can’t jump and bounce back the way cats can. They hit the ground and they hit hard.

  Even after all these years of working with these dogs, even I sometimes underestimate just how fast they can go and get their target. On the first go-round, I had barely scrambled out of the window fully intact before the dog was literally nipping at my heels. He didn’t come in and follow me through the window as I had predicted. Instead, he came tearing after me, because he had caught wind of me and scurried out the side door. He got in a few choice chews on me. Still, I was glad that I was able to illustrate for the handler, without putting a dog’s well-being at risk, what might have happened if he had followed me out the window. I chose my profession and the risks and bite marks that go along with it, not to mention the responsibility to provide dogs that have received sound training and are in good health.

  Just like humans, dogs occasionally develop nagging injuries during the course of their training from overuse of muscles. Sometimes we’ll leave them behind to rest up and heal, but more often they just lag behind for a day or two to recuperate. Sometimes, though, a dog will miss an entire training cycle. When he’s ready, he’ll join another “class” already in the pipeline.

  I’m eager to make sure that the dogs are safe and in the best possible shape to help keep our soldiers, sailors, and marines safe. I love the work I do, and I know how important it is to take the time to get things done right. We work hard and have some fun as well, but I absolutely refuse to cut corners. Very early on in my days as a dog trainer, after preparing one of my first dogs to go in theater, I received an e-mail in which one of the first handlers I trained sent me a detailed story about an operation he and his dog had been on. His words confirmed what I believed. We were on the right track; the dogs we trained and provided were making a difference. I’m proud to share his words here.

  The moon sat just above the ridge of the mountain as we descended into a cutback that would lead us down into a valley. The boys adjusted their gear; the hike down into the valley was crisscrossed with barren loose rock and dense thorny brush along nothing more than a goat path. There had been a lot of activity in the area lately, the ground giving away constant sign of foot traffic that had kicked loose the rock underfoot. The terrain glowed with a greenish tint as we looked through our night-vision goggles studying the lay of the land before us, everyone alert for the slightest hint of danger. Reno was out front, his muscled lean body moving with little effort, his eyes alert, ears perked at every sound, his breath as he exhaled created a small vortex of hot humid air as it interacted with the cold dry air that surrounded him. I had been Reno’s partner now for a little over a year. The bond between my dog and me was something that ran deep and was hard to truly explain. Quite simply put, I loved him and trusted my very life to him.

  We were moving toward a target that was positioned on the other side of a small river that ran along the bottom of the valley floor. The area, according to our intel, was alive with enemy activity. Recent reports had a bomb maker in the area that we had been hunting for months. He had been involved in several IED incidents that had claimed American lives; if we had anything to do with it, after tonight he would no longer be able to hurt another one of our brothers or sisters. The guys had packed light. The elevation change was thousands of feet, spread out over a dozen miles, and we had to get in and out in this cycle of darkness. Covering a dozen miles under normal circumstances is relatively easy; doing it in the dark with a massive elevation change and carrying 50 pounds of gear along with the always present chance of contact can be downright exhausting. Reno moved with purpose, his incredible senses scanning the area around him, looking for the possibility of his second-favorite thing in the world, a ball. Reno had no idea that he was out front leading the way to warn us of the danger of an IED. He simply knew that if he found explosive odor a ball would magically appear out of thin air and he would get to carry it around like a trophy for a while.

  My knowledge base of explosive and human odor movement had grown a hundredfold over the last year. I knew that to best use Reno’s natural capabilities I had to put him into the best position possible to take advantage of the situation, keeping mission requirements and limitations in mind. I looked at the terrain and calculated wind direction, wind speed, temperature, humidity, elevation changes, terrain formations, barometric pressure, and vegetation types and densities. Most of my concentration was on the dog. Subtle changes in his body language could give me large clues as to what was going on around us. It was up to John, walking just behind me, to scan the terrain and guide us in the right direction. We rounded a corner and the wind was suddenly blowing directly in our faces as we moved down the ridge, a stiff cold breeze that chilled me to the bone. Reno’s head lifted slightly as he sniffed the new flow of air. I pictured thousands of molecules being processed by his olfactory system, and a sense of calm overcame me. He was not worried, so neither was I.

  The next few hours wore on; the downhill portion of this track was starting to rub the front of my toes raw. A lot of weight at a steep angle over time will do that to even the most seasoned feet. The trail doubled back on itself as we nearly reached the valley floor. The wind was at our backs as we moved forward, sending a chill running down my spine, yet not from the cold. Everything I had learned over the last year screamed at me, this situation was developing into an almost worst-case scenario for Reno. The wind was cold and running fast from behind us down a narrow ravine that would open into the valley, pushing any odor away from us until we were on top of it. Not good.

