Navy SEAL Dogs (6 page)

On the night I'm referring to, I was out with Barco and his handler and a few others. We came to a downhill section, and Barco suddenly took off like a shot. It was like watching a scene in an old Hollywood Western where a cowboy is being dragged across the ground by his horse. Barco's handler, who shall remain nameless, went down the hill like a rag doll, bumping along and kicking up a cloud of dust, gravity and Barco determining his speed and direction. I went down the hill after them as quickly as I could, but not soon enough to prevent the handler from getting tangled upside down in a prickly manzanita bush. Barco's forward progress was only arrested because his handler's limbs were entwined in that manzanita. Each of Barco's continued thrusts forward impaled his handler more deeply onto the sharp points and further knotted the lead. It required many minutes of patient undoing to free both man and beast.

Sometimes it isn't a dog's over-the-top eagerness that gets handlers in trouble. Sometimes the handlers “mishandle” a situation. Ball rewards are what keep these dogs motivated. Once, one of the handlers, a guy named Matt, and his dog Arras were on a night patrol, and Arras correctly indicated when he came into odor by sitting still and staring at it. To reward him for properly detecting and indicating, Matt thought it was a good idea to toss Arras a ball. Matt had actually forgotten that it was nighttime because he had on his night-vision goggles. Although dogs can see well at night, Arras didn't catch sight of the ball immediately, so he didn't make the catch. Instead, he heard the ball hit off some rock and bounce down the slope. Keep in mind, we were at the top of a 4,800-foot mountain. Arras took off, with Matt at the other end of the leash. Matt was swept off his feet and made it down the rocky slope considerably faster than he'd trudged up it moments before.

I think that in education and in parenting both, incidents like these are teachable moments. So, when you get your lightly-bloodied-and-battered handler back near you, you remind him that in certain situations, it's best to get the dog right by your side and just hand him his reward. With dogs and humans, it's all a learning process. Few of our handlers have any previous experience with a dog with the physical gifts and enormous drive that our future multipurpose K-9s have. All too frequently, they have to learn about this drive the hard way. It's as if they've been playing a pretty competitive game of playground basketball all their lives and suddenly find themselves playing against an NBA squad—that's just how impressive these dogs are physically.

 

6

WELL TRAINED

In the run-up to Operation Iraqi Freedom in early 2003, I participated in a bit of navy history. As a part of our general maritime training exercises—you can even go onto the SEALs Web site to see photos of these drills—we climbed up an oil/gas platform's superstructure from a Naval Special Warfare (NSW) Rigid Hull Inflatable Boat (RHIB) piloted by Special Warfare Combatant-craft Crewmen. We did these training exercises often, but when we found out that an upcoming mission would actually involve this kind of work, the training took on a new sense of urgency and importance for each of us.

Six weeks prior to the onset of the ground warfare, we learned that we were being tasked with taking over two oil terminals in the Persian Gulf. This was going to be my first big mission. Because of the restrictions against Iraq put in place by the international community, these two oil terminals had taken on strategic importance. They were a bit dilapidated, but because of where they were, the Iraqis had used them increasingly to smuggle oil out of the country to sell it. Their supertankers would pull up and then sneak out again loaded with crude oil. The oil ran through two 48-inch pipelines placed along the floor of the Persian Gulf, and the two oil rigs were pumping millions of barrels of oil. The U.S. military's concern was that, because the Iraqi regime suspected that the country would soon be invaded, they would blow up the pipelines to prevent their enemies from using the oil and also create a huge environmental disaster and distraction. They would blame us for the resulting explosions, fire, and oil spill and make
us
look like the bad guys.

We also had some intelligence information that the platforms were rigged with explosives and that the Iraqis were going to blow them up as soon as we got on board. At one point we heard that there were over a hundred Iraqi Republican Guards stationed on the rigs and that they were going to stand and die fighting us if we came and tried to take over the platforms.

