On this early December day, as visitors trickle out of the White House after the festive holiday tour, someone spots what looks like a black sheep on a leash. Word quickly gets around that this is Sunny, the Obama family’s all-black Portuguese water dog, often referred to as Bo’s little sister.
“It’s the president’s dog!” someone says, and points.
“Oh my God, the First Dog!”
Cameras and cell phones train on the dog as a crowd gathers to watch her walking with Haney. After a couple of minutes, Haney walks Sunny in the direction of a group of visitors and introduces her.
He asks a ten-year-old girl if she’d like to hold Sunny’s leash. The girl beams. She takes the nylon leash—blue with stars—in her hand and pets her.
“She’s so soft,” she says. Her extended family is with her, talking excitedly while snapping pics. Most don’t speak English. One translates and tries to explain what’s going on. The girl looks out shyly at the gathering crowd while Sunny sits. The dog is calm as a rock.
This is far from an everyday occurrence. A First Dog sighting like this is rare.
But not to worry. If you love dogs, you have one more chance to spot one before you stray too far from the White House. As you walk down the curved drive and out the gate, if you head left on Pennsylvania Avenue, you might see a dog you’d never associate with the Secret Service.
“What’s that?” you might ask.
You would not be the first.
CHAPTER 8
WHAT’S THAT?
The stainless steel dog trailer full of new canine recruits pulled into the kennel parking lot at RTC. Highway dust from the thirteen-hour drive from Indiana—including two bathroom breaks for the dogs—dulled the sheen of the trailer, but the excited barking of the dogs was anything but muted.
They wanted out.
Instructors and handlers gathered to see what kinds of dogs two canine staffers had picked out at Vohne Liche Kennels for the brand-new Personnel Screening Canines Open Area (PSCO) program, aka the “Friendly Dog” program, aka the “Floppy-Eared Dog” program.
These would be the first Secret Service dogs to scent vapor trails coming off people, rather than fixed objects—an additional layer of defense for the White House or anywhere they might work. The future Friendly Dog handlers had been in classroom training for a week and were anxious to meet their potential partners.
Steve M., a canine program instructor, stepped out of the truck and stretched the kinks out of his back.
“I think we got some good ones here,” he said. He and another instructor began bringing the dogs out of the trailer one at a time.
He introduced the staff to several Labrador retrievers, a couple of springer spaniels, and a cocker spaniel. They all seemed fairly affable, despite the long journey. Most stopped barking once out of the trailer.
These dogs had the hallmark floppy ears that were supposed to help prevent tourists from moving away from them in a crowd, as often happened with Malinois and other pointy-eared law-enforcement dogs whose reputations and looks tend to be more intimidating. Most wagged amiably. It was an altogether different group of recruits from the dogs that normally charge out of the trailer.
And then there was a dog who fit no category.
Part terrier, part border collie, most likely—a shaggy, scraggly morphing of the two. His fur looked like a black-and-white shag rug that someone had regrettably thrown in the dryer on extra hot. A cowlick partway along his back added to the chaos.
His muzzle was mostly white, with black mottling from his skin showing through in patches. White hairs intruded on the black fur that covered most of the rest of his face, giving him the appearance of an older dog.
To top off the look, hanging three inches down from each side of the dog’s mouth were long, coarse tendrils of fur with a rusty orange hue. Brian thought it looked like a canine version of a Fu Manchu mustache.
He stepped back and silently surveyed the dog, from his pointy black ears—ha ha, so much for floppy-eared dogs—to his white-tipped tail.
What’s THAT? he thought, but didn’t say it aloud.
“Well, pretty is as pretty does,” he uttered through his chuckles.
“This is Roadee,” Steve smiled and told the group. He knew the impression the dog must be making. “I think he may have real potential.”
Steve, a master sergeant in the United States Marine Corps Reserve, spent his nine active-duty Marine years as a dog handler and trainer. When he thinks a dog has what it takes, the dog usually does.
Bill strode up from the kennel office.
“You’ve gotta be kidding me!” the agent said, laughing and shaking his head.
Roadee looked up at him, eyes narrowing slightly, ears tipping backward, mouth firmly shut. His expression left little room for interpretation.
You wait and see, pal.
—
The handsome Labs and peppy spaniels made the rounds with the handlers during the first week of Friendly Dog training. Ziggy, a mellow, smart yellow Lab, was the dog most of the handlers wanted to work with.
Roadee wasn’t part of the rotation the first few days. He was like the kid who never got picked to be on a team at school. He sat in his kennel and watched as the other dogs paraded in and out. He’d go on walks, but that was it.
No one wanted to interact much with him. When someone would pet him, he would get so excited he’d unleash his bladder. One of the springers, Dyson, had the same issue, but he was being worked and trained most days despite this.
Then one day, after it became evident that a couple of the other dogs didn’t have the right stuff, Roadee was brought out of his kennel. It was more a matter of protocol than the belief he could be a bona fide member of the Secret Service. They couldn’t return him to Vohne Liche Kennels without at least giving him a fighting chance.