  I signaled the guys to move back a bit as Reno and I pushed forward. I would be lying if I said that my heart rate was not elevated. I was about to move through a choke point in the terrain in hostile enemy territory that was densely covered with a thick thorn-bearing bush that made the path neither quiet nor easy to see through. I gave the command for Reno to move forward and search for any hint of human or explosive odor. My weapon was raised and pointed in the general direction from which I expected a threat as I watched my boy search the area. His nose was down, sucking in all available odor, his tail up and wagging as he crisscrossed the path and moved deeper into the choke point.

  I moved forward slowly, step by step, as I watched him work. Eventually we were through the high-threat area, Reno never signaled a threat. I took a deep breath and smiled.

  We pushed forward again. I started to relax as we moved along the valley floor, my eyes trained on Reno, knowing that John was acting as my eyes and the rest of the boys were on their game also. We were getting close to the target when all of a sudden I stopped dead in my tracks. Reno’s head had snapped around, and his tail was starting to waggle a hundred miles an hour as he worked his way back toward me. He was working the wind and had obviously detected an explosive odor. With the wind at our backs I had no idea how far back the explosive was. My breathing stopped as I
scanned the ground around me with one eye and watched Reno with the other, adrenaline rushing through my system like white-hot lava. He sat 2 feet to my right and 5 feet in front of me, eyes focused on the ground, tail wagging furiously.

  I quickly calculated what had happened; the wind had pushed the odor in a narrow scent cone out in front of us. By the time explosive molecules were available for Reno to pick up, he had already walked past the buried IED. My mind ran through a thousand possibilities before I settled on the most likely scenario being a pressure plate in our path with the explosives buried just off the track but still plenty close enough to kill anyone standing on that plate. I carefully circled around the area and then called Reno to me, making sure he would not cross the area where I was guessing the explosives had been laid. I tossed him a ball and gave him a quick pat as my heart and breathing rate returned to near normal. We took a quick GPS reading, marked the location, and moved on.

  It took us another hour to reach our target location, which proved to be yet another wrong lead, or at the very least untimely information. The villagers were on edge. They had sent a call out to all local fighters, so it was time for us to leave, and fast. Our extraction point was at the leeward edge of the next ridge, but we were running short on time and moved with purpose. Ten minutes into our climb out we received information that a large group of Taliban fighters were descending on the valley. An hour later, the backs of my legs were burning, my heart racing, the cold nothing more than an afterthought as my body superheated the clothes covering it. Reno was starting to slow down; he is a specimen of a dog, in incredible shape, his muscles shredded from countless hours of training in environments that simulate our theater of operation.

  I had to call a halt, resting a few minutes while Reno caught his breath. We set up a perimeter quickly. Each man was on edge, yet they all looked calm and relaxed; there was a smile on a couple of faces as sweat clung to their clothes. It is at times like this that I reflect upon the company I am keeping on this mountainside in some third world country, being hunted by a number of enemy that far outnumber us. I would choose to be nowhere else in the world; each one here was my brother.

  Reno drank some water from my canteen, his tongue dripping water all over me as he licked my face quickly. I smiled and pushed him away gently, then patted his side quietly. I gave him a few minutes, then put him back to work. We moved back up the mountain, pushing ourselves to reach safety. A few minutes thereafter I thanked my stars above that I had given him that break. I had my eyes off of Reno as I tried to catch myself as my foot slipped on the loose, rocky terrain. When I looked up he was locked up, his body rigid as his ears pushed forward, a slight quiver in his rear left leg.

  He was indicating he had detected human odor, the greatest reward my dog had.

  I instantly lifted my M-4 as my eyes scanned the terrain above us; I knew without looking that John and the other guys were moving as soon as my weapon came up. Reno took off at a dead sprint and disappeared twenty feet to our left. Seconds afterward, screams came from the area. I moved forward, scanning the environment as I moved, wanting to come to Reno’s aid as soon as possible but unwilling to leave behind my tactical sense. I heard three shots ring out as a Taliban fighter tried to exit the shallow cut that he and one other insurgent had been hiding in. His companion was locked in a fight with Reno; the dog was destroying him. Blood was quickly covering the man’s clothes. I called Reno out of the fight and squeezed off several rounds as the man reached for his weapon. We quickly searched the area before moving on; our pace was even quicker than before, as the gunfire for sure gave away our position. Legs and lungs burned, the elevation taking its toll as we finally reached our destination.

