A Tribute to K9 Pete

Often times when I am at home studying or just resting for a moment, I find Pete under foot. Sometimes, it is very annoying, especially when I trip on him when I go to get up and did not realize he was there. I do that less often now because I know our time together grows ever shorter. It is a cruel trick on humanity to have a dog live such a short life, but then if they did not, we would not be blessed to know many individuals in our lifetime. I will be forever grateful to Kay Stephens for giving me this wonderful dog and to Jim Yeager for recommending me as a home despite our personal differences. Pete has been one of the finest things to ever come along in my life. I am fortunate that when he is gone I will have his son's and daughters with me to remind me and to carry on his legacy.....ah but there will never be another Pete.........I was awaken the other night and got up and wrote the poem below, I did not know when I started it was for him, but I sure did by the end. Maybe it is corny.......I don't really care.......I share it because I think there are a lot of K9 handlers who feel the same about their search dogs........anyway, its for him. Good boy Pete, that'll do.

A Tribute to K9 Pete

K9s come and K9s go

Some rise above, some fall below

But once in a while, you’ll find that star

Where nothing you reach for seems too far

Their courage is endless, their heart is true

There are no limitations, their kind is few

Through our human frailness they are the light

They never give up no matter how hard the fight

The bond that’s forged few others know

There is no master but a team unfolds

And a moment comes, when all they know

Leads them to find the lostest soul

Its not for the glory, its not for the fame

Its to help the loved ones who still remain

Give them some closure, move on with their life

With Gods hand to guide them when the time is right

He is a hero in all their hearts

The burden he’s lifted for the family starts

The healing process of letting go

Of traveling down life’s rocky road.

Then all of the training, the sweat and lost sleep

They really don’t seem like a price to steep

And in this journey that “working dog” goes

From just a K9 to a friend untold

Many years, trips and missions come to pass

And you come to realize the true friend you have

Then in the blink of an eye, it seems to me

He went from a puppy to the age I now see

His gate is slower, his muzzle now gray

His time is coming, no, he cannot stay

He taught me the lessons I never had

To lead with fairness and a just hand

He gave all he had, whenever I asked

With nothing to gain but a game that masked

The toss of a ball, the tug of a rope. 

A simple toy in return for hope

He made a difference; he had some “finds”

No one can change this, no one can hide

And in the end, I think you will see

He was a good dog, in spite of me

I’m just a conduit for the Master’s plan

And if God’s willing, I’ll get to do it again.

But never again, will be one as he

Because he changed me, a better person you see

He’s been my partner, comrade and best friend

I will enjoy and love him till the very end
I’ll take him to training every once in a while

Let him work a problem, let him make me smile

And when he’s gone, the memories I’ll  cherish

He’s forever with me, he will never truly perish

So treasure your partner, the time you share

Because before you know it, wont be much to spare

But above all else, remember the mission

To bring families closure, to find the missing…….

It has been a while since I have posted as I tend not to blog unless I have something important I want to say. Well here is something I am passionate about. It is my opinion and some people will agree and others will just as passionately disagree.

It is my opinion that dogs that are going to perform recovery work can benefit from being cross trained for several reasons. First of all, no dog is perfect. The assumption that a live find only dog will never make a mistake is simply wrong. Lisa Lit's paper "Effects of Training Paradigms on Search Dog Performance" verifies this even though this result is basically swept under the rug and listed as not significant. I think the difference in a 55% success rate for Live only dogs in the live only scenario as compared to 75% success rate of the cross trained dogs in the live only scenario is significant. The live dogs performed little better than chance at their CHOSEN discipline scenario. I am also aware that statistically, you can "massage" your numbers to make it say what you want, but percentages are percentages. There is a 20% difference in the performance......to me, that is significant and not in a good way.

