by Mike Ritland
* * *
Like a lot of the other handlers, as a kid, Dave had dogs as pets. His family had a series of dogs, but the ones he remembers most fondly were the Rottweilers. From the beginning, Dave paid close attention to the dogs, and he learned a lot from doing this. He was able to tell that a dog had different barks for different situations. He learned that his dogs barked one way when a stranger was coming to the door and another way when a family member was approaching. Dave laughed when he told me how this knowledge came in handy: The dogs served as early warning devices for him and his siblings. If the dogs’ bark alerted them that their parents were coming, the kids knew they had to immediately stop doing anything they shouldn’t be doing before their mom and pop came through the front door.
He saw the dogs as the younger siblings that he didn’t have, and coming home from school to a dog’s greeting and attention helped to ease the pain he felt at his mother’s departure. The dogs also helped to fill the void he felt when his older brother and sisters left home. One dog in particular, Rebecca von Hufning, a female Rottie, filled that void particularly well.
Dave took her for long walks and although he had no real idea of how to formally train a dog, he made his own efforts at it. He became such a regular in the neighborhood walking the Rottie that at one point a man who was out walking another Rottweiler approached him. The man was about to go to prison, and he wanted to be sure that his beloved dog would be well cared for. He offered Dave the dog, and Dave accepted. His father wasn’t too pleased with the idea of having another canine mouth to feed, and sometimes he used the threat of expelling the dogs from the house to get Dave to do what was asked of him. Father and son had some tension between them, but the threat was never made real.
Dave’s love of dogs made him an ideal candidate to become a SEAL team dog handler. His interest in dogs also made it easy for him to follow one of the key training mantras we have, which is “Watch your dog every minute so that you know him better than you’ve known anybody.” Dave was a keen observer, and by watching Samson carefully he was very quickly able to figure out what his dog was thinking and feeling. Early on, for instance, he noticed how Samson interacted with other dogs, particularly ones that he didn’t like. “If he doesn’t like a dog,” Dave said, “he’ll shake his tail and wave it back and forth three or four times and stop. Then three or four times more and stop; three or four times and stop. He is almost luring the other dog in, because when a dog wags his tail, he’s letting another dog know that he’s friendly and that everything’s okay. Samson kind of disguises his real intention, which is to growl up in that other dog’s face.”
Handlers need to be extremely familiar not just with all the traits and habits of their dogs, but with their bodies, too. It’s all critically important, because a dog can’t tell you with words when he’s not feeling his best physically or mentally. A handler has to be able to detect when a dog is ill, has been worked too hard, or has developed some negative association with some phase of an operation. If a dog is not working to full capacity, that’s like a soldier being distracted by events back home, like a weapon that hasn’t been maintained properly and might misfire, or like a piece of communications equipment that has been overused or somehow damaged. All those things become a liability.
An important thing to remember about these dogs is that because they are bred and trained at such a high level, like any supremely competitive athlete, they want to be in the game all the time, despite how they may feel. The signs of a dog not performing at 100 percent are often subtle. The years a handler and a dog spend in training and developing a bond help the handler become familiar with his dog to the degree that he can spot almost any minor fluctuations in health or behavior.
Anyone who’s ever owned a dog knows that they are “creatures of habit.” Any break from their normal pattern of behavior is something that a handler has to investigate. Ironically, that kind of scrutiny is something that is also essential in warfare. Soldiers are trained and develop habits, and they are trained to identify the habits and routines of their enemies and to notice any breaks in them. Similarly, they are trained to look for anything unusual in their environment. That constant examination and evaluation of what is usual and what is unusual is one of the fundamental elements of modern warfare, and it has been practiced in recent years in fighting insurgencies in both urban and nonurban environments.
* * *
Samson excels at detection work, and Dave discovered that one of Samson’s most interesting and extremely useful abilities is one that he shares with a lot of other dogs doing detection work. They have the ability to detect the odor of something that isn’t there. During multiple operations in Afghanistan, Samson had gone into places and detected explosives when there were none to be found. It may sound like his nose was “off” and that he failed, but that always turned out not to be the case. Instead, each time interpreters working with the United States questioned cooperating Afghani civilians in the area, they found out that Samson had discovered a site that the Taliban had recently used to make explosives, or he had detected a location where there had been an IED that had since been moved. Samson’s nose was right on the money. He detected residue and remnant odors, and the teams were able to note the locations. This helped them to plot the Taliban’s movement and to detect patterns and, subsequently, variations from those patterns.
* * *
In June and July, the average daily temperature in Kandahar is 102.2°F (39°C). The nighttime low averages 66°F (19°C). Those nighttime cool temperatures plus the cover of darkness make late-night operations in some ways ideal and in others anything but. The operational tempo during a deployment can be dictated by the frequency of missions but also by their irregular nature. Anyone who works an irregular schedule that is a mix of daytime and nighttime hours can attest to the toll that takes after a while.
