The Dog Lover Unit: Lessons in Courage from the World's K9 Cops - Hardcover

Rose, Rachel

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1250110742 ISBN 13: 9781250110749

Verlag: THOMAS DUNNE BOOKS, 2017

Inhaltsangabe

"Enter the intense world of both the dogs and people who form the K9 corps. Every dog has its own unique personality." —Temple Grandin, author of Animals in Translation and Animals Make us Human

An acclaimed poet, Rachel Rose never expected to spend her nights careening along for the ride while the police teams search for armed suspects. Yet once she decided to meet the people who devoted their lives to police K9 units, she found herself signing up for the ride-alongs, training runs, and other challenges that these courageous people–and canines–face on a daily basis.

In The Dog Lover Unit, Rose introduces readers to police dogs and their handlers in the United States, Canada, Britain, and France (where their group's official name translates as "the dog lover unit"). She’s there to catch a criminal with Constable Matt Noel and Blackie; to patrol with Sheriff Gene Davis and Gunner; and writes movingly about the tragic funeral of Constable Dave Ross, and its impact on other K9 teams.

With insight, humor, and awe, this book reveals the feats that these human and canine teams accomplish, and the emotional and physical risks that they take for one another, and for us.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

RACHEL ROSE has won awards for her poetry, fiction, and non-fiction, including a 2014 and 2016 Pushcart Prize, and was named a Governor's General Award finalist in 2016. She is the Poet Laureate of Vancouver for 2014-2017 and was recently a fellow at The University of Iowa’s International Writing Program. She has published work in journals and anthologies in Canada, the U.S., New Zealand and Japan. She lives in Canada. Rachel's books include Marry & Burn and Song & Spectacle.

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The Dog Lover Unit

Lessons in Courage from the World's K9 Cops

By Rachel Rose

St. Martin's Press

Copyright © 2017 Rachel Rose
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-250-11074-9

Contents

Title Page, 
Copyright Notice, 
Dedication, 
Prologue, 
1. FROM PUPPY TO POLICE DOG — DRIVE AND DETERMINATION, 
2. SITUATIONAL AWARENESS AND PUBLIC PERCEPTION, 
3. OUTLAWS AND OUTLIERS, 
4. THE THRILL OF THE CHASE, THE WHIM OF DESTINY, 
5. CHRISA — THE DOG NO ONE WANTED, 
6. POLICE DOG FAMILIES — WOMEN IN POLICING, 
7. GRAVE THREATS, 
8. BONDS FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE, 
Epilogue, 
Note to Readers, 
Acknowledgments, 
Notes, 
Photographs, 
Also by Rachel Rose, 
About the Author, 
Copyright, 

CHAPTER 1

From Puppy to Police Dog — Drive and Determination

I fly to Calgary in May, and then ride the bus for an hour and a half to Red Deer, the murder capital of Canada. I'm not used to such a flat landscape. It feels too open, too exposed upon the earth. There are no looming mountains, no canyons — just the spring green of the grass, the magpies in their tuxedos scolding from budding trees, strip malls jammed with jacked-up trucks. I pass what I take to be a small mountain of topsoil, but as I roll by I see it is actually snow, dirtied by rocks and grime, still unmelted. Spring will soften Red Deer as best spring can, but this is a hard, open landscape, unfamiliar and unforgiving. The land is so flat that my eyes grow tired of looking for the horizon line.

The next morning, I meet Senior Police Dog Trainer Tom Smith in the lobby of the Sandman Hotel at six thirty a.m. so he can drive us to the kennels. I'm right on time, dressed in hiking boots and jeans, with layers that I can strip off if it gets too hot. Tom Smith is a man of medium build with salt-and-pepper hair. Most of the time, he's soft-spoken and easygoing. It's only when he is telling me some of his past experiences as a K9 cop that a hardness enters his eyes. Tom is not someone to be messed with. Beneath that mellow exterior is a tough and opinionated survivor.

