Sheepdogs: Keeping the Wolves at Bay

by Gordon Carroll

  I hung up before she could hurt my ears with a reply. I got back in my car and waited. It didn’t take long. I heard sirens in the distance. In the old days things were different. Except for the mention of a gun, or maybe a bun, being involved, a domestic call like this might have gone on the back burner for awhile. Not anymore. Colorado has some of the strictest domestic violence laws in the country. So strict that if there is probable cause that any crime, no matter how slight, has been committed during a domestic situation, the perpetrator must be arrested at the soonest possible time. Even if no one wants to press charges. And, he, or she, can’t get out of jail until they go to court. That means no bond, no bail. Hello gray-bar motel.

  The sirens shut down a few blocks away and a minute later I saw the first car glide into the area with all lights off, stopping a few houses up from the target house, facing me. Before the first copper could get out of his car the second passed me and pulled in two cars up, also with his headlights out. I stayed low in the seat so they didn’t see me. With all the ambushes of cops since the Black Lives Matter and Antifa protests, my brothers in blue were hyper vigilant. Both officers went to the house where Pimples, Baldy, Gauges, and Short-Shorts were. They stood at opposite sides of the front door and waited. It was a scene I had played out hundreds of times myself. They were listening for signs of a struggle or fight. I also knew that if they didn’t hear anything they would still have to make contact. And I didn’t think any of the happy homebodies inside were going to believe the police were there on a false alarm. A guilty conscience just doesn’t work that way. And there was no way they were going to let the police in to search: not with all the drugs and paraphernalia lying around in plain sight. And since it was a domestic call, there was no way the police could leave without at least performing a safety sweep of the inside of the residence and checking on the welfare of Short-Shorts.

  So I just sat back and waited for the fireworks. And once again I didn’t have to wait long.

  25

  Max

  Max sat behind the Alpha, watching the police officers as they knocked at the door. They knocked hard and loud, although Max, with the incredible genetic enhancement of canine hearing, could have easily heard the knocks even if they had knocked lightly, just as he heard their sirens from far off, and just as he was able to hear the engines of their cars as they advanced from opposite ends of the block after they shut off their sirens.

  The Alpha had jumped a little as the one car slipped by their window from behind. He’d been surprised. Max had not been surprised. He heard the car several blocks away and monitored its progress as it continued its approach.

  How was it, he wondered in the primitive way that his brain reasoned, that the Alpha had been surprised? How could he have not heard them? Max could hear the two police officers as they whispered to each other even now. He could smell them. Wisps of wind dragged traces of their scent to him through the open windows of the car. The fear smell was not on them. But there were other smells — the human smell — leather — cloth — perspiration. One of them wore cologne. He could track either of them if they tried to run. He could catch them. Destroy them.

  Max switched his attention to the Alpha. He sat in front of Max, the back of his neck exposed and vulnerable.

  Max thought back to earlier when he stood over the Alpha, looking down at him and thinking he could strike, he could kill. But then he saw the Alpha was not asleep, that he was staring at him. Unafraid. Just as he was unafraid now, sitting with his back fully open to attack. Max often would sit with his back to Pilgrim, unafraid, because Max had no fear of the larger dog. If Pilgrim tried to attack him he would fail and Max would make him pay the price.

  Was that how the Alpha felt about him? The idea made Max bristle. Something deep in Max, the drive to rise in the pecking order of the pack, drove him to accept nothing less than absolute control. But at the same time the thought that the Alpha regarded him to be no more a threat to his authority or safety than Max himself did for Pilgrim, worked on the spark of fear that had been smoldering in his heart since their first meeting.

  Focusing again on the Alpha’s neck, Max wondered if it would really be possible for him to defend himself if he attempted a strike. Max knew that he himself would never be fast enough to stop such an attack were he to be so foolish as to leave himself this open; this close. Even though Max had no fear of Pilgrim he still wouldn’t leave himself this vulnerable, this completely defenseless. Was it courage and absolute confidence on the Alpha’s part, or simple foolishness?