So it was pretty harrowing, because we had thirty-two guys in a couple of small RHIBs that we were going to ride in on and assault this target. If the intelligence was correct, we were going to be pretty badly outnumbered in one of the best-case scenarios. In the worst-case scenario …

Even without knowing all of that, we would have taken our training seriously, but we took it up a few notches. We actually built an exact replica of those platforms, which were separated by several miles of open water. Then we practiced and practiced a coordinated assault on them both, along with a metering station and pipeline manifold many miles away from those two rigs. We had three big targets in all to neutralize at the same time. We figured that the Iraqis would have a communications system in place that would allow them to notify each location to detonate any explosives placed at all three if there was any slipup in the timing on our end.

This mission was, at this point in time, the largest operation in the history of NSW. All of my team—SEAL Team Three—and all eight SEAL platoons were assigned to take down these targets simultaneously. To put it mildly, this mission was a huge logistical nightmare. If we pulled it off, it would be a spectacular success. If we didn't, it would be a spectacular disaster.

The targets were enormous, each nearly a mile long with a docking station at one end and with smaller substations running the length of it—all places where Iraqi soldiers could be hiding out. We knew the place was manned, but we didn't know the exact numbers. I can't tell you how many times we rehearsed that operation, but people learn how to perform through repetition. Overrepetition doesn't exist. We had multiple scenarios, some of which included using two helicopters to aid in the assault. Mentally going over and over the list of what-ifs, and what-to-dos in case those what-ifs occurred, became my waking and sleeping reality.

By the time we set out from a naval base in Kuwait in our heavily armed Mark V boats, I was superexcited and definitely ready—our training couldn't have been any more thorough. Thanks to the superior firepower and cruising speed of the Mark V boats, we made the journey to the RHIB transfer point in two hours.

I was part of the team that stormed one of the oil platforms in the middle of the night. I was one of the main breachers, meaning I used a shotgun to open about thirty metal doors to begin clearing each area. Ultimately, we found twenty-three Iraqi soldiers on board, a mixed bag of Republican Guard and paramilitary, Fedayeen Saddam guys. We also captured a few Iraqi intelligence officers and a couple of their navy divers. Our strike took the Iraqis totally by surprise. They never got to use the explosives or the antiaircraft artillery piece that was positioned to take out approaching watercraft.

We also discovered a treasure trove of weaponry and ammo. In total, it took six hours to take the whole thing down, including handling and conducting initial interrogation of the Iraqi prisoners. Thanks to our element of surprise, we executed the takeover without a single casualty on our side.

The same was true at the second platform. At the metering station the resistance was even stronger and a few Iraqi soldiers were killed, but again, not a single American casualty, wound, or injury. That's pretty much a raging success in my book, and I was, and remain, extremely proud to have been part of SEAL Team Three's role in setting the tone for what was to come.

Since that night, and given what I do today, I've often wondered how Navy SEAL multipurpose canines might have helped us on that mission. Certainly the mission was a resounding success, but we'd placed our troops in great peril. We all understand that dangerous missions are the name of the game, but I can't help wondering how dogs might have made our jobs a bit easier that night.

When I made the transition to training SEALs and later to training dogs to assist them, that mission played a large role in my motivation and in my understanding of the importance of the work I was doing. I knew firsthand just how important proper training is and how crucial and serious preparation is. I wanted the dogs I trained to be able to meet the high standards of effort and execution that were exhibited that night in 2003. I knew they would have to. Because of that first mission I went on as a SEAL, I was determined that the dogs I trained were going to be like the men they served alongside—ready for anything, anywhere, anytime.

Today I make my living and stake my reputation on training dogs. Also, as a former SEAL team member, I take very seriously the responsibilities that the dogs and their handlers shoulder. I couldn't live with myself if I knew that I didn't do everything in my power to make certain that the dogs I provide live up to the standards expected of SEAL team dogs. Lives depend on it.

It helps that I know that the dogs I've trained are going to be rigorously tested. When the SEALs come to test my dogs, they're going to throw everything and the kitchen sink at them to make sure that the dogs are what they need. If there is a single flaw in one of these dogs, they're going to find it. So you have to set these dogs up for success or they're not going to be the best. I never heard my parents say, “That's good enough.” I wasn't raised that way, and the SEALs didn't train me to think that way. The SEAL operators deserve, as they say, “nothing but the best for the best.”