Secondly, there is no way currently for us to consistently reproduce the threshold of odor for an entire human body. I believe whole heartedly that exposure to full bodies helps dogs working fresh drownings, and I think it also helps dogs looking for fresh bodies in the rubble. Cross trained dogs are already exposed to the "full body" scent picture. It has been my experience that they are much better water recovery dogs than HRD only at actually pinpointing the bodies instead of alerting 500 yards away at their scent threshold. Doesn't help divers much to be that far away. I think it has the same effect on dogs trained for recovery disaster. JMHO

So......those Task Force members who hold this paper up as the Holy Grail as to how incompetent cross trained dogs are.......well they are also holding up their own incompetency. This study did not take into account the training methodologies of any of the dogs nor the selection criteria, therefore cannot account for success or lack of success. Basically this study was a good pilot with some flaws that need to be fixed and the study run again with better controls.

What does this mean to me..........well it is simple, do not call my cross trained dog incompetent. Neither have been. Both have had finds in their careers.

I do not agree with only having one dog run an area in a disaster. Dogs are simply a biological sensor. The most sensitive scientific instruments have a known error rate.......to think that the dogs are perfect is unfair to the dogs and the victims and gives a huge false sense of security that is bound to bite the task force's who subscribe to this protocol in the ass at some point in the future, not to mention potentially cost a victim their life. No dog is perfect............none, end of story. It is not like a narc dog who is going to simply miss catching a drug dealer, it is someone is going to die because Rover was having a bad moment and missed the person buried 10 feet below him as he passed his nose over the area.

Course who would know? If the person is left in the pile long enough to die........how would anyone know?

Enter the recovery dogs..........because if you run a cross trained recovery dog and they are good, they may catch Rover's mistake and safe a life. So GOD forbid, let's not run any cross trained recovery dogs either because it might make ROVER and their handler and agency look bad.........screw the person's life, the agencies image is more important right????

NO! The life is more important and it is time these agency leaders got off their high horses and did the right thing for the victims and not their egos.

Dogs can be trained to be successful cross trained dogs. I am now on my second certified partner. My first had many drowning recoveries and some homicide recoveries and though he never made a live find (5 searches in 10 years), he repeatedly proved in trainings that if there was a live person in the pile, he would find them even if he was working off his hrd command.

Saturday I put his daughter to the test as well. It was the end of a long hot day. Last exercise. She had worked very well at each area I had put her in, working the areas blind we had made several correct finds, and no false alerts.

The last pile had 4 HR hides. I requested to put a person in the pile as well. A stranger was hidden in the pile, blind to me. Subject in place with no sit time, but the HR had been there since 7am, so nice scent pools on it. I started Caile at the base of the pile and gave her the "Find it" hr command which tells her to go find cadaver. She blasted up the pile as usual and almost did a back flip once on the pile, swinging around to a culvert and a pallet. She immediately began hard barks at the pallet and hit it with her front feet, looked at me very confused but excited and continued barking at the pallet.

I said, "she has them". The station leader confirmed and I rewarded her and helped her subject out of the culvert. There was some confusion as to why I rewarded my dog when she was on an HR command.....she did not follow her command.

Hell no she didn't. She did better than that. She caught scent of a live victim and told me and I damned sure would want her to do the same thing in a real situation regardless of what command I had given her.

Why would we not all want our HR dogs to tell us if they by some chance came across someone still clinging to life in the rubble?

I could clearly read the difference in her body language from an HR find..........we went on and found the hides on the pile for the HR. This is what I would expect of her in real life.

Now everyone can began yelling and throwing stones at me..........that's fine. It is America. We are all entitled to our own opinions.......I know it can be done successfully and so I will continue to train my dogs to do so.

Pete was not a super dog or a fluke.........he was a product of his training, just as his daughter Caile is.

Shame on me for thinking outside of the box and doing what I have been told is not possible..........neither was a down and bark simultaneously........a passive and aggressive indication together are incompatible, or at least that is what I was told. No one bothered to tell Pete that as he performed it very well in his career................

Think outside the box...........or what you have been told is not possible..........you might be surprised at what you find out is possible.........