  Sitting on the edge of that mountain waiting for our ride, I looked back at the last few hours. I patted Reno’s head. Twice tonight he had saved my life. Twice I owed him yet another debt of gratitude. His body shivered slightly as the cold wind bit into him. Now that we weren’t moving, the cold settled quickly. I pulled off my coat and wrapped him in it, pulling his body against mine to keep him warm. Tonight he had saved my life. Tonight he had saved my brothers’ lives.

  10

  DISTINCT PERSONALITIES

  Luke glanced behind him. All he could see was water. He and his handler, my friend Wayne, were more than 500 yards from shore. I was there, too, along with some other handlers and their dogs. When Luke turned his face back toward us, I could see the fear and panic in his eyes. Dogs are smart and have great instincts for self-preservation. I could tell he was pretty much done swimming and was panicking about how much longer this training exercise was going to take and how much farther away from land they were going to get. He was anxious about when he would be able to stop, get out of the cold water, and be back on shore.

  Pretty soon, Luke’s panicked look turned into a sodden expression of anger. He took off after Wayne, and it was clear he was bent on destroying something—or someone. It was as if that dog had decided that if he was going down, he was taking someone with him.

  Because I’ve seen this with dozens of other dogs in this kind of situation, I also knew that, in Luke’s mind, he was viewing anything bobbing alongside him in the water as something he could climb up on and be safe. So Luke was mad at Wayne, but he also saw him as a piece of land to rest on.

  For the next fifteen minutes or so, I thought I was in the middle of Jaws 1D—1 Dog. Wayne did his best to fend off that dog, flanking him while Luke turned tight circles, his front paws working like a razor-sharp paddlewheel, his bared teeth white and pointy like shark teeth. Every time Luke got close to Wayne, Wayne pushed Luke’s hindquarters away from him. When he couldn’t get to his flanks, Wayne had to resort to pushing at Luke’s neck and the side of his head. It was a battle of wills the rest of us kept our eyes on while we also kept going.

  * * *

  I’d been in that position myself, with dogs who were so scared that the rate of their paddling, combined with their desire to climb on top of you to get up out of the water, could potentially turn you into human coleslaw and had you at wit’s end. Luke was all that and pretty bite aggressive, too. The thing that Wayne couldn’t do, and none of the trainee handlers could do, in this situation or in any other, was to give in and let the dog have his way. If you did, you had a major problem on your hands. That dog would then, in his mind, go up thirty places on the mental totem pole that signified his status. Cave in to a dog like one of these just once, and your life could be torturous. As it was, many of us ended up getting parts of our bodies raked by the thumbs and dewclaws of a panicked swimming dog, and those raised welts were just another way that we all earned our stripes.

  It’s a given that human SEAL team members need to be comfortable and way beyond competent in the water due to the nature of the work they do. The same is true of SEAL team canines. Most of the dogs that we purchase have had some “exposure” to the water. We quickly find out that that term can mean anything from drinking water to actively swimming in it. Like most of the training a dog has received before we acquire him, those experiences haven’t necessarily been the most positive, reward-based ones. As a result, we have to do a lot of reward-based work with a dog we acquire to get him to be comfortable with swimming. As with most things we teach, we start out small and basic and advance from there. We toss a ball in the water and let the dog chase it. We toss it farther and farther over time so those first few opportunities in the water are the equivalent of wading. We do this before we get into the high-pawing, paddling, splashing technique that we see some of them employ early on.

  Eventually, after many repetitions and rewards, we get to the point where the dogs are ready to go out with their handlers on the kind of swim that Luke and Wayne were participating in. It’s what I call a “conditioning swim.” We go out as a group, the handlers and dogs in a loose pack, with the dogs on a modified type of lead. While the dogs may be more at ease in the water at this point, they have also definitely developed a “near to the beach” c
omfort level. So we stretch them out in the ocean or in Balboa Bay or elsewhere to the point where they can no longer see the shoreline.

  That day with Luke and Wayne, we were all headed on an out-and-back swim beyond a buoy. As painful as it was for Wayne to endure Luke’s panic, and as rough as that swim was for Luke, it was far better that they go through this on the so-called practice field than in the real game. The price we’d pay in lives lost if a dog panicked during a swimming insertion was not something I wanted to think about but was certainly something I wanted to prevent. As tiresome and frustrating as it might have been to do swim training with the dogs in an environment that is relatively foreign to them, it made me realize just how important patience and follow-through were in doing this kind of training.

  As I’ve said, dogs are smart, and Luke was especially smart. He was also notorious for being the most acrobatic dog of his training group. If dogs could be gymnasts, Luke would have been the equivalent of both the Hamm brothers. The things this dog could do with his body, how he could flex, twist, and contort himself to make sure that his mouth was pointed in the right direction, were the stuff of legend.