Dave and Samson were on their second deployment. They had both clearly learned some things their first time in country. The high operational tempo during their first deployment had been tough on them both; participating in nightly missions for weeks on end had put a strain on them. Toward the end of that first six-month deployment, Dave noticed that Samson wasn’t eating with his usual gusto and was having some digestive issues. Samson eventually became his usual self again, and by the time of their second deployment, Dave was satisfied that Samson was at the top of his game both physically and mentally. He was still observing Samson intently and was glad that even though they were in a particularly hot zone in terms of engagements with the enemy, Samson seemed little worse for wear halfway through the duration of their assignment.
The intense heat played a significant part in Dave’s concern about Samson’s well-being and his performance capability, as did the operational tempo and the irregular schedule of the missions. In addition, the members of this team were also working to train the Host Nation Security Forces in Afghanistan so the Afghan military could function with a higher degree of efficiency to defend their own country against insurgencies.
One very hot and very bright day in July 2010, Dave and Samson were doing explosive-detection work on a heavily traveled road northwest of Kandahar. The road was one used by both troops and civilians. Dave recalls the ride out from Kandahar. “We all piled into the back of a Toyota HiLux pickup,” he said, “a vehicle you see just about everywhere over there. Samson was in good spirits. We set out just as the sun was coming up, so it was still comfortable. As hard as it is to think of a place like that being beautiful, it’s so dry and the scrub brush and desert are so brown and tan, at that hour, the early morning sunlight softened everything. We passed a few small villages, just a few low-slung houses.
“Like any dog, Samson liked driving along, scenting the air. He was always comfortable in vehicles, and this ride was no exception. He was cool with being with me and the other team members, and he showed no sign that the Host Nation dudes were any different to him. It was hard to tell how they felt about Samson. They mostly
just ignored him.”
After an hour or more of driving, they stopped at a checkpoint. Dave and Samson both took a good long drink before getting started. They were to clear a stretch of road about a mile and a half long. After they finished, the other members of the team would follow up and do a routine patrol.
“In introducing Samson to the other members of the team, I’d had to let them know what his limits were,” Dave recalled. “Some of the guys were surprised that he’d ‘only’ be able to do a certain distance at a time. They looked at the kind of shape he was in and thought that he could go for miles and miles. And in certain instances, he can. I had to explain that in training, covering that kind of distance was no problem—if he wasn’t in continuous search mode. Just trotting along or even sprinting two and a half miles was nothing for him. I explained that when he was on detection continuously, his breathing was different. I tried to get them to imagine what it would be like for them to run while exhaling and inhaling about one revolution per second. That’s what Samson would have to do, all the time taking in the dust from these dirt roads.”
Once Samson and Dave began their first portion of the detection work, another issue came up. “The winds were swirling and crisscrossing all over the place,” he said, “so that meant we had to be quartering the wind [moving at an angle instead of straight into it] from left to right. Samson was on leash, and we headed along the right-hand side of the road, with him doing his serpentine tracking. After all the training we’d done and all the experience he had in the field, I didn’t have to lead Samson to the downwind side. He just knew where to go.”
Two other team members were on comms, and they had air support from above; an AC-130 gunship was serving as their eyes in the sky.
After an hour, they stopped for a break. Dave waited for Samson’s respiration rate to slow. How much of his panting was due to the rising temperature and his exertion level was something that Dave had to figure out. He didn’t want to work Samson too hard and didn’t want the dog to get overheated. Though Malinois naturally shed their undercoats in hot weather, Samson still had a thick top coat, and his black head absorbed the sun’s rays in the way a lighter color wouldn’t. Dave knew the dog had to feel a lot hotter than the humans in their gear.
Dave led Samson back to the truck. The Host Nation trainees needed some more practice, so they clambered out of the truck and started doing their own search with a detection machine. After a few minutes, Dave could hear some excited talking.
“They thought they’d hit on something,” he recalled. “They started digging around a bit, but it turned out that there was nothing there. Their machine must have hit on something, but it wasn’t a trigger or a device.”
While the Host Nation guys continued to explore what they thought was a hot area, Dave led Samson up ahead so the dog could relieve himself. Dave expected Samson to stop somewhere to do his business. Samson did stop, but not to do the kind of business that Dave expected.
“We were a hundred or so yards ahead of the Host Nation soldiers,” said Dave, “and I saw Samson’s ears go straight up. I knew he was on something, but at that point, it could have been anything he might have seen or smelled. Then his tail went high and he wagged it. That’s when I thought that he was on some explosives. When he detects human odor, it’s the low wag. Explosive stuff, high tail wags. That’s Samson’s ‘tell.’ Other dogs I know, one of them tucks his tail in, another poops. They’ve all got their way of letting you know they’re on something. This time, though, it was just one quick high tail wag and he stopped. I figured it was nothing, and I turned around to go back to the truck. Samson followed for a second, but then he turned back and did it again. Then he seemed to lose it again. I was getting worried, thinking that maybe something was wrong with him, that maybe all the heat and stress was too much.“
After Samson gave another hit signal and showed another few signs of uncertainty, Dave knew what to do. “I know that the dogs, when on leash, sometimes don’t signal as strongly and surely as they would off leash,” he explained. “Something about their instincts makes them better at detection on their own. So I released him. Good thing I did.”