  Max leaned closer.

  The door of the house suddenly opened, grabbing Max’s attention. And then there was no time to contemplate the Alpha’s courage.

  26

  Gil

  I watched as the door to the house yanked open. I couldn’t tell who answered but whoever it was must have tried to slam the door closed because I saw the first of the Denver cops step forward fast. He was a big, tall guy with biceps that bulged the short sleeves of his blue uniform. I saw a struggle — I couldn’t really tell what was happening because of the distance and angle — but it didn’t last long. Bulging Biceps literally threw Fat Guy onto the front lawn. He hit and tumbled like a roly-poly bug, only he wasn’t as agile… or as durable. He wobbled to his knees, spitting grass, and fell over onto his side, screaming like he was on fire. What a baby. Bulging Biceps was on him in a snap, shoving his face back into the overgrown grass and planting a heavy knee between his shoulder blades. I heard the wuff as all of Fat Guy’s air left his lungs.

  While Bulging Biceps slapped the handcuffs on Fat Guy, another struggle ensued at the front door. The second cop, who was as tall as Biceps, but not nearly as bulging, had his nightstick out in a double handed grip and was going all Mark McGwire against the side of Baldy’s left thigh. Baldy was trying to punch the wannabe McGwire but every time he pulled back for a blow, the cop just made like Joaquin Phoenix in Signs and swung away. After about the fifth hit Baldy went down and stayed down, moaning and holding his leg.

  There were more sirens and this time they didn’t shut down until the cars skidded up to the house. About a thousand Denver cops flooded the area… well… maybe not really a thousand, but it looked that way. There were red and blue flashing strobes everywhere.

  I sat back, took my last sandwich from the cooler, popped a Dr P and enjoyed the show. After about five minutes Pimples and Short-Shorts were both dragged, handcuffed, from the house and tossed into the back of patrol cars. A few minutes after that Fat Guy and Baldy were loaded up too and they were all taken away.

  Bulging Biceps came out with a couple of plastic bags of paraphernalia; crack pipes, pot pipes, pot bongs. The usual druggy stuff.

  But no sign of Gauges.

  Hmm.

  It took under an hour for the last of the cops to clear the scene.

  So where did Gauges go? Not out the front, and Denver cleared the house twice, so I didn’t think he was in there. That left the likelihood that he escaped out the back while Biceps and McGwire were busy with Fat Guy and Baldy.

  Max and I walked around to the back yard. I platzed him at the bottom of the steps and gave the command.

  Zoek.

  27

  Max

  At the command Max rose and began quartering, checking for signs of ground disturbance. He found a spot at the edge of the sidewalk that led to the incinerator where the grass had been pushed down. He stayed there for a minute, breathing deeply in through his nose and out through the slits at the sides of his nose. This action helped to stir the air around the spot he was smelling allowing him to inhale even more scent molecules. Now his conflict with the Alpha was forgotten. There was only the hunt. Taking in the smell — taking it deep — in and out — in and out — focusing — gaining knowledge of his prey. He moved down a few yards — stopped — more scent. Male — not heavy as humans go — a hundred and fifty pounds — long stride. A few yards further — sweat from skin cells that had fallen as he ran. And
now Max had him. He was locked on.

  Max passed the metal clothes poles — passed the incinerator — came to the five foot fence — cleared it in a single, graceful leap — landed on the other side — quartered, searching — found where the man’s feet crushed the grass after jumping over the fence. Max could smell the chlorophyll that bled from a single blade and here there were dozens. Max moved faster now, crossing the yard and coming to an open gate that led out to the front yard. The track moved over a flowerbed, passed across the driveway, through the front lawn, over a sidewalk and into the street. Here there was little ground disturbance and the track was over an hour old.

  Max lost it.

