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

by Michael Ritland

  In addition to those stresses and tasks—in this case, clearing a heavily traveled road to the northwest of Kandahar, a key supply line of troops, materiel, and civilian conduct of business—the members of this team were also working as trainers of Host Nation Security Forces. One of the other major elements of the U.S. efforts to combat the insurgency in those two countries in particular was the obvious need to train members of the host nation and to bring them to a higher standard of professionalism and performance. This one aspect of nation building was not something that the SEALs and most other fighting men had been initially trained to do. Whether this was something they signed up to do, were eager to do, or barely tolerated isn’t the subject of this book, though the author has his own opinions. That additional role was, however, a reality for many troops.

  Dave related that all of these factors were a part of the mission he undertook with Samson in doing explosive-detection work that very hot and very bright July of 2010. Mother Nature has also mastered camouflage. The bright sun of a high desert environment and the relative lack of contrasting colors between the terrain and the buildings is a combination of dazzle and blend. Again, it is one thing to train in environments like this day after day, when blistered lips and sweat-stung eyes become a nonfactor. But layer on the length of the deployment, the seriousness of the work, the irregularity of the sleep cycle, the added responsibility of working alongside soldiers whose language you don’t speak and whose experience is negligible in comparison to your own, and the stress level is as high as the mercury in a thermometer.

  Dave recalls the ride out from Kandahar: “We all piled into the back of a Toyota Hilux pickup—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—but at that hour, the early morning sunlight softened everything. We passed a few small villages, just a few low-slung houses. I guess that after morning prayers, the men came out and started to work the fields.

  “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.”

  Even Muslims in America are uncertain about what exactly the teaching of the prophet has to say about the ownership and attitude toward dogs. A quick look on the Internet will provide you with the broad spectrum of half-truths, myths, distortions, and some citations and interpretations from the Koran about dogs. These range from some believing that their faith forbids the ownership of dogs, that dogs should be killed, that they are unclean beasts whose saliva should be avoided and if it should come in contact with your “vessels” (dishes), they should be washed seven times before you use them, and a whole lot more. The situation is a complicated one, but according to what some Muslim scholars say, maybe their prophet was more realistic about canines than we might believe. They state that Allah was fine with people having working dogs: “Whoever keeps a dog that is not a dog for hunting, herding livestock, or farming, two qiraats will be deducted from his reward each day.” But they also say, “The angels do not enter a house in which there is a dog or an image.”

  Given the appearance and temperament of most of the Navy SEAL dogs, whether you’re a Muslim or not, you might be a bit fearful of these K9 warriors. In Dave’s case, their comfort or discomfort with being around Samson wasn’t operationally pertinent to any great extent; he had a job to do, and so did his dog.

  After an hour or more of driving, they stopped at a checkpoint to resume operations and training along the road. Dave and Samson both took a good long drink before getting started. They were to clear a stretch of road about two and a half kilometers long. When they were finished, the other members of the team were going to follow up later to do a routine patrol. Of course, nothing is ever routine; but that’s what the plan called for.

  Because this was to be a long patrol, thirteen kilometers, the host-nation trainees set out first, accompanied by their American supervisors.

  “In introducing Samson to the other members of the team,” Dave said, “I’d had to let them know what his limits were. 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 clicks and clicks, no trouble. 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 clicks 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 out of their noses and inhaling, just pushing that air back and forth at a rate of 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, Dave had another issue to deal with: “The winds were swirling and crisscrossing all over the place, so that meant we had to be quartering the wind 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’d 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 above; in this case, an AC-130 gunship served 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 temperatures and his exertion level was something that Dave had to figure out. He didn’t want to work Samson too hard and overheat him. Though the Malinois would naturally shed their undercoat in response to the heat, his thick topcoat and black head, which drew more of the sun’s rays, had to make him 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 vehicle and started doing their own search. After a few minutes, Dave could hear some excited talking floating on the thermal heat waves.

  “They thought they’d hit on something. They started digging around a bit, but it turned out that there was nothing there. The machine must have hit on something, but it wasn’t a trigger or a device.”

