—
Marshall marvels at Hurricane’s ability to chill out when his “on” switch isn’t needed. Sure, the dog is usually energetic. He’s a Malinois, after all. But the dog’s propensity to be mellow and loving transforms him from a formidable presidential protector to a happy goofball as soon as Marshall lets him know it’s OK to relax.
Although Hurricane loves hanging with his handler, he’s not a one-man dog as far as affection is concerned. He’s more of a “you look at me and I think you’re the greatest” kind of dog.
Give him so much as a glance while he’s off duty, and he’ll wag on over and push his head toward you until you pet him. And don’t even think about stopping. He is not shy to lean in, wag, look you deep in your eyes, and ask for more. He might even train you to rub his belly.
Because Hurricane knows he’s guaranteed affection and attention when he gets a bath or visits the vet, he enjoys these activities that many other dogs—even pet dogs—would prefer to avoid.
“The hardest part of going to the vet is trying to get him to stop doing everything he can to be petted,” Marshall says. When vets feel Hurricane’s body during exams, the dog pushes himself into them with his head so they’ll love him up.
Like all Secret Service dogs—even the Friendly Dogs—Hurricane is required to wear a muzzle at veterinary hospitals. He makes Darth Vader–like sounds under his black leather muzzle as he seeks out belly rubs from the staff.
The vet techs love him and have figured out a way to get him to stay still: When they need to, they squirt a little bit of canned cheese near his mouth under the leather muzzle. He momentarily forgets about his looking for affection as he licks away the tasty treat. The staffers get the job done, Hurricane gets a little more love, and off he goes, wagging contentedly down the hall alongside Marshall.
Stew’s old dog Nero had a similar switch. Stew has a couple of Yorkies at home. The diminutive dogs have no fear and would growl at Nero when he came near them while they were eating. Nero wouldn’t argue or force the issue. He just walked away slowly to give them their space.
“You have no idea, little dogs,” Stew would laugh. “He could crush you in a second.”
But he knew Nero wouldn’t have.
“He wasn’t mean,” says Stew. “He was loving and sweet. But if I flipped on the light switch, he became SWAT Dog!”
In stark contrast, Marshall and Stew and most other ERT handlers have personal SWAT switches that stay on most of the time. ERT guys could light an entire city with all their “on” switches. It’s a common phenomenon in law enforcement.
Hypervigilance is essential for their own survival and the safety of others. Their job entails suspecting the worst at all times. This mentality can easily bleed into off-hours. Their vigilance takes no holiday.
“I go to church and they say ‘Let us pray’ and I can’t close my eyes,” says Stew, a former Marine sergeant.
When Marshall goes to the movies, he sits in specific spots he feels will give him the best ability to react to an incident. If he can, he buys tickets in advance so he can pick the seat. Otherwise he arrives early. He’s looking for a seat that will give him an excellent vantage point and let him respond to the entry and exit points, if necessary. It’s easier to enjoy the movie if he knows he’ll be able to react appropriately to protect his friends and other innocent people if something happens.
Like many in law enforcement, he often carries a weapon off duty. He was doing this well before the recent spate of movie theater shootings.
He doesn’t even let down his guard in the house of God. He’s always scanning for problems. Friends ask him why he carries in church. He has a great story.
“My first year patrolling,” he tells them, “I helped with the arrest of a man with a gun close to the White House. It was the first time I drew my gun and I actually ended up wrestling the guy down while his gun laid right next to us on the ground in front of a hundred people. I’d never forget that man’s face.
“Well, a year later, I was at church in the middle of the week at daytime mass. I scanned through the crowd as I always do, and who do I see but him. I couldn’t believe it. He had a weapon last time, who knows if he had another one. Maybe he would’ve seen me and remembered and freaked out.
“Nothing happened that day. He didn’t even see me. But it was good to know I was ready for whatever came my way.”
—
Stew frequently reminds his handlers of the “C word” when they meet at ERT headquarters near the White House.
“Complacency is cancer and it will get you or someone killed.”
All Secret Service dog handlers know that nothing can be assumed to be safe until it’s thoroughly checked out. Luggage, packages, vehicles—and even rodents.
Alarms (not heard by the public) frequently go off on the White House grounds. They’re exquisitely sensitive. Sometimes they get set off by bad weather, or by the squirrels who seem to find the vicinity of the White House intoxicatingly attractive. Even if a Secret Service officer or agent sees a squirrel tripping the alarm and reports it via a Service radio, ERT is going to proceed as if it were a lot more than a squirrel. The officers approach with guns and dogs, in whatever tactical advance the situation dictates.
“Some of the guys who aren’t on ERT think we’re completely insane,” says Jim. “But we perceive things a little differently than the average officer does. It’s a tactical mind-set. We’re going to do what we have to do before we call it clear.”
They do this for every alarm breaker, for any possible penetration without an alarm, and for anything that doesn’t seem normal.
“That’s how we have to be, because the one time we’re relaxed and we don’t take the time to check it the right way is going to be the one time that somebody gets past us,” Jim says. “And that’s not going to happen.”
