The Last Sentry Dog10/26/2009
The Last Sentry Dog By Monty Moore
Sentry Dog Handler, Da Nang & Phu Cat Air Bases, RVN (1968-1970)
Instructor Military Working Dog Studies Branch, Security Police Academy, Lackland AFB, TX (1971-1975)
Kennelmaster, Security Police Squadron, Kessler AFB, MS (1976)
NCOIC Narcotic Detector Dog Section, 3rd Law Enforcement Squadron, Clark AB, Republic of the Philippines, (1976-1977)
NCOIC, Military Working Dog Training Section, Security Police Kennels, 3rd Security Police Group, Clark AB, Republic of the Philippines, (1977-1978)
NCOIC PACAF Military Working Dog Training Center, Kadena Air Base, Japan (1978-1981)
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There has been some discussion as to when the last sentry dogs were trained. It was my privilege to be one of a handful of AF dog school instructors to teach sentry dog classes after the military conversion to patrol dogs.
When I arrived at the dog school in late 1971, I was promptly assigned to the sentry dog course. I was only Sentry Qualified from an OJT course taught at Da Nang AB, RVN, by the Kennelmaster, SSgt Carl Wolfe. I had only seen one patrol dog in Viet Nam. The classes were small and usually had only one instructor. My first class was with an Army E-6 instructor named Jim Webb. Lackland utilized an apprentice type training system for first time instructors assigned to the school. Other Army instructors were E-6's Clyde Morgan, and Henry Yates. A few of the other AF instructors were Jim McIlwain, Jon Kidwell, and Donald Parkinson. After a few classes and my first instructor evaluation, I was given a class to teach alone. I fell into my element.
It was the latter years of US military involvement in Vietnam. I loved the classes and the Army students. Army students removed from technical schools were automatically reclassified as infantry and given rush orders to Viet Nam. No MP dog school students were in a rush to do that. So we had absolutely no discipline problems. For a young AF NCO, I could teach without having to deal with problem children. The Army policy of promoting the honor graduate of every class was also a big incentive for students to work hard. Conversely, younger patrol dog instructors worked with other team members and were supervised by a Patrol Dog Team Leader. They had a much larger safety net.
In the early 70's, the Army returned many sentry dogs to Lackland for retraining as the missile batteries were closed. The Army had located Nike sites containing ground to air anti-aircraft missiles that ringed major US cities. Sites were located on the outskirts in rural areas and were protected at night by sentry dog teams. For instance, Washington DC had two well known sites located in Waldorf, MD and east of Upper Marlboro, MD, near the Patuxent River. When the Waldorf site closed, its base housing came under the authority of Andrews AFB, MD. The upper Marlboro site became a HUD housing project. Ellsworth AFB, SD, also had several missile batteries.
Young sentry dogs were retrained as patrol dogs and shipped out. Older dogs nearing their useful life were used as training aids. At that time all classes spent the first few weeks in the temporary kennel area before moving into the permanent kennel area.
Sentry dog students were rarely bitten by another handler’s dog. The most dangerous time occurred during an off-leash attack. The critical time was when the dog first sensed the presence of a human approaching from its rear. It was a simple case of "my bad guy, don't interrupt my bite." The dog would show his displeasure by biting the hand that was picking up his leash and interfering with pleasure of biting. Usually the dog would release his bite after he realized that it was his handler, but not always... by that time the handler probably had several punctures on his arm, hand or other body parts.
Patrol dog students received a higher percentage of dog bites than sentry dog students due to discontinued use of the sentry dog suit. Patrol dog students usually were bitten while decoying during attack training. At that, time all attack gear was homemade. The Federal stock numbers were for large padded attack sleeves and sentry dog suits.
Patrol dog students were in awe of the stories of the aggressive nature of sentry dogs.
At the time of my arrival, a sentry dog class graduated every Friday and a new class started every Monday. By mid-73, the class schedule changed to reflect the Vietnam draw down and the Nike site closures. Instead of starting every Monday, there might be a gap of several weeks before a sentry dog class started. This gave me a chance to work with several patrol dog teams and learn from such accomplished dog trainers as TSgts Robert Leek, David Robinson, Carl Wolf (my Kennelmaster from Da Nang), and my last team leader, Donald Bizic. Then after a class or two, I would return for a sentry dog class. I was given a patrol dog diploma after teaching several patrol dog classes-- military logic!
I started teaching my sentry dog classes some of the things that I learned in patrol dog classes. My sentry dogs knew how to search buildings. There were some buildings on sentry dog posts, so it made sense!I used patrol dog attack gear so that the dogs were not looking for someone wearing a big suit. Whenever possible, I planned long scouting problems down the middle of the creek than ran through the sentry dog area. The dual purpose was to teach handlers to move silently through water and in the Texas heat, handlers & dogs loved it to cool off.