  Samson was used to relieving himself at fairly regular hours, and that also was a part of the reason for taking the break when they did. While the host-nation guys continued to explore what they thought was a hot area, Dave led Samson up ahead, fully expecting him to stop somewhere to do his business. He did, but not the kind that Dave expected.

  “We were a hundred or so yards ahead of the host-nation soldiers. 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 I’m 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. False hits weren’t something that he had ever had problems with.”

  After another hit signal and 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. Something about their instincts makes them better at detection on their own. So I released him. Good thing I did.”

  About forty yards from where Samson had first showed indications that he’d hit on an explosive odor, he sat on the spot. Dave recalled Samson, and the men proceeded to use one of the machines to verify his find. What Samson had found was the trigger switch. A few yards away was another, while the IED itself was wired and waiting on the opposite side of the road.

  “That was a big find,” Dave said. “The EOD detail followed up and said that it was too large to transport and destroy. After we’d 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, would’ve taken out a Humvee for sure.”

  As soon as Samson had 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. Samson seemed pretty damn happy to have just those.”

  For a dog whose head-to-body ratio and slight build was the source of much teasing to a battle-tested detection expert, Samson’s experience is in most ways typical of what SOF dogs do regularly. Dave related another part of Samson’s story that makes him less typical.

  “We were back on shore leave, and I had him with me. We were out and about, and this woman in front of us was pushing her kid in a stroller. We were behind them, and the kid dropped a stuffed animal. When we got up to it, I could see that it was the Sesame Street character Elmo, the red guy. Samson picked that thing 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 stepped in front of her baby to protect him or her.”

  “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 pissed. 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 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. It was a small thing for her to do and say, and I thanked her. Samson loved 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.”

  10

  When Lloyd earned his trident, he fully expected that at some point, he might be involved in close-in combat, maybe in the desert, even. In 2008, he sat straddling an opponent, his hands wrapped around his neck, feeling the last bit of fight going out of him. Instead of a jihadist or a member of the Taliban, Lloyd’s foe was his newly acquired SOF trainee dog, Cairo. A few moments before, Lloyd had been firing his Heckler & Koch MK 23 Mod O as part of a drill to simulate an actual firefight to accustom Cairo to the potential reality of what’d he’d face when deployed. In an instant, the leashed dog was on him, his jaws snapping, spit flying, and the sound of his fierce barking a counterpoint to the sound of the other trainee’s weapons discharging.

  “I didn’t know what the hell was going on. I knew that Cairo was a bit gun-shy, but to have him turn on me like that was a bit of a surprise. I was out there essentially bare-assed naked without a bite suit on, and this dog was giving me his best. I had to throw a few punches at him to try to subdue him. Here I was in the desert in eastern California locked in hand-to-hand—well, hand-to-jaw—combat with this seventy-five-pound dog I’d only been working with for a few weeks. Finally I was able to wrestle him to the ground, and I had my hands around his neck. Those muscles are so well developed, it was like I had a giant anaconda in my grip. I kept choking and choking, and finally he submitted. I’d been around dogs long enough to know that I had to let up immediately. It was like he’d said uncle, was tapped out like a wrestler might be or whatever. If I kept going, his brain would switch from Okay, you got me mode, to Okay, this is a life-and-death struggle, and I’m going to kick into another gear mode. Glad it didn’t come to that.”

  Cairo’s reaction to the gunfire was extreme, and he eventually overcame his aversion, to become the first West Coast Navy SEAL canine warrior to be deployed. Lloyd and Cairo’s pairing tells the story of the earliest days of the SEALs’ use of canines and their training for an SOF environment. I wasn’t involved in the program yet as a supplier and trainer, and those first efforts were a case of expediency over experience. By that I mean that the command decided that the other SEAL Teams should have access to a weapon that SEAL Team 6 had already been utilizing. Better funded, SEAL Team 6 was frequently on the cutting edge, and that was the case with the SOF dog teams. As a result of the essential dismantling of the patrol-dogs program following the end of the Vietnam War, we didn’t have access to a ready supply of dogs and trainers who could do the kinds of tactic-specific training that we do today. So, when the navy tried to source dogs, they turned to the civilian community. The closest thing that anyone had to the kind of dogs needed were trainers who provide so-called “attack” dogs, as Lloyd puts it, who worked for law-enforcement agencies.

