Trident K9 Warriors: My Tale From the Training Ground to the Battlefield With Elite Navy SEAL Canines

by Michael Ritland

  We were moving toward a target that was positioned on the other side of a small river that ran along the bottom of the valley floor. The area, according to our intel, was alive with enemy activity; recent reports had a bomb maker in the area, whom we had been hunting for months. He had been involved in several IED incidents that had claimed American lives; if we had anything to do with it after tonight, he would no longer be able to hurt another one of our brothers or sisters. The guys had packed light; the elevation change was thousands of feet, spread out over a dozen miles, and we had to get in and out in this cycle of darkness. Covering a dozen miles under normal circumstances is relatively easy; doing it in the dark with a massive elevation change and carrying fifty pounds of gear, along with the always-present chance of contact can be downright exhausting. Reno moved with purpose, his incredible senses scanning the area around him, looking for the possibility of his second favorite thing in the world—a ball. Reno had no idea that he was out front leading the way to warn us of the danger of an IED; he simply knew that if he found explosive odor, a ball would magically appear out of thin air and he would get to carry it around like a trophy for a while.

  My knowledge base of explosive and human-odor movement had grown a hundredfold over the last year. I knew that to best use Reno’s natural capabilities, I had to put him into the best position possible to take advantage of the situation, keeping mission requirements and limitations in mind. I looked at the terrain and calculated wind direction, wind speed, temperature, humidity, elevation changes, terrain formations, barometric pressure, and vegetation types and densities. Most of my concentration was on the dog; subtle changes in his body language could give me large clues as to what was going on around us. It was up to John, walking just behind me, to scan the terrain and guide us in the right direction. We rounded a corner, and the wind was suddenly blowing directly in our faces as we moved down the ridge, a stiff cold breeze that chilled me to the bone. Reno’s head lifted slightly as he sniffed the new flow of air; I pictured thousands of molecules being processed by his olfactory system, and a sense of calm overcame me. He was not worried, so neither was I.

  The next few hours wore on. The downhill portion of this track was starting to rub the front of my toes raw; a lot of weight at a steep angle over time will do that to even the most seasoned feet. The trail doubled back on itself as we nearly reached the valley floor. The wind at our backs as we moved forward sent a chill running down my spine, yet not from the cold. Everything I had learned over the last year screamed at me: this situation was developing into an almost worst-case scenario for Reno. The wind was cold and running fast from behind us down a narrow ravine that would open into the valley, pushing any odor away from us until we were on top of it. Not good.

  I signaled the guys to move back a bit as Reno and I pushed forward. I would be lying if I said that my heartbeat was not elevated. I was about to move through a choke point in the terrain in hostile enemy territory that was densely covered with a thick thorn-bearing bush that neither made the path quiet or easy to see through. I gave the command for Reno to move forward and search for any hint of human or explosive odor. My weapon was raised and pointed in the general direction I expected a threat, as I watched my boy search the area. His nose was down, sucking in all available odor, his tail up and wagging as he crisscrossed the path and deeper into the choke point.

  I moved forward slowly, step-by-step, as I watched him work. Eventually we were through the high-threat area. Reno had never signaled a threat. I took a deep breath and smiled at John. He simply signaled to me in sign language, Fuck you.

  I returned the gesture and we pushed forward again; I started to relax as we moved along the valley floor, my eyes trained on Reno, knowing that John was acting as my eyes and that the rest of the boys were on their game, also. We were getting close to the target when all of a sudden I stopped dead in my tracks. Reno’s head had snapped around, his tail starting to waggle a hundred miles an hour as he worked his way back toward me. He was working the wind, obviously in explosive odor. With the wind at our backs, I had no idea how far back the explosive was. My breathing stopped as I scanned the ground around me with one eye and watched Reno with the other, adrenaline rushing through my system like white-hot lava. Reno sat two feet to my right and five feet in front of me, eyes focused on the ground, tail wagging furiously.