  I made it to the front yard just as Max entered the street. I checked both ways, there were no cars coming. I would have been right with him but I lost a few seconds hopping over the six-foot privacy-fence. It was in pretty shabby shape and, unlike Max, I can’t leap tall fences in a single bound. The first plank I jumped up on splintered, dumping me on my butt. I finally found a stable spot at the corner of the yard where the two sides met. By then Max was going out the front gate.

  I could tell he’d lost it by the way he was quartering, but I wasn’t worried. I knew Max would find it.

  My hope was that Gauges took off out the back going as fast as he could but then heard the additional units coming into the area, maybe even saw some of their lights, got scared and hid.

  The key to a good K9 search is usually a perimeter of police cars being set up fast. That makes the bad guy go to ground and keeps him pinned down. This is important because a guy can run faster than a dog can track. Tracking is hard work and it takes time for the dog to figure it out. So if you can’t get the bad guy to hide and he just keeps going, the dog will never be able to catch up.

  Of course Gauges may have seen the police cars leave the area and taken off already, or he might have used a cell phone to call a friend who came and picked him up. Or he might have been so jazzed up on crack that he never stopped running at all, in which case he was probably in Wyoming by now. But I didn’t think so. He didn’t look in very good shape to me and most of his friends had just been arrested. So my money was on him hiding and staying hid until he was sure the coast was clear.

  I saw Max go to the curb and start following it. Scent doesn’t last long on asphalt, nothing to stick to, and the only ground disturbance is kicked up dust and maybe a little vegetation transplanted from the suspect’s shoes to the street. But scent pools along the sides of things, like buildings and retaining walls and curbs. Max moved from tracking to trailing, finding the dregs of Gauges scent locked in by the edge of the sidewalk where it forms the curb. I watched as he moved forward about fifteen feet — stopped — head checked back — turned — picked up the scent — lost it. Then he figured it out and took off across the street. He quartered back and forth over the lawns for about a minute. He took off to the side of a yard and ran through another open gate. I started after him.

  He was tracking again.

  In the backyard Max hit a multitude of scents. Dog feces, water, garbage spilling over an overstuffed trashcan, breadcrumbs sprinkled around a bird-feeder, flowers and weeds and a cooling barbecue ripe with cooked meat smells. He smelled the rubber of a garden hose, dry food in a small doggy bowl, the metal frame and springs of a trampoline and the sweat stained scent of its nylon fiber mat. There were toys and tools, a lawn mower: each component part’s odor merging with the others to make their scent individually distinct. And the smells of the people that lived there themselves.

  Max ignored them all.

  He followed the track to the back fence — a four-foot chainlink — hopped over, continued on to the right — jumped another chainlink fence into the neighbor’s yard.

  The track grew stronger — fresher.

  Max went through another open gate — between two houses bracketed by thick bushes — passed two cars in a driveway catching scent on a door-handle the prey tried to open — crossed the street — getting close now — the scent heavy on the hard surface — riled dust molecules still settling. Excitement bubbled up inside him, but he pushed this away as well. Nothing must be allowed to distract him. He came to a closed gate on a six-foot wooden fence. Max spun — raced back ten feet — charged the fence — leapt high — his front paws and legs clearing the pointed boards. His chest hit the fence with a loud thud, but he dug in with his back nails and shoved himself up and over, landing lightly on the other side. Max ran straight to the back fence, no longer tracking or trailing. He was air scenting now.

  His prey was in the next yard.

  I lost sight of Max as he made it over the wooden fence. I could tell by his posture: the arch of his tail, the set of his ears, the line of his shoulders, that he was close. I ran full-out, bruising a knee against the bumper of a car and taking splinters in my left palm jumping over a fence.

  Luckily the gate was unlocked and I didn’t have to scale it. Unluckily Max wasn’t in the yard so I did have to climb over the back fence. Luckily it wasn’t the fancy side of the fence so it was easier to climb because of the cross beams on my side. Unluckily I didn’t see the planter on the other side and landed one foot on the lip, slipped off and just barely managed not to fall again.

