Becoming a Military Dog Handler - Mid-’80s Edition

(Disclaimer: The training, etc., I discuss in this post was the norm in the mid-1980s, nearly 40 years ago. I would be surprised if a lot of this didn't change. So if anyone wants to say, "They don't do it that way now," yeah, I know. I'm not talking about now though.)

Don't know how many of you will be interested or care (I know at least one or two are), but here goes.

This post was inspired by @SusanQuinn's post about Cesar Millan and a reply to a comment of mine on that post. The comment/reply was:

She (View Comment):

MWD B612 "Dawg" (View Comment): I handled military working dogs for a few years. I’m confident in my take on this.

Would love to hear more about this.

After Basic Military Training at Lackland AFB, I was assigned to the Security Police (SP) academy for 6 weeks of training as a Law Enforcement Specialist. I quickly realized that as a "slick sleeve" Airman Basic I would spend the better part of 2-3 years on the gate at whatever base I was assigned. Now, there would be 2 or so days per month where I would actually do police patrol, but that wasn't guaranteed. I resigned myself to this and aimed to make the best of it.

About 3 weeks into the course a couple of NCOs from the K-9 school gave a short presentation and asked for volunteers to be dog handlers. They said the volunteers would be given a screening after class. I quickly thought this might be my way off the gate, so I volunteered for the screening, as did about 7 others. After class we all lined up for the initial screening.

The first screen was an interview with the NCOs. I can't recall the exact questions, but they did ask if I was afraid of dogs. I said I wasn't, and added that it seemed to be a strange question. One of the sergeants said that some airmen thought the training would "cure" them of their fear—it wouldn't. Another question was how I felt about dogs in general. I said something like, "I like dogs, but I'm not a nut about it. They're good companions and do some good work though." That was apparently the right answer; I was told to wait outside for the second part of the screening.

About 5 of us passed the initial screen, 3 men and 2 women. We were directed to some 2-gallon paint cans and 5-gallon buckets. They were all filled with concrete and had a piece of rebar sticking out of the concrete. Welded to the rebar were 2 other pieces of rebar in a "Y" shape. The women were told to stand in front of the 2-gallon pails, the men were sent to the 5-gallon buckets.

On command, we were to grab the "Y" bars with our palms facing down, lift the bucket to shoulder height with our arms straight out, and hold the position for as long as we could or we were told to put it down. I think after about 2 minutes we were told to put the buckets down. One of the women and one man didn't make it to the mark and were dismissed. The rest of us passed and told that would receive orders to handler training at the end of our SP training.

(You're probably wondering, as I did, why we had this wacky test of holding a bucket of concrete at shoulder-height. Patience, Grasshopper. Though do note the difference in bucket size/weight between male and female candidates.)

After completing the SP Academy, I went to another part of Lackland for MWD Handler training. As we formed up our class, I was a bit shocked to see Marines, soldiers, and seamen in the class. Turns out that the AF trains handlers from all branches of the military. It also trains the dogs and supplies them to the armed forces. IIRC my class had two E-4 MPs from the Army (twin sisters, believe it or not), one Navy Master-at-Arms, three or four Marines, and the rest were Airmen.

Our very first class, we heard the phrase, "Remember: that dog is more valuable to the military then you are!" for the first time. We would hear it again at least 100 times throughout the course.

The next few days of classes covered such things as the dog's anatomy, basic care of the dog (brushing, feeding/watering, avoiding bloat, etc.), diseases and things to look out for (e.g., we were taught to smell the dog's ears every few days; a foul smell is a sign of ear mites or worse) and more. We went over the "psychology of the dog" and motivations such as food, prey chase, and praise/affection. We began learning the commands and hand gestures we would use to control the dog. One important part of that was altering our voices to distinguish between commands, corrections, and praise. To this day I still use a high, squeaky voice to praise my dogs.

We drew our gear: a 6-foot leather leash, choke chain, brush, comb, and muzzle. We were taught the correct orientation for a choke chain on a dog—there's a right way and a wrong way; the wrong way doesn't release the pressure on the dog's throat—and how to use it in correcting the dog: If the dog doesn't obey a command, we gave a jerk on the leash and say, "No!" The choke chain will tighten briefly and release, correcting the dog.

If the dog turned on us? We needed to pull the dog up by the leash until his paws were off the ground and hold him there until his eyes rolled back. We would then lower the dog to the ground. It sounds cruel and dangerous to the dog. But the windpipe of a dog is fairly flexible, and no damage is done to the dog. And it's much less cruel than destroying the dog, which would happen if a dog became uncontrollable.

This was the reason for the "bucket test." The recruiters wanted to be sure we had the strength to hold a 70-90 pound dog up until it passed out. Again, this sounds horribly cruel; it's not. I know I won't convince you of that, but remember: the dog was more valuable to the military than we were. We wouldn't be told to do anything that would harm the dog.

After a few classes we were finally assigned our dogs out of the pool of training dogs. We took a couple of hours sitting outside of the dog's kennel, letting the dog get used to our presence. Then we entered the kennel and sat for a bit, then put the choke chain on the dog and took him out. Warning calls of "Dog coming out!" sounded through the kennel area.

(The trainers told us to yell that as we took the dogs out, or whenever we were approaching a blind corner, a doorway, etc. If the trainers caught you not giving the warning, you were gone. Hell, if they thought you were unsafe in any way, you were gone.)

I suppose I should tell y'all what the military looked for in dogs at the time. They generally wanted German Shepherds, GSD mixes, or Dobermans. Minimum weight of 60 pounds. They mainly looked for unneutered males; females had to be spayed. I only encountered one female during my time in the USAF. The dogs could not be gun shy, nor have any psychological defects. (I have no idea how they tested that).

We worked on basic obedience for the next couple of days, then the real work started: attack training. But I'll cover that in another post; this one is already getting too long.