Stew recalls one night when an alarm went off. It would be easy to assume it was probably the fox that had been seen in the area earlier that night. But ERT wasn’t going to assume anything.
It turned out not to be a fox. It was a fence jumper, and he was running on the south grounds. The team quickly apprehended him, with the help of a barking dog whose handler threatened to release him if the guy didn’t give up.
“What the dogs and handlers do is overkill,” says Bill, “until it’s not.”
CHAPTER 4
A FIRM GRIP
You could set your watch by President Ronald Reagan. His reputation for punctuality gave Secret Service dog handler Tony Ferrara some comfort as he stood at the end of a row of fifteen handlers and dogs in front of the hay barn at the president’s California ranch.
At first the dogs—German shepherds and Belgian Malinois—sat patiently at their handlers’ sides. But after several minutes, composure turned to restlessness. Some whined and fidgeted. Ferrara’s 110-pound Dutch shepherd, Bart, pulled and barked toward his four-legged colleagues as if he wanted to eat them. Ferrara took a few steps in the other direction to move Bart away from temptation.
Horses snuffling the ground for hay behind the dog teams glanced up to look at the creatures who were disrupting their peaceful morning routine. They flicked their ears and snorted, and went back to their breakfast.
It was October 29, 1988, less than three months before Ronald Reagan’s two-term presidency would end, and just ten days before the nation would elect its next president. Someone had decided this would be a good time for photo ops with the Secret Service dog teams that had protected the president and Nancy Reagan on their 688-acre ranch atop the Santa Ynez Mountains northwest of Santa Barbara. Although Reagan would receive Secret Service protection for the rest of his life, he wouldn’t be getting this kind of massive canine protection after he left office. It needed to be documented for posterity.
Right on the dot, the president strode up a dirt path, flanked by a couple of Secret Servic
e agents. He wore khaki riding clothes with rich brown leather boots and a matching belt, and he was smiling.
As he approached, a strange thing happened. The dogs all settled down. They stopped barking and sat quietly, looking toward the chief executive. Ferrara wondered if the sudden attentiveness of the handlers had dumped down the leash to affect their dogs, or if Reagan’s presidential presence had a calming effect.
Reagan said a few words of thanks to the group, then walked to the first handler and shook her hand. The photographer took a photo. Down the row of handlers Reagan proceeded, shaking hands as the photographer captured the image.
Then came a gap of about six feet. The president looked past the gap and saw Bart giving the evil eye to the other dogs. Ferrara kept a firm grip on Bart’s coiled leather leash. Bart had never snapped at anyone unless he was supposed to, but Ferrara wasn’t taking any chances.
Reagan walked toward them and shook Ferrara’s hand. “He doesn’t like those dogs, does he?” Reagan asked with a grin.
“There’s a few things he doesn’t like, Mr. President,” Ferrara said. “German shepherds, bad guys, and Democrats.”
Reagan burst out laughing, his eyebrows drawn together in an expression of easy joviality. Still shaking his right hand with Ferrara’s, the president grasped Ferrara’s elbow with his left. Ferrara relaxed and felt an undeniable warm connection. But he didn’t for a second loosen his hold on Bart’s leash.
—
Secret Service director H. Stuart Knight had no idea of Wilson (Bill) Livingood’s love of dogs when he called the special agent in charge of protective operations into his office in 1975 and asked him to form a canine unit.
With incidents of domestic and international terrorism on the rise, the agency had done some research to find out how to best detect explosives. Dogs came out on top of the list.
The Service had been piecing together canine protection for presidents by calling in military and local law-enforcement canine teams wherever the president went. There was no standard of training, and dogs weren’t always available. This patchwork quilt was no way to protect the president. It was time for the Secret Service to develop its own canine program.
Livingood was thrilled that the job of starting a canine unit fell to him. Early in his Secret Service career he had watched the nation plunge into “a deep, deep sadness” after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. He would support anything that would diminish the chances of such a national disaster again.
If it involved dogs, all the better for the lifelong dog lover.
When Livingood was a radioman on a Navy minesweeper after high school, he managed to convince the captain to allow him to keep a puppy he had adopted while onshore. She looked like Dagwood Bumstead’s dog, so he named her Daisy. She became the darling of the crew. Everyone loved her. Everyone except one gruff boatswain who always grumbled about her.
One day in rough seas, Livingood heard an alarm go off while he was at work in the radio shack.
“Man overboard, man overboard!” a voice announced.
Then a pause.
“Correction. Dog overboard!”
Horrified, Livingood bolted out and ran to the edge of the vessel. He looked down and saw that someone had jumped into the swells and already had a hold of Daisy. He was shocked to see that of all people, the hero was the boatswain. The crew deployed a motorboat and picked them up.
After thanking him profusely, Livingood asked why he rescued her.
“I thought you didn’t like her,” Livingood said.
“Bill, I love this dog,” the boatswain told him. “I just couldn’t admit it because that’s not how I am.”