  This is no knock on the navy or those breeders and trainers, and they did the best with the knowledge and experience that they had at the time. This certainly wasn’t a case of the blind leading the blind. The vendors and trainers in those first few classes of training SEALs’ dogs had years of experience in training dogs for the tasks that are required of civilian security forces. They weren’t prepared to, and didn’t have what I see as the necessary tactical experience to, make these dogs the best possible partners to help SEALs carry out a mission-specific set of tasks. That’s just how it is when you start something new.

  For Lloyd, starting something new was enormously appealing. That’s one of the advantages of being there at the beginning. There’s a lot of excitement surrounding the venture. For Lloyd, that excitement centered on the possibility of becoming operational much sooner than he otherwise might have been. When word first came down that the SEALs were looking for volunteers, he was eager to get started with the program. A dog lover and not someone who adapted easily to a desk job, Lloyd saw this as the ideal opportunity. He had no formal experience in training dogs, but he wasn’t alone in that, and as a kind of blank slate, he was in some ways better off than someone who came into the program with preconceived ideas and habits that needed to be broken.

  Lloyd soon realized one thing. He wasn’t comfortable with all the training methods that were being used, but he followed the instructions he was given, trusting that what he was being told was the right thing. In order to correct the dogs, the use of a correction stick, a cross between a riding crop and a billy club, a soft leather instrument, was used frequently. This is not the preferred tool to use on a regular basis if your training centers on operant conditioning. Lloyd didn’t like the idea of batting his dog Cairo’s snout with it, but it seemed to be working at first. Lloyd’s pretty certain now that Cairo’s attack on him during the weapons-firing exercise wouldn’t have happened if they’d employed other methods.

  “I knew that Cairo saw me, because of how I was taught to correct him, as someone who caused him discomfort a lot of the time. Dogs are thinkers, but not on the most sophisticated level. He saw and heard me doing something he didn’t like. He also saw me not so much as someone he didn’t really like but someone he couldn’t completely trust, and at times feared. I was the source of most of his discomfort, so when the opportunity came along, and he was really uncomfortable and wanted to make it stop, he did what his breeding and his instincts told him to do: he came after me and tried to shut me down. I don’t know exactly if operant conditioning, if rewarding him more or whatever, would have helped in that situation, but I think it would have.”

  Ironically, after the battle that Lloyd and Cairo waged, their relations
hip changed significantly. Cairo was a curious mix of supreme alpha dog and calm presence. Lloyd remembers the first time they met.

  “We weren’t given a choice of which dog we were going to be paired off with. I was given a number and then told to go to the kennels and find the corresponding number. That was going to be my dog. I was also handed an ear-protection headphone-type device. Even with that on, the noise level in the kennel was incredible. My first response was to nearly shit my pants. What had I gotten myself into? I walked in there, and these dogs were barking, some were chewing at the mesh in their kennel, a few were spinning around. It was pandemonium. When I got to my number, there was this dog just sitting there. He was high and tight, squared away like a good sailor, sitting there with his back straight, his head high, and his ears up. That’s how he carried himself later, too, especially around the other dogs. He was very dominant, and I liked that about him.”

  In those early days of the program, the training facilities were not a part of any base. They took place on the property of the breeder/trainer. They believed that bonding with the dogs was important, so on that first day, when the two were paired, Lloyd took Cairo back to his living quarters. Since those quarters weren’t back near Lloyd’s home base, that meant they were living in a hotel. The other handler trainees weren’t from the area, so they bunked together at nearby hotels. The place allowed dogs, but it’s unlikely they were prepared for the sight of these dogs and their handlers rolling up in their rental cars causing a ruckus.

  “We were all kind of surprised that after just meeting these dogs for the first time and only going through some basic introductory information, filling out paperwork mostly, we were sent home with these dogs—these clearly aggressive high-energy dogs. We looked at each other and said, ‘What are we supposed to do now?’”