A good bath and solid diet had made him look a little less rough around the edges. He bounced out of his cage, jumping around at the end of his leash and wanting to work.
It quickly became clear that Roadee had more previous training than the other dogs. Maybe too much.
While most of the other dogs were green and just beginning on obedience and some scent work, Roadee already knew the ropes. When instructors tried him out on basic scent work, he would alert.
In fact, he would alert to almost everything he was asked to sniff. It didn’t matter if it had an explosives odor or not. He would sit. It was one alert after another. If he went out on the job like this, the White House would be under constant lockdown.
The instructors realized he had played this game before and he knew how to get paid. They set to work encouraging him, with positive reinforcement, to make more honest choices.
With the exception of his cheating ways, he quickly proved himself to be a top student. He was a fast learner and had the kind of high energy needed for the job.
Most of the handlers didn’t mind too much if they were assigned Roadee for the day. They just didn’t want him for keeps.
They couldn’t imagine dealing with his “glee pee,” especially at home, much less out in public in front of the White House gates where he’d be sniffing out passersby for potential explosives. Sometimes all it took was a look from someone and he’d let loose a stream.
Even though he looked better than he did when he emerged from the kennel trailer, the handlers didn’t think he had the appearance of a Secret Service dog whose mission was to protect the president of the United States.
The handlers had all been in the Secret Service for years, mostly in jobs other than handling dogs. Ending up with a canine partner who looked like he lived down the alley from Oscar the Grouch wasn’t something they’d envisioned when they signed up for this duty.
By the end of the second week with the dogs, the instructors had decided on the matches. They would be announcing them
later that day. But just for fun, that morning they asked the handlers to rank their choices.
Ziggy was the first choice of most of the handlers. He had proven to be a super quick study, and with his happy, chilled-out personality he’d be a welcome addition to any household.
Only one person even put Roadee on his list. Josh B., the longtime handler of an EDT dog who was about to retire, realized Roadee’s potential.
“The only thing going against him besides the pee thing is his looks,” he told one of the other handlers in his class. “If he looked like Ziggy, I might put him as number one.” Instead, he put Roadee as number three out of three.
The handlers all ranked their choices, handed them to the instructors, and went out for a few more hours of training.
They were outside at Rowley Training Center working the dogs when a flashbang went off somewhere in the distance from unrelated Secret Service training. It wasn’t terribly loud. Most of the dogs didn’t seem to notice.
But Ziggy did.
He immediately appeared to deflate and lose all his confidence. He tucked his tail between his legs, and when he could be convinced to walk, he barely moved. It took exuberant motivational praise to even get him back to a normal walk, and after a few minutes he’d slow down again and his ears would pull back tight against his head.
This kind of reaction was not what they had expected. Ziggy had been exposed to loud noises during testing in Indiana and had not come undone. But no matter how perfect Ziggy was in every other way, they all knew that this was the end of any potential Secret Service career for him. They couldn’t have a dog who shuts down at the sound of a blast doing the kind of work he would be doing at the White House. Cars backfire. Fireworks go off. Demonstrations get loud. Kids pop balloons.
Ziggy would be heading back to Indiana. He wasn’t alone. He’d be joining Teddy, Jerry, Max, and Harley for a return trip. Because the program was new, it would take a little time to figure out what to look for in ideal canine candidates.
With the first choice of the handlers now gone from the list, they gathered in the classroom for their meeting with Steve and another instructor to learn who would be at their side at the White House and in their homes for the next several years.
“All right, five of you guys put Ziggy first, but as you know, he’s going back,” the other instructor told them.
The instructors went through one by one, adding dramatic pauses between. Halfway through the list, Josh knew he would be making a phone call after the meeting to give his wife a heads-up.
“I’m bringing home a dog today,” he told her later. “He’s a little rough looking but I think he’ll grow on you.”
—
Josh’s retired Malinois, Ciela (pronounced seel-ah), was the kind of dog who commanded respect wherever she went. Never mind that her ears are so big that Josh jokes that if Batman had a dog, Ciela would be it. Even in retirement, she’s a regal dog with a don’t-mess-with-me air. When she was still working, people generally kept their distance.
If onlookers said anything, it was usually about how beautiful she was. Only one time did someone make a negative comment about her looks. It happened the first week Josh had her out on the job.
“That’s a canine?” the woman asked. “Man, that dog is so ugly!”
Josh didn’t know what to say. He was just as mad as if she had insulted his child. He said nothing.
Ciela was an excellent EDT dog. She alerted once at the White House in 2014, her last year on the job. She dove under a car, stared up, and wouldn’t budge until Josh called her off. It was a dramatic alert that shut down an entry point. A bomb team took it seriously but couldn’t find anything.
They had worked together since 2006, and she had never thrown that kind of change of behavior outside of training. Josh was sure she had detected an odor she was trained to find, but the cause of the odor was no longer visible. She wasn’t a dog to tell fibs for rewards.