After the Navy, Livingood went to Michigan State and majored in criminal justice. During summers he had a job on a small police force. The animal warden in the area had a reputation of being cruel to dogs, so Livingood and some of his cop friends would scoop up whatever strays they came across and find their owners, or find homes for them if they didn’t have owners. He found it rewarding to pair up dogs who needed a home and people who needed a companion.
And now here he was, being asked to pair up the Secret Service with a whole new breed of program. How hard could it be?
—
The Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia (MPD) seemed like the logical agency to approach to help launch the Secret Service’s canine program. It was widely regarded as an outstanding department and was accepted as a leader in K-9 training. Bomb dogs were fairly new to the department, but MPD’s patrol and narcotics dogs had a stellar reputation.
MPD offered to provide dogs for the Secret Service, and to train the dogs and their handlers. For the Secret Service, it seemed like the perfect answer, with one-stop shopping in its own backyard.
In the summer of 1975 the Service announced six open positions for handlers. Job applicants had to meet an unusual requirement right off the bat. They had to be married. The logic behind this was that if an officer was sick, someone else in the house could care for the dog.
More than one hundred applied. After a taxing interview process that involved wives of the finalists, six Uniformed Division officers were selected. Four had been dog handlers in the military.
William (Bill) Shegogue (pronounced shay-go) had trained as a combat tracker dog handler when he was drafted in 1968 during the Vietnam War. He loved the job and longed to work with dogs again. He was instructing a firearms class at RTC when he heard the news over the loudspeaker.
“Congratulations, Billy Shegogue, you are now the proud owner of a dog!”
His students cheered.
In early December, Shegogue and the other five handlers reported to the MPD training facility at Blue Plains in southwest D.C. to get their dogs. Training wouldn’t start until after the holidays, but the trainers wanted the dogs and handlers to acclimate to each other.
For some it would be a happy holiday.
For others, it would be memorable.
The dogs, all German shepherds, had been plucked from shelters or donated. Their temperaments ranged from assertive to ballistic.
Shegogue’s dog, Diamond, tried to bite him a few times over the holidays. Despite his previous work with dogs, he couldn’t get a handle on how to stop it. He looked forward to starting class in January and smoothing Diamond’s rough edges.
But even in the hands of the professionals, Diamond’s biting continued. Through basic obedience, detection work, and patrol training, nothing anyone did helped the dog. He was likely to bite any time he was anxious. When searching buildings, if the dog couldn’t find the bad guy hiding behind a closed door, he’d turn around and bite Shegogue for good measure. He never broke the skin, but it hurt like hell.
Shegogue described the pain to his wife. “It feels like you put your hand down on the table and took a hammer and hit yourself with it really hard.”
After five weeks of this, MPD took Diamond back and gave Shegogue his next dog, Keeper. He hoped the dog would live up to his name. Keeper had been donated by a married couple. Word was that Keeper hated the husband and wouldn’t let him get near the wife.
Shegogue quickly discovered that the dog didn’t like most people. Only Shegogue and one other handler could touch him. And they had to be careful.
One afternoon Shegogue tried taking a candy wrapper out of Keeper’s mouth. He ended up with his thumb split wide open and his thumbnail hanging off in a grotesque fashion.
He had a description of a new sensation for his wife. “You start with a number two pencil and smash it down on the ground, break the tip off, round it out, and stab yourself with it multiple times.”
Keeper did well on the patrol work, where he could use his innate talents of running and fighting and biting. But explosives detection work was of no interest. No matter how much Shegogue and the trainers encouraged him with praise and rewards, Keep
er put in minimal effort.
The only part of explosives detection he seemed to enjoy was what happened the moment he detected the scent. MPD trained what’s called an “aggressive alert.” Anything with the word aggressive suited Keeper.
In an aggressive alert, the dog signals the handler to a find by vigorously pawing and scratching at it. In effect the dog is trying to dig up his reward, which in training would magically bounce up from the area. It’s a technique traditionally used in narcotics detection.
Shegogue’s classmate Cliff Cusick had trepidation about the aggressive alert for explosives. It seemed obvious to the former Air Force sentry dog handler that a dog digging at a volatile substance could easily trigger an explosion, even if a handler pulled away his dog immediately.
“It defeats the entire purpose, doesn’t it?” he asked a classmate.
But Cusick had too much going on to find time to challenge the status quo. He was on his third dog in four months of training and needed this last dog to work out if he was going to graduate.
Cusick had loved his first dog, Rajah, a stunning German shepherd who’d been donated by a wealthy woman from Virginia. Everything was going beautifully until gunfire acclimation training. The noise of the firearms frightened Rajah so badly that he once bit Cusick in the leg as he panicked to escape. A dog who had that kind of fear wouldn’t do well in a life-or-death situation without a great deal of work, if ever. It wasn’t a problem MPD trainers had time to fix.
Cusick’s next dog had an ear that had been half chewed off or had met some other unfortunate fate. He felt bad for the dog, whose jagged ear hadn’t yet healed and attracted flies. The dog had some other issues, and MPD took the dog back and gave Cusick a new dog by the name of Devil. Or more accurately, Devil #6, as they’d had five other Devil dogs before this one.
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