A few months earlier, I spent my first week working with Tom as he validated police dog teams in the Lower Mainland, near Vancouver. Each team that graduates from the RCMP kennels program is required to be validated annually to ensure that they continue to meet or exceed standards. Tom tells me that if he can't pass a team, they have a maximum of fifteen remedial training days. If they still are unsuccessful, trainers have to make a decision as to which part of the team is at fault. If the dog is the problem, he will be retired, and the handler will go back to the kennels to be rematched with a new dog. If the handler is the problem, he will be removed from the program and his dog will be reteamed with a new handler. Validation is taken extremely seriously, and it means that dog and handler must stay at the top of their game.

That time with Tom and the teams was a great introduction in learning to read police dogs' body language. I got to see the precise moment when the dogs hit the scent and set off on a scent track, and when they were closing in on their quarry. To me it never got old.

After one of those long days out with Tom, I sat in the kitchen, talking with Isabelle after dinner. Maybe it was just the change of routine, but some of the tension between us had lessened.

"So today Tom was talking about how anxious the new dog handlers get when it's testing time. He said, 'They're always saying, "My dog never did this before, he must be sick, he might have hurt himself over that last fence," one excuse after another. The last one was complaining about his dog's tracking and I said to him, "This is what you should do. You go to your dog, lift up his tail, and kiss his ass, because he's been working great for you all week."'"

Our daughter popped her head into the room, where she'd been quietly eavesdropping. "And did he do it? Did he actually lift up his dog's tail and kiss his ass, Mom?"

How long had it been since we'd laughed together until we had to lean on each other? I couldn't remember the last time.

* * *

I know Tom well enough to call him Tom and to ask him any question that pops into my mind, but being in Alberta now, on his home turf, feels different than the time we spent together in British Columbia. For the rest of the week, I will be in the company of Tom, the dogs, and the other police dog handlers of the RCMP.

In Celtic, Innisfail means Isle of Destiny, and this is where every RCMP police dog in Canada (and many that end up as K9s in the United States) is bred, born, and raised. Police dogs for the RCMP used to come from anywhere and everywhere. Some of those dogs worked out wonderfully, but in other cases the results were uneven. Because of the unreliability, dog trainers and veterinarians took over the responsibility of breeding all the dogs, ensuring complete control over the bloodlines and every aspect of puppy and young dog training. The science behind the breeding program at the RCMP is carefully monitored at all levels.

Innisfail is where a pup will meet his or her destiny. Few will succeed. Out of all the litters born, many of these purebred German shepherd dogs don't have what it takes. The tests to become a police dog are challenging, and begin when the pups are just seven weeks old. Every new level presents another opportunity to fail.

Innisfail is also where cops who want to become police dog handlers come to meet their destiny. By the time these police officers make it to Innisfail, they have already proven both their dedication and their skill. Most of the time, dog handlers are cops who have already put in up to five or six years of voluntary, daily, unpaid training and dog care on top of their regular duties as police officers. They sign up to volunteer as quarries. They raise and imprint young police pups in their homes, passing them on to experienced handlers when the dogs are old enough to work. They do all this in hopes of one day being chosen to go to Innisfail themselves. Most of them never will. Many drop out along the way, as the demands of a police dog on top of life, family, and career become too much, or as they realize that there is no end to this work. There are no guarantees and no rewards but the work itself.

I will be meeting those who have made the cut. This remote training ground in Alberta is the place where the chosen few come to make their dreams a reality. By the end of it, with a little luck and months of hard work, they will earn the right to call themselves police dog handlers.

This is where it all happens. Tom and his wife Roxanne are based in Innisfail, Alberta, but live in Red Deer. As a police dog trainer, Tom spends months away from home, living out of a suitcase in a hotel. Over the years, he has worked with most every dog and handler in the country to make sure they remain capable, competent, and prepared to face whatever comes their way. Roxanne has worked for many years as a 911 dispatcher, so she'd understood better than most what Tom was signing up for when he went to work as a canine cop.

"That must have been nice for you, having your wife really get what your work was like," I said.

"I tell you what, it could be a real pain in the ass," says Tom, grinning. "If she was on call while I was out after a suspect, she'd be checking in on my radio every thirty seconds, requesting my location and coordinates, making sure I was safe."

I laugh. That's...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: THOMAS DUNNE BOOKS
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2017
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1250110742
• ISBN 13: 9781250110749
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 336
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar