CAMP WALKER, South Korea - In South Korea and around the world, working dogs and their handlers are a vital asset of U.S. military police forces.
Camp Walker is the headquarters for the 188th Military Police Company K-9 unit, which includes six working dogs and five military police handlers.
“We work all of area IV, from Wagan to Busan, although a majority of our missions are around Daegu,” said Staff Sgt. Charles Graves, 188th MP Co. K-9 non-commissioned officer in charge.
While most people know MP’s use working dogs, few understand the process of selecting, training and maintaining the animals.
“For Army working dogs, the process starts at Lackland Air Force Base’s purchase and puppy program,” said Spc. Daniel Hargrove, 188th MP Co. K-9, “The ‘Puppy Program’ is a breeding program at Lackland, and this program helps provide the military with dogs. The goal is to augment the supply of dogs still being purchased from vendors with additional top-quality dogs.”
The Department of Defense estimates that it needs more than 300 dogs per year, and due to fall out rates, more than 300 must chosen.
“Once a dog is selected, each one goes through 101 days of training for detection, obedience, and aggression,” Graves said, “It’s kind of like boot camp for puppies. If they pass, then we get them to learn to smell and alert to specific odors and the intensive obedience training starts now also.”
Because of Daegu’s heat and humidity, the dogs are more alert and can better maintain physical activity, like running and searching, after the sun goes down.
“We can work the dogs longer at night, because they are more productive when the temps are cooler,” Hargrove said, “Also, most of our jobs like narcotics and building searches are typically performed at night.”
Many breeds of dog can be effectively trained as a police working dog, but in the 188th Belgian Malinois do the heavy lifting.
“The Belgian Malinois is the most well rounded dog we have, they are only moderately aggressive, they are more obedient and have a higher drive for detection than most” Graves said,“ Non-aggressive breeds such as Labradors make excellent ‘off leash’ dogs, which are needed when a search is conducted in close proximity to civilians, like a sports stadium. We actually trained with a local Korean SWAT team a few weeks ago at Daegu Airport.”
Crowd control is a frequent mission for Area IV K-9 teams.
“Recently there was a fist-fight on Camp Carroll, and one of the guys had his teeth knocked out by a much larger man,” said Hargrove, “We were the first on the scene and as soon as the crowd saw the dog, everyone stopped fighting and