Towards the end of my time in the sentry dog course, I received a special opportunity to learn from a true master of dog training. CMSgt Robert Riley, the sentry dog course chief and later head of the PACAF dog school. He arranged for me to work with a retiring patrol dog team chief, TSgt Ed Marcinko. Patrol dog teams were almost secretive about their techniques used to train problem dogs. Ed Marcinko's last class was a sentry dog class. CMSgt Riley told me to learn as much as I could. Ed spent over
Ed taught me that dogs never exhibited a behavior without a reason. I learned that food reward did have usefulness. Food reward could be used to teach a dog to ignore gunfire. The normal thinking was that gun-shy dogs were untrainable. At his request, the kennel support staff would reduce a gun-shy dog’s rations by half. During gunfire training, the handler would get the hungry dog’s attention with a morsel of food. At a signal, someone would fire one blank round in the distance. At that moment the dog was wrapping it’s hungry lips around food and had the choice to eat or be scared of gunfire. We moved the gunfire closer each day. It worked!Another method for gun green dogs was using two thirty foot leashes to keep a dog swimming in the center of a pond. The dog could swim or worry about the gunfire and go underwater. The key was to take the dog's mind off the gunfire and gradually reduce the distance from the gunfire.
As strong a motivator as food reward was, Ed looked at it as a poor substitute for a strong relationship between the handler and dog. He thought that the quick use of food was only good for clown dogs. He used that phrase to describe circus dogs that licked their lips after each trick. I wonder what he would say at the current trend to use a play toy for reward for basic obedience. I was surprised to see that. Has a decoy ever thrown balls at the dog during an off-leash bite? I have seen dogs pick up an attack sleeve and carry it around instead of biting a decoy. Will a toy trained dog do the same?
Ed taught convection in building search and scouting. This is the heating of scent particles that rise and travel a distance before sinking as they cool. He also felt that chase was the best confidence builder for a under aggressive dog to enhance its preykill instinct. After days of chases, one day the decoy would stop and place the wrap in the dog's mouth. The handler would immediately apply lavish praise for the dog's actions. He would instill in decoys the need to never cause a dog pain during attack training.
I learned more from Ed Marcinko in eight weeks than in the rest of my time at Lackland.
Do you know that dogs exhibit some of the same behavior patterns as wild dogs of Africa, Australia, and American wolves? When a canine is approached by an alpha male or female, it will lower its ears, tail, and cower for a split second. This shows submission. A dog will exhibit the same behavior to its handler. Watch your own dog!
I first saw the behavior on a National Geographic Special on wild dogs of Africa. The next day, I noticed a class of sentry dogs exhibit the same behavior at the approach of their handlers. After that, I used that to judge when it was safe for a handler to enter a cage. Every now and then, a dog would not show the behavior until the handler was actually inside the kennel. That required a leap of faith from the handler.
Only once in all my sentry dog classes, I had untrained or green dogs. That class was scheduled to ship to Korea with their dogs. All my other classes had a few dogs that were failures from patrol dog classes. Some dogs would be under aggressive, refusing to bite. A few would be old sentry dogs, too old to ship, but still healthy enough to be training aids. And there were always the dogs considered too aggressive to be patrol dogs.
Normal theory was to introduce attack work almost immediately after a few days of agitation. On known weak or “no biters”, I used several weeks of chases. The killer dog was able to woof at the bad guy and the decoy ran away in mortal fear. Then the handler gave the dog lavish praise. Days later, the decoy would suddenly stop and place the protected arm in the dog’s mouth. It was common for the dog to release the bite and look at the handler for approval, sometimes with a confused look on their face that seemed to say,” I can bite a human!” Usually, when shown that the behavior was okay, each bite would subsequently be stronger, harder, and longer.
Some dogs would be overaggressive, fail to release on command, and/or attempt to bite their own handler. In those cases, harsh or creative corrections techniques were used.
The official AF answer was to kill any dog that was entered into training and failed to qualify after a suitable number of classes. Nothing was as bad as knowing that you were dog’s last chance. The sentry dog classes were the last refuge for some dogs.
Towards the end of the sentry dog era, only a few Army instructors were left. Classes were taught as needed. Army instructor E-6 Clyde Morgan went from teaching sentry classes to becoming a patrol dog team chief. He joined E-6’s Terry Bennet and Roberts. I did get in trouble at Lackland. I had started calling patrol dogs “Puppy Dogs”.
The majority of the patrol dog teams in the early 70s felt that the best patrol dogs were ex-sentry dogs. Most ex-sentry dogs when "broken" down into patrol dogs usually maintained a better bite. Young untrained dogs were first taught that they could bite humans, and then within a week started receiving corrections when introduced to controlled aggression to come out on command. After this training segment, the amount of pressure exerted during a bite would actually decrease on many dogs.