  I saw Max crossing the yard at roughly the speed of the Flash.

  In the K9 world there are three types of control when it comes to the apprehension of suspects during a search. There are the Hold and Bark dogs, the Find and Bite dogs and the Handler Controlled dogs. The Hold and Bark (or detaining) dogs find a suspect and then set up three to five feet away and either sit or lie down and simply bark until the handler finds them. As long as the suspect doesn’t try to escape, hurt the dog, or hurt the handler, they don’t get bit (theoretically). So what do you think the Find and Bite dogs do? They find and they bite. And they hold on until the handler calls them off. Sometimes not even then. And then there’s the Handler Controlled dogs.

  Each discipline has its strength and weaknesses. The Hold and Bark discipline has its strength mostly in court and in litigation against lawsuits. The idea is that the fewer people who get bit the fewer people there are to sue over said bite. The weakness is several fold. Any experienced handler learns that dogs are, if not smart, at least very crafty. They quickly figure out that if the handler isn’t in sight then they are free to engage the prey. I’ve had decoys in a bite suit standing perfectly still when Pilgrim would find them, look back to make sure I wasn’t close and attack until I came in sight then disengage and start barking as if he’d just found them. Like I said, crafty. A worse problem is the inherent danger, to both the dog and the handler, setting up and barking at the suspect creates. It alerts the bad guy to their presence and even pinpoints their exact position, setting them up for an ambush.

  The Find and Bite discipline has its strength in surprise and ferocity, sort of the shock and awe attack of the K9 world. As soon as the dog locates the bad guy he immediately engages. This affords an extra measure of safety to the handler and his cover officers in that the suspect is distracted from firing on them if he has a four legged shark ripping into his leg. The weakness is that defense lawyers look at it as a payday in that they love to argue that their sweet innocent client was just harmlessly sleeping under the bush at three-thirty in the snowy morning, patiently waiting for the police to find him so he could surrender, when the mean, vicious police dog attacked him without warning or provocation for no reason at all causing serious permanent injury and emotional distress that would take years and wheelbarrows full of money to compensate for. That and the unfortunate few innocent people that get bit because they are in the wrong place at the wrong time.

  The solution, at least in my opinion, based on my training and experience, comes in the form of the Handler Controlled discipline. Handler Controlled dogs don’t get to decide for themselves. Instead they take their direction from the handler. If I’m searching for a bad guy and he’s hiding under a bush and I don’t see him then I have gi
ven my dog permission to engage. This gives all of us a better chance of getting through the situation without anyone getting shot or worse. If the suspect is planning on an ambush the engagement acts as a distraction and a deterrent, allowing us, the good guys, to take positions of cover or to be ready to lay down firepower if necessary before taking rounds ourselves. Plus the bite itself often takes the fight out of the bad guy all on its own.

  If I do see the suspect or he surrenders upon seeing us then I still have the ability to order my dog into a down and guard so that he doesn’t have to get bit at all.

  In the first two scenarios sending a dog is a lot like shooting a gun. Hold and bark is like firing a warning shot that requires a second bullet if things get hairy. Find and Bite is like shooting straight at the suspect; once the bullet leaves the chamber it’s going to hit what it’s pointed at. Handler Controlled is more like using a heatseeking drone. You lock on the target, but if for any reason you decide you don’t want it hit, you can call off the strike.

  Obedience is the key to the Handler Controlled discipline, which takes lots and lots of training.

  My dogs are all Handler Controlled. Lucky for this guy.

  I saw Max’s body posture change as he darted towards a wooden deck that was built out about fifteen feet from the sliding glass doors of the house whose fence I’d barely managed to clear. I gave him the platz command and he instantly downed at the edge of the deck. Lying on his chest and stomach he stretched out his body and stared straight ahead silently. Only Max’s training saved Gauges from becoming Alpo.

  As my friend Napoleon would so aptly say, “Luckyyyyy.”