  I quickly calculated what had happened; the wind had pushed the odor in a narrow scent cone out in front of us; by the time explosive molecules were available for Reno to pick up, he had already walked past the buried IED. My mind ran through a thousand possibilities before I settled on the most likely scenario being a pressure plate in our path with the explosives buried just off the track but still plenty close enough to kill anyone standing on that plate. I carefully circled around the area and then called Reno to me, making sure he would not cross the area where I was guessing the explosives lay. I tossed him a ball and gave him a quick pat as my heart and breathing rate returned to near normal. We took a quick GPS reading, marked the location, and moved on. I turned to John as I normally did, expecting our normal sign language, and received a thumbs-up instead. To be truthful, that gesture scared me.

  It took us another hour to reach our target location, which proved to be yet another wrong lead or, at the very least, untimely information. The villagers were on edge. The call would go out to all local fighters, so it was time to leave, and fast. Our extraction point was at the leeward edge of the next ridge, but we were running short on time and moved with purpose. Ten minutes into our climb out we were related information that a large group of Taliban fighters were descending on the valley. An hour later the back of my legs were burning, my heart racing, the cold nothing more than an afterthought as my body superheated. Reno was starting to slow down, even though he is a specimen of a dog, in incredible shape, his muscles shredded from countless hours of training in environments that simulate our theater of operation.

  I had to call a halt, resting a few minutes while Reno caught his breath. We set up a perimeter quickly. Each man was on edge, yet to look at them, they all looked calm and relaxed, a smile on a couple of faces as sweat clung to their clothes. It is at times like this that I reflect upon the company I was keeping on this mountainside in some third-world country, being hunted by a number of enemies that far outnumbered us: I would be nowhere else in the world; each one was my brother.

  Reno drank some water from my canteen, his tongue dripping water all over me as he licked my face quickly. I smiled and pushed him away gently, then patted his side quietly. I gave him a few minutes, then put him back to work. We moved back up the mountain, pushing ourselves to reach safety. A few minutes thereafter I thanked my stars above that I had given him that break. I had my eyes off of Reno as I tried to catch myself as my foot slipped on the loose, rocky terrain. As I looked up he was locked, his body ridged, as his ears pushed forward, a slight quiver in his rear left leg.

  He was in human odor, the greatest reward my dog had.

  I instantly lifted my M-4 as my eyes scanned the terrain above us; I knew without looking that John and the others guys were moving as soon as my weapon came up. Reno took off at a dead sprint and disappeared twenty feet to our left; seconds afterward screams came from the area. I moved forward, scanning the environment as I moved, wanting to come to Reno’s aid as soon as possible but unwilling to leave behind my tactical sense. I heard three shots ring out, as a Taliban fighter tried to exit the shallow cut that they had been hiding in. His companion was locked in a fight with Reno; the dog was destroying his opponent, blood quickly covering the man’s clothes. I called Reno out of the fight and squeezed off several rounds as the man reached for his weapon. We quickly searched the area before moving on, our pace even quicker than before; the gunfire for sure had given away our position. Legs and lungs burned, the elevation taking its toll, as we finally reached our destination.

  Sitting on the edge of that mountain waiting for our ride, I looked back at the
last few hours. I patted Reno’s head. Twice tonight he had saved my life; twice I owed him yet another debt of gratitude. His body shivered slightly as the cold wind bit into him; now that we weren’t moving, the cold settled quickly. I pulled off my coat and wrapped him in it, pulling his body against mine to keep him warm.… Tonight he had saved my life; tonight he had saved my brothers’ lives.

  7

  Every graduating class has its stars, the students whose performance in the classroom or on the playing fields makes it clear that they are going to succeed at whatever they choose to do. Sometimes they live up to those expectations, and sometimes they don’t. The same is true with the dogs that we train. Every time a governmental agency, a military group, or even a private individual looking for a protection dog comes to view the prospects that I have, I mentally compile a list of the dogs that I think are the sure things among the bunch, the ones that are undoubtedly in my mind the ones worthy of the purchase price.