About 40 yards from where Samson had first showed indications that he’d hit on an explosive odor, he sat on the spot. Dave called Samson back to him, and the men proceeded to use one of the machines to verify that Samson had indeed found something; it turned out to be a trigger switch. Another one was just a few yards away. The IED itself was wired and waiting on the opposite side of the road.
“That was a big find,” said Dave. “The EOD detail followed up and said that the IED was too large to transport and destroy. After we finished they came back and exploded it. I can’t talk about the specifics of what we found, but an IED that large would have done some major damage to us or whoever else came across and detonated it.”
As soon as Samson returned to his side, Dave rewarded him. “I gave him his tennis ball and played with him for a few minutes, and then gave him a couple of dog treats I carry with me,” he said. “Samson seemed pretty happy to just have those.”
For a dog whose head-to-body ratio and slight build were the source of much teasing, Samson sure had turned into a battle-tested detection expert. Samson just does the job that SOF dogs do, but the dog also has a soft side that is perhaps best illustrated by another story Dave told.
“We were back on shore leave,” Dave recalled, “and were out and about. This woman in front of us was pushing her kid in a stroller. We were behind them and saw the kid drop a stuffed animal. When we got up to it, I could see that it was Elmo from Sesame Street. Samson picked it up, and he did that usual dog thing of kind of strutting proudly with his ‘look what I found’ head-high thing going on. I hurried a bit to catch up to the woman, and she heard us coming and turned around. Her eyes got all big and she instinctively stepped in front of her baby to protect him.
“We put the brakes on. The lady was looking at Samson and the toy he had in his mouth, and I could tell she was not happy. I started to apologize, but then she kind of smiled a bit. I told Samson to release, and he did immediately. The woman’s smile widened. She nodded her head. After that she said, ‘Let him keep it. That’s the least I can do. That dog’s out there saving lives.’ I knew she was familiar with our program, living nearby and all. I thanked her. Well, Samson loves that toy. He never tore it up. I’ve still got it. When he comes back and I get to keep him when he retires, that toy will be right here waiting for him. I can’t wait to see his reaction.”
14
REX AND DWAYNE: FOILING INSURGENTS
Afghanistan
It had a been another long, exhausting day in a string of eight- to twelve-hour days Rex and his handler, Dwayne, had spent on the move with the EOD guy and point man, searching fields, wells, and buildings for explosives, while most of the rest of the SEAL team took up security positions. As the sun angled lower in the sky, a call came over the radio that another suspicious area needed to be searched, yet one more walled compound. From the outside, this compound seemed no different from any of the hundreds they’d previously gone through. Once Dwayne and Rex entered the compound, however, they immediately saw not only a small roofed structure where livestock was being kept but, sitting along the far wall, a dozen or more Afghan civilians.
Gaunt, with concave cheeks behind their beards, their eyes large beneath their brimless, short, round kufi caps, the men sat there in the dust. Their stained and tattered shalwar kameez—pants and tunic—fluttered in the breeze. Dwayne asked his teammates to clear out the animals. There was a smelly assortment of goats and a few sheep, all of whom expressed indifference to their orders to disperse. They were all also reluctant to go near Rex, whose agitation and desire were evident in his barking and straining at his leash. Dwayne took Rex a relatively safe distance away, still within the walls, and waited.
“Even though the animals were finally led out, their stench was still there,” Dwayne recalled. “The sound of the buzzing
flies was nearly loud enough to make any conversation difficult. Rex searched, and he made a solid find—blasting caps and a large quantity of other IED-making materials. It took him a few trips, but the EOD guy took them all out of there, while Rex and I stood by. At that point, it would have been easy to just be a spectator. Rex had done his job. I’d played tug with him to reward him, and a couple of other guys came by to pet him. I figured, though, that if there was that much explosive material here, then maybe there were other things around.”
Dwayne led Rex on a search around the perimeter. About a minute into it, Rex got a whiff of something, and he started tugging Dwayne. He went straight toward those seated men, who were now being detained under suspicion of being part of the Taliban. “I was thinking maybe he was interested in them,” Dwayne told me, “but he stopped just short of them. In front of where the prisoners were, there was a sea buckthorn bush. Those bushes have plenty of seriously sharp, sharp thorns. Rex indicated on that and sat down looking at it.”
Dwayne cautiously looked for himself, but the bush’s heavy concentration of leaves and thorns made it nearly impenetrable. So he got the EOD guy to come over. Dwayne noted that the Afghanis being held were starting to get restless.
Two fully loaded AK-47s were found right under the bush, just outside arm’s reach of the suspected Taliban members. All those men would have had to do was time a quick scramble and the operation could have turned into a very bad incident.
* * *
It was obvious that the guns had been placed there as part of some larger plan. How much Rex’s presence, and the Afghanis’ reluctance to mess with him, played into how that threat was neutralized wasn’t clear. What was obvious was that Rex’s ability to detect those weapons foiled the enemy’s plans.