The Training of Airman Wallace

The Training of Airman Wallace

After I muzzled her, I clipped the leash to her collar, released her chain and walked her out of the kennel area into the training area where my training was about to begin.

Upon entering the training area, I put a choke chain on Dawn and removed her collar. The collar was worn during attack training and when working on post. The dogs knew that the collar meant work and the choke chain meant obedience and play time. The dogs loved their time in the training area. It was similar to when we had recess in elementary school--you had to behave yourself, but still had fun.

The kennel master observed Dawn and me as we worked. He stressed that I should issue my verbal commands in a stern loud voice each and every time. After I was doing well at that, he explained the hand signals for the verbal commands of come, sit, down and stay. He then had me use the hand signal and the verbal command together. Then we moved on to using hand commands without a verbal command. Dawn must have been bored to death.  She was doing fine, but, interestingly, never got a treat. She worked for praise! I also learned to praise her every time she responded well. If she did not respond promptly, I was taught to jerk her choke chain and make her respond to my command. I was informed that a dog's neck is strong and muscular and it would not hurt her when I jerked on the choke chain. I was taught that dogs are much like children in that they will always test you to make sure you really mean it! If you do not correct them immediately, they become unruly and impossible to control. This training was two fold: (1) to teach me how to control my dog, and (2) to teach my dog to respond to my commands. It is important that the dog responds only to the commands of its handler. It is also important that the dogs are not looking for treats, as it would be a dangerous thing if they were looking for treats rather than attacking an intruder, or, worse, not even alerting on him. Each dog has to want to work because of the bond with its handler.

The obedience training went well; however, the exercise part did not. Dawn wanted no part of running the obstacle course. I inherited my dog from a lazy dog handler. He did not make her run the obstacle course and she did not want to start now. The kennel master, a really sympathetic guy, told me I could not take Dawn to post until she could run the obstacle course, and that I had one week to get her trained. It was tough. How do you make a dog do something it does not want to do? I dragged her through every obstacle. By the end of the week, she started realizing that she had no choice and that it would be easier if she ran and jumped rather than being dragged through each obstacle.

The obstacle course ran up one side of the training area, across the back and then along the other side of the training area. It started with a jump through a window about three feet off the ground, then a jump over a four foot barrier. The last obstacle on the left side looked like an inverted V. It was six feet high and had ribs across the top half. The dog was to jump, put the front legs across the top and use the ribs to give traction for the hind legs to push the body over the top. Across the back was a narrow ramp to a narrow beam that was about five feet above the ground, and the dog would jump off of it when he got to the end. Then the dog was to turn the corner and run up a steep ramp to a platform about seven feet high with stairs on the other side. The last obstacle was a ten-foot tunnel through which the dog had to crawl.

Dawn and I worked hard all week. I had to prove that I had what it took to be a dog handler and Dawn wanted to prove to me that she was my best friend.

Foot note: After one week, Dawn could successfully run the obstacle course while I ran beside her with her leash clipped to her choke chain. This satisfied the kennel master and Dawn and I were assigned to B Flight. After two weeks, Dawn ran the obstacle course off leash while I ran beside her. We still had more work to do. After one month, I sent Dawn off leash to run the obstacle course, while I walked to the end of the tunnel to wait. Dawn was able to run the whole course without missing an obstacle. Both of us had been successful! Did it come without hard work? NO! When I first let Dawn off leash, she ran around the obstacles that she did not want to do. I went back to the instructions of the kennel master, "Immediately correct your dog and make your dog do what it is commanded to do." Dawn soon realized that she should not bypass any obstacles. She really wanted to please me. Yes, we were both pleased with the end results!