  As often as not, my mental rankings are a lot like those preseason polls and predictions in football: some of my prognostications prove true and nearly as many prove to be off target. Everybody who views dogs during these workouts and showings sees something slightly different. I’m biased, of course. I think that what I see in the dogs is the “truth” about them, but as the saying goes, the customer is always right. I guess because I’ve been involved in the breeding, training, and sale of dogs for more than fifteen years now, you’d think it would be easy for me to say good-bye to the dogs I’ve worked with. In one sense that’s true. I’m glad to see them go and do what they were bred, born, and trained to accomplish, but I’m always going to have some emotional attachment to the dogs. As much as I’ve talked about them and their abilities, these dogs aren’t machines. They have distinctive personalities.

  One dog in particular, who shall remain nameless, got my attention very early on in the process. Immediately after we brought him over to the United States, I went to his crate to let him out. It was like I’d released a Tasmanian devil. That dog got up on his hind legs, spun in tornadic circles, snapped his jaws like the maniac he was, and generally said to me, Hello, my name is Havoc. Essentially, he was announcing to me that he was going to be a handful just to get the most basic obedience into him. As much as I’ve talked about what near-perfect physical specimens these dogs are, the fact that they’ve been bred to preserve that high energy and tenaciousness necessary to go at it in hostile environments means these dogs are seldom docile. I developed a tremendous amount of respect for the spastic Tas-like dog I mentioned above, but I can’t say that I ever really developed a bond of affection for him.

  That wasn’t the case with one of the first dogs to work with a SEAL Team. Rocket was like one of those kids you may have admired (or hated) in your high school class. He was good-looking, athletic, and genial. All the other kids liked him, the teachers and administrators got along well with him, but he never seemed to put on airs. Rocket is like that. You’ll read more about his contributions in the field, but it’s important that you get a picture of the human/canine relationship and how it functions, as well.

  For example, on Rocket’s second deployment to northern Afghanistan, near the Northwest Frontier Province of Pakistan, he and his handler, Brent, arrived at a firebase that was still under construction. This was in January of 2007, in the dead of winter, and the troops were living in open base tents while the buildings were being completed. To put it mildly, life there was a mixture of dealing with the ball-shattering cold and frozen tedium. Handlers have to be very careful about how they integrate themselves into the SEAL Teams and with other military. They have to be sensitive to the fact that each of their comrades brings a different set of associations and experiences to being in close contact with an MWD. Some of the men are fearful, others curious, others disdainful out of ignorance about the roles the dogs will eventually play, and so on. For handler and dog, it’s just like being a newbie in any situation; you have to earn whatever respect you’re going to be afforded by your teammates.

  Brent wanted to make sure that everybody understood from the get-go that Rocket was there to be a help and not to be an impediment. He also let them know that his relationship with Rocket was a kind of one-off—that the two of them had forged a real bond in the nearly two years they’d worked together before being deployed. In order to respect the other troops and their safety and their personal space and gear, Brent and Rocket would require segregated housing—their own room, basically. After having this discussion, the Seabees who were there were assigned to build a partition and a door within the tent where Brent and Rocket were to rack out.

  As luck would have it, the pair was already assigned to a tent where the Seabees were quartered. In the first couple of days, before the wall could be built, Rocket did what dogs do: he foraged for food. The Seabees had a few snacks that Rocket sniffed out and consumed. Brent apologized, and he could tell that a few of the guys were cool with it, but others looked a little anxious. Two things were clear: they weren’t going to complain too loudly, and they certainly weren’t going to confront the fierce-looking dog. A compromise was reached. Until the wall and door could go up to keep Rocket away from their stuff, they’d put it out of reach.

  Brent noticed that as the days went on, when some of the Seabees and other guys in the tent had to get out of bed in the middle of the night to do a watch, they’d come back and find Rocket sacked out in their rack snoring. At first Brent thought that they didn’t dare wake up and roust Rocket out of their rack because they were afraid of him, but after finding a couple of guys sleeping on the floor while Rocket happily snoozed more comfortably, he asked them about it. They said that they didn’t mind Rocket sleeping in their beds; they kind of liked the idea of having him around. Rocket became a kind of mascot, a four-legged roommate, and he took full advantage of the attention and affection he got. Not every MWD had his temperament, but there was just something about his big-eared and quizzical expression that let you know that he was easygoing when off duty. The only complaint the guys had was that Rocket sometimes busted ass in the middle of everybody, a product of them sneaking him foods that he wasn’t accustomed to getting. Not much different from the rest of the guys, in reality.