The great genetic background of the Belgian Malinois isn't enough on its own. The dogs all need to go through rigorous training in order to become qualified to work with SEAL teams. It takes hard work with no shortcuts on the part of both handler and canine, though I believe that the dogs actually enjoy the training work. They get to exhibit the traits that their breed was refined to produce and to give expression to their true nature. What can be better than that?

*   *   *

The key to training and working with a dog is to establish a bond of trust between you and him. I do that with puppies from the very beginning, and you can also do that with dogs you acquire at later stages in their lives. Dogs learn by association, and I want them to associate me with all the good things in their lives: the food they eat, the water they drink, the things they play with, the exercise they do, and on and on. One simple thing I do to establish that bond and their association with me as a source of positive things is to feed them and give them water myself. I may take it away from them briefly, not to tease them but to get them to understand through repetition “Hey, this guy is the one who gives me what I want.”

Repetition is a key part of how dogs learn through association. For example, if you reach into your pocket and pull out a treat that you then present to the dog, he begins to understand that something good comes out of you reaching into your pocket. Through enough repetitions of that action, the association gets hardwired in the dog's brain. This is true to the point that if, after the dog learns to associate your hand going into your pocket with a treat, you pull out a set of keys instead, he will still initially make the same association as before—“I'm getting a treat.” Only after you allow the dog to see and sniff the keys (or other objects) and repeatedly
not
reward him after you pull keys or other things out of your pockets will he figure out the difference.

In addition to building trust, we also offer dogs abundant praise when they do things right, be it when they find the ball buried in a tub of bottles or they get to the food dish or whatever. Praise is essential to getting these dogs—or any dog, for that matter—to do what you want. Praise can come in the form of words or a treat or anything that the dog sees as positive. For a dog, a reward of any kind means “I did something good, so I should keep doing that so I keep getting rewarded.”

Have you ever heard the expression “It's not what you say but how you say it?” Well, that's true with dogs because, of course, they don't understand the meaning of words; they simply associate the words we use with them, through repetition and reward, with an action or an object. If you wanted to, for instance, you could teach your dog to lie down by using the words “get up.” Dogs respond to the sounds we use more than the words themselves. They react even more to your tone. Anyone who has ever had a dog can tell you that if you use an excited, encouraging tone with the dog, he will respond in kind. If you yell at the dog and sound angry, the dog will respond to the tone of your voice even if you are screaming “You're a good boy.” The words “bad” and “no” have no real meaning by themselves to a dog—it's all in how you say them. So praise as a reward is not about the words you use but definitely how you say the words.

Dogs read body language much better than they respond to verbal language. This may be because they have a whole nonverbal, postural language they use with each other. Have you ever seen two dogs walking on the street encounter each other? The sniffing and posturing process begins at once. One dog will place his head near or above the other dog's neck and shoulders. The other dog stands up taller and holds itself rigid; its ears either lie flat or more likely stand up. That dog is sending a clear message by making itself appear larger. It is telling the other dog, “You're not going to mess with me.” Sometimes one dog will make itself appear smaller; it will lower its hind legs, lay its ears flat, and generally assume a very passive posture.

Dogs apply what they know about canine body language to their physical interactions with people. Here's an example of what I mean. I have a few retired MWDs living at my place. People who are interested in adopting them come by, and many times these people often bend down to try to enter the crate or kennel to greet the dog. I immediately stop them and tell them to try to imagine this scenario from a different perspective. I tell them to imagine that they are in a 10
′
×
10
′
prison cell. Someone comes into the cell. He's bigger and making some sounds that you don't understand. Then he wants to wrap his arms around you like you're old buddies. What are you going to do? How are you going to respond? I try to make sure people understand very clearly the specific characteristics of working dogs and how they may differ from pets. Being cornered this way in their own space by a stranger can trigger the fight-versus-flight response in these dogs. It's no surprise if they choose to come out fighting.