Tusky

After Duke was relieved of duty, I was put on kennel duty because there were no other dogs available.  In two weeks, four handlers were being sent to Japan to train new dogs and bring them back to our base.  I did not qualify to go because I only had five months left in country and a handler was required to have more than six months left in country in order to go to Japan to get a new dog.

I had the choice of four dogs, two were old and as worthless as Duke, Tusky, and a real vicious dog also named Duke.  Tusky had one strike against him, he was mostly white.  Duke had two strikes against him, he did not like me and I did not like him.  We had two kennel buildings to house our 70 dogs.  Young Duke was in the same kennel building as old Duke.  Young Duke used to bark at me when I would walk by his run to get my dog.  Sometimes I would kick his gate, just to rile him up or wave my hat at him.  He wanted to come through the chainlink and tear me to pieces.  I decided, even though he was the youngest and most aggressive of the four dogs, that it would be next to impossible to become friends with young Duke.

During the next two weeks, I spent my time cleaning the kennels and feeding the dogs.  During that time, I became friends with Tusky.  The dogs become comfortable with the kennel staff because they are the ones who feed them and keep their kennels clean.  It was easy to become friends with Tusky and I started taking him out of his kennel and training with him in the training area.  Just like my dog Jake gets all excited when I pick up his leash to take him for a walk, an attack dog gets excited when he sees a friend coming with a leash because he knows that he is going to get out of his small run. Tusky was no exception.

Then the day came, Tusky's handler put him in his run for the last time after working all night. I had the day off so that I could get some nap time before going to work that night.  When I arrived for duty at the kennels I stood guard mount with the flight, where we got the intelligence briefing, received the code words of the day, and got inspected by the kennel master or the duty officer of the day.  I guess it was important, when on patrol at night, to have polished boots, pressed uniform, a fresh haircut and shave in case you met the enemy.

After guard mount, all of the handlers pick up their gear and go get their dog.  The dogs go crazy, barking and jumping up and down with excitement.  They were getting out of lock up and going to work.  Tusky was all excited, so I opened the chainlink gate to his run and stepped in and closed the gate behind me.  Tusky sat and I started putting the choke chain over his head and got to about his ears when he pulled his head out of the choke chain, turned away from me and walked to the back of his run. This was not a good sign. With one hand, I opened the gate behind me, and my focus was still on Tusky. It appears that Tusky had decided that it was okay during the day for me to take him out, but that I was not the handler that had put him in there that morning.  I was not the person who had worked with him the night before and many more nights before that.

Tusky suddenly turned and charged me, his teeth bared in the meanest snarl I have ever seen. I stepped back, slammed the gate shut as Tusky lunged at me. I went back to the main kennel building and told the night supervisor that Tusky had just tried to eat me. After all of the other handlers had left, the night supervisor said, "Let's go get Tusky."  I think he wanted to see blood.  All the dogs that were left had quieted down, knowing that no one was coming to get them for now.  Tusky took a look at me coming with my leash, choke chain and muzzle and sat down, waiting for me to enter.  I guess he figured, since his regular handler was a no show, I was his last chance to get out of the kennel.  I watched him very closely the first few nights.  I did not want him to look up at me and think, where is my real handler and decide to take a chunk out of me.  For the next five months, we worked well together.  Tusky became a great partner.