Patrol dogs in PACAF (even after Vietnam) were closer to sentry dogs than stateside patrol dogs. Even drug detector dogs at Clark AB, RP were "overaggressive" by AF standards. My first day as NCOIC of Clarks drug detector dog section, I was bitten by one of the drug dogs. SSgt John Probst (now Colonel Probst, the last former Clark handler on active duty!) was the day flight chief. He was showing me the security procedures for the departure of a Flying Tigers DC-8 passenger aircraft. As I entered the front passenger seat of the section’s crew cab Dodge Power Wagon, a dog in the back seat reached over and bit my arm when I rested it on the seat back. Such was my introduction to "tolerant” PACAF drug detector dogs. It was not a bite and hold situation, just a snap to remind me that the truck was "his truck" and I was an intruder.
Within a few months, the patrol dogs of Clark were in the midst of a diplomatic incident.
The embassy started asking questions about the dogs and demanded to see Sun.
The electronic shop on base that repaired all test equipment (PMEL), made me a simple transformer that could be upped from 6 volts DC to about 50,000 volts. They insisted that it did not have enough amperage to kill. With me holding the leads and someone hitting the switch, it resulted in what could be described as a religious experience. The parachute shop made me a 30 foot nylon leash with a flexible coax cable running down the center. They also mounted two brass electrodes on a leather collar. I demonstrated it on myself to the base veterinarian and the Kennelmaster and received their blessings. Resources Protection, “C” Flight handler, SrA Paul Newman, chalked a cartoon of a dog seated in a electric chair being shocked by yours truly in the kennels break room and gave me the nickname "Dr Frankendog."
I started working on the patrol dogs. The purpose was to apply an "electrical" correction at the same moment as the dog heard a verbal correction “No!” from the handler. It was like God reached out and touched the dog. Where moments before the dog was ignoring its handler, now the dog would spit out the decoy out. A few runs and I would have to repair electrical connections. Within a few weeks, I had worked with most of the really hardheaded dogs. Until then, some dogs never would do a standoff. Physical corrections were ignored, the dog would just close its eyes and bite harder. Diplomatic pressure had seemed to be relaxing on the base, so I told the Kennelmaster that the dogs were okay. He seemed more than happy to "play along". No dogs were killed to meet AF regulations. The collar worked, but was not rugged enough to handle the impact. The electrical connections were the weak link.
Sadly, the helpful Superintendent of the PMEL lab was killed several months after he’d helped me. He was stabbed during a nighttime robbery attempt in his home. We also lost a dog handler at Clark to armed Filipinos. Bob Gray was stabbed to death. His dog Casey was shot with Bob’s revolver that one of perpetrators had taken after Bob was stabbed and incapacitated. It was never a question of harmless thieves. Filipino thieves used knives because under martial law, guns resulted in instant jailing with long sentences. Thus, Casey was shot rather than Bob.
Years later SSgt Louis (Robby) Robillard, “C” Flight Chief told me of his experience while attending the Supervisors course at Lackland. He witnessed a "new" training technique with a remote shock collar at Lackland. He didn't tell them of my collar used years before at Clark.
The very last sentry dogs handled by USAF Security Police handlers were at Osan AB, Korea in May-June 1980. SSgt Cathy Moore, Instructor, PACAF MWDTC, (also my wife) and I were TDY to Osan teaching a drug detector class. TDY funds were tight for the units and it was cheaper to pay our TDY to Korea than the TDY costs for a whole class to Kadena AB, Japan. We had one student from Taegu AB, and several from Kunsan, Kwan-Ju, and Osan air bases.
Several days into the course, I was asked to return early to the kennels by the Kennelmaster Robert Smith. In the kennel area two Army trucks stacked full of dog shipping crates. An Army Hawk site was being closed down. The dogs were declared excess and were being shipped to an Army veterinarian for euthanasia. With no further need for them, neither the Army nor the Korean forces wanted the dogs. The Army would not ship the dogs back to Lackland. The handlers on the truck would give the dogs to anyone willing to sign a hand receipt. They did not want to see their dogs killed.
However, as NCOIC of the PACAF MWDTC, I could change the Federal Stock Numbers on the dogs from Sentry to Patrol dogs. I had recognized one dog on sight-- Sunny had been in my last sentry dog class and had shipped to Korea with his handler.
Standoff was iffy on some of the dogs, but the Kennelmasters could work on that. Many other "patrol dogs" in PACAF had shared that trait. The dogs were used to fill slots in Korea that had been open for years. Every AF base in Korea (except Taegu) received a few patrol dogs. The Chief of Security Police for PACAF was on a tour of Korea. I had a chance to brief him on the dogs and obtained his blessings. He was happy to hear that I had filled long open requests (called MILSTRIPS in AF speak). Since, the school "worked" for HQ PACAF, we were okay. Later, when the school was converted to a ATC field training detachment, I was told that we would no longer do "things" like that The end of sentry dogs was the birth of patrol, drug detector, and explosive detector dogs. But they will always be "big dogs" to me. |