  The wall that was supposed to keep Rocket from the remainder of the guys never really got built. At first the framing went up, then it was sheeted, but no door was hung. The Seabees and others confessed that they liked having Rocket around, and they knew that once that door went up, he’d be separated from them. In time, the wall came down, later they guys were told by the officer in charge (OIC) that it had to go back up and a door had to be installed. Once again, the guys came up with excuses to delay the building of it. Finally the wall went up, but for the duration of that deployment, no door was ever hung and Rocket was free to mingle with the rest of them. Maybe he was like having a bit of home for some of the guys, but I do know that just as much as that, it was a tribute to Rocket’s amiability. His big brown eyes melted a lot of hearts and earned him his share of treats. By the end of deployment, Brent told me, he had a list of names a mile long of guys who wanted first dibs on one of Rocket’s puppies.

  Some say that dogs are nature’s greatest con artists, that they’ve finagled for themselves a pretty soft gig compared to most animals. They’re certainly not parasites, and the kind of symbiosis we and canines have negotiated over the years has truly proved beneficial, just as Rocket’s role both in the field and on station did. So much has been written about the complexity and the history of the human/canine relationship that I won’t spend any real time debating the con-artist issue. All I will say is that whatever ease dogs have accrued as a result of their domestication, we’ve frequently asked a lot from them in return. That’s particularly true as it applies to our long history of using them in warfare. Another way to look at it is this: the people we allow to take advantage of our kindness are generally not strangers; they’re usually family members and close friends. We benefit from
those relationships, or have benefited from them, in the past and hope to in the future. So really, nobody is truly being conned. You can also look at it from the dogs’ perspective. We’ve taken advantage of their good nature, their desire to share their companionship with us, and we’ve used them to our advantage. Everything’s a trade-off, I suppose, but in my estimation, we humans have come out far ahead in the canine/human transaction.

  Because dogs have a shared sense of community, they likely first adapted themselves to living near and then later with humans. They became part of a shared existence with us, and the transition from a nomadic existence to one more rooted in place led them to eventually have to share another seemingly inevitable part of human life—warfare. Because of what battle involves—detection and apprehension, among other activities—we couldn’t have selected a better animal teammate. As I’ve mentioned, dogs and their keen sense of smell, sight (primarily motion detection, which is aided by the long-snouted breeds like Malinois having roughly a 250-to-270-degree field of vision due to their wide-spaced eyes), and hearing make them ideal guard dogs.1

  Whatever warlike purpose dogs have served, from sentry duty to detection, they have a long history of being employed in some capacity. As far back as ancient Egypt (if we are to believe that some of their artwork is accurate), dogs were used as both offensive and defensive forces. Some Egyptian murals depict dogs being unleashed on Egyptian warriors’ enemies. Similarly, the Greeks recorded a dog’s contributions on a mural celebrating the Battle of Marathon against the Persians. Written accounts by the Roman writers and historians Plutarch and Pliny exist, and Strabo, a Greek historian, described the dogs being “protected with coats of mail.”2 From their use by nearly every ancient city-state through Attila the Hun, William the Conqueror, and succeeding generations of English rulers and leaders; the Spanish conquistadors; Napoleon; and Frederick the Great, dogs have served loyally. A frequently cited example of war dogs and their loyalty is Napoleon’s writing in his memoirs, “I walked over the battlefield and among the slain, a poodle killed bestowing a last lick upon his dead friend’s face. Never had anything on any battlefield caused me a like emotion.”3 Today, many of us think of the French poodle as the epitome of the spoiled, prissy canine, but poodles have a long history as military working dogs.