LITTLE DOG WALKS TALL AT NSA NAPLES

NAPLES, ITALY

06.12.2019

Story by Petty Officer 3rd Class Damon Grosvenor 

U.S. Naval Support Activity Naples

LITTLE DOG WALKS TALL AT NSA NAPLES
By Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Damon Grosvenor
NAPLES, Italy – Sitting at a 18-inches tall, looking around at everything and wagging his tail, the little dog seems a little out of place next to the larger, fierce-looking German shepherds. But that couldn’t be further from the truth for the two-year-old, full-grown Jack Russell terrier.
While it may be his first overseas tour, he certainly has the training to succeed. The two-year-old terrier, Boy, is a fully qualified U.S. Navy Military Working Dog (MWD) who works with his handlers to keep Sailors and civilians safe at Naval Support Activity (NSA) Naples, Italy.
Boy, like most MWDs, came from the Department of Defense (DOD) Military Working Dog Breeding Program at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas, where he was trained and qualified to be an MWD. Since coming to NSA Naples earlier this year, he has continued to train daily with his handlers.
“In the morning, it’s his birthday,” said Master-at-Arms 1st Class Byron Lopez, the kennel master assigned to NSA Naples. “Pretty much every day he’s as happy as he can get. He’s jumping. He’s barking. When I put them in their break area, he just runs around like crazy. He’s excited to go to work. For us, it’s work. For them, it’s hunt time.”
Work for MWDs is patrolling and training to improve their skills at hunting for narcotics, explosives, or both. Boy is a qualified narcotics-detection MWD. The bonding between an MWD and their handler increases with time and training and is vital to a working partnership.
“What we are [getting] from them is their hunting ability,” said Lopez. “It’s not a play drive that we get out of them, it is the hunting drive. So every time we go out there, they’re working toward a goal.”
Lt. Cmdr. Marco P. Agricoli, the NSA Naples security officer, said the goal of an MWD is either to detect a specific substance and track down its location, or to take down a bad guy for their handler.
“There are no longer single-purpose patrol dogs in the Navy,” said Agricoli. “You can have a patrol-explosive or a patrol-narcotics or just an explosive and narcotics dog. They give police officers something they otherwise wouldn’t have.”
A patrol-explosive MWD is trained in controlled aggression and searching for explosives. A patrol-narcotics MWD is trained in controlled aggression and searching for drugs like marijuana or cocaine. The last kind of MWD searches for explosives and narcotics.
Boy’s stature-based talents bring the ability to hunt narcotics in places that a larger breed may have difficulty accessing.
“He is very motivated and very good at what he does, and that’s finding narcotics,” said Agricoli about Boy. “He stands out because he’s a small breed. He’s a little dog. The Navy is unique in the small-breed program. We are the only branch of service that uses small breeds in the DOD. One of the reasons we were selected was because of all the submarines and the amount of ships we had. There’s nothing like carrying a 95-pound dog up several flights of aircraft carrier stairs.”
Agricoli says Boy works well and is quite good at what he does.
“He is very well trained,” said Agricoli. “Lackland Air Force Base did a good job with him. I could tell as the observer when he smelled drugs from a distance. He wasn’t even there yet, he was probably 30 or 40 feet away and he was already throwing a change of behavior, saying, ‘I smell it. I just need to find where it is at.’ I was very impressed with him.”
Boy and Lopez will continue to grow as a team as their respective tours here at NSA Naples continue.
NSA Naples is an operational ashore base that enables U.S., allied, and partner nation forces to be where they are needed, when they are needed to ensure security and stability in Europe, Africa, and Southwest Asia.
For more news on NSA Naples, please follow us on Instagram @NSANaples, Twitter @NSA_Naples, and Facebook at facebook.com/NSANaples/.
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• Date Taken: 06.12.2019
• Date Posted: 06.12.2019 03:16
• Story ID: 326826
• Location: NAPLES, IT