She alerted twice at the vice president’s residence as well. One alert was for a car parked near the helicopter pad. The other was, of all things, for a rope that hoisted the American flag up and down. Nothing suspicious was found either time, but Josh once again had no doubt she had smelled something in her vast odor repertoire.
Josh and Ciela had traveled extensively for the job. They’d been to Germany for the G8 summit, Copenhagen for the failed U.S. Olympics bid, Israel when Cheney was vice president, Italy for a vice presidential vacation, Costa Rica, Canada, and all over the United States.
Secret Service dog teams sometimes work with military working dogs and handlers. For the UN General Assembly, Secret Service dogs usually work close to the inner perimeter, while military dog teams tend to be a little farther out.
On one joint assignment in Florida, Josh ran across a Navy dog handler sitting in his white Ford Explorer. A big sign on the window warned: CAUTION: MILITARY WORKING DOG.
Josh walked up and introduced himself.
“You got a German shepherd in there?” he asked.
“No,” the Navy dog handler said. “A Jack Russell terrier.”
Josh laughed at the joke.
The handler rolled down the window and a scrappy Jack Russell terrier jumped up, put his paws on the door, and stared at him.
“This is Lars,” the Navy handler said.
“Oh my God!” Josh said, busting up. “You weren’t kidding!”
The handler had been through this kind of reaction many times. He just nodded and smiled. It was a feeling Josh would come to know all too well.
—
Karma is a cruel mistress.
On the lower windshield of Josh’s work van is a sign warning POLICE K-9 VEHICLE in English and Spanish, over the Secret Service’s logo. The head of a German shepherd appears to be looking at the warning words from the right.
Josh and Roadee don’t usually get out of their van at work in front of many people, but they face plenty of double takes on the job at the White House fence line. People point, they smile, they ask lots of questions. It makes Josh’s role particularly challenging, because he has to guide Roadee through the crowd, maintain a focus on what Roadee is up to, and be completely aware of any important changes of behavior that could indicate he’s onto the scent of an explosive device.
When Roadee is working, he’s serious about his job. He pulls ahead, tracing the scent of everyone near, hoping that someone, somewhere, will bear an odor he’s looking for so he can get his coveted tennis ball reward—if not then, then afterward.
Many tourists ask Josh if he and his dog would pose for a photo—sometimes just to prove to their friends that this dog really exists and works for the Secret Service. He politely declines requests that would entail him stopping.
He’ll try to answer questions when he can, but he doesn’t let anything get in the way of doing his job at 100 percent. He’s as serious about his work as Roadee is about his.
If there are too many questions, or if Josh can’t stop to answer, one of the nearby Uniformed Division officers will take over. Most know Roadee’s story. The same questions come up every day, and they’re happy to answer whatever they can so Roadee and Josh can do their jobs.
The questions usually start within thirty seconds of Josh and Roadee walking from the van to the fence line. It doesn’t seem to matter if it’s crowded or relatively empty. There are always questions:
—“What kind of dog is that?” or for the less tactful, “What’s that?!”
Josh tells them about the border collie–terrier mix theory. It usually satisfies people, but there are some who set to work figuring out just what kind of terrier must be at work in his gene pool to end up with this unique look.
—“I didn’t know you guys use rescue dogs!”
“No, we go through a vendor. He looks like a rescue dog, but he’s not.” He wishes he knew more about Roadee�
��s history and wonders how someone who breeds working dogs chose to create a Roadee.
—“I thought you used canines!”
“This is a canine,” he’ll say with a patient smile. Just like the Navy handler did all those years back.
—“Wow, that dog’s old!”
“He’s only four,” Josh may reply. He knows that won’t usually be the end of the conversation, which usually continues with, “But his face has so much white!”
—“He’s so scraggly!”
There is no answer for this one as far as he’s concerned. Maybe just a “Yup.”
—“She’s pretty!”
“Thanks!” He doesn’t usually bother explaining the gender thing.
—“Does he bite?”
“All dogs can bite.”
—“Is he a good dog?”
“He’s a great dog.”
—“Can I pet him?”
Even though DO NOT PET is emblazoned on Roadee’s harness, this is one of the more common questions. “Sorry, he’s working” is the simple answer.
There’s another reason the tourists should not pet Roadee. This is one explanation Josh never shares with them.
—
Visitors to Josh’s house, which is down a winding country road far from Washington, D.C., are never greeted by Roadee. It’s not that he’s antisocial. It’s just that Josh and his wife like to minimize Roadee’s little accidents.
They don’t want to tell company, “Please don’t pet him.” It’s easier, and the dog is more mellow, if he’s off on his own until visitors have been there for a while.
When Josh’s parents stop in, Roadee is so thrilled to see them that it doesn’t even take them petting him to set him off. All they have to do is talk to him when they walk in, and a yellow stream hits the rug. Josh asks them to give Roadee the cold shoulder for a while after arriving, but it’s hard to ignore their scruffy grandchild.
Secret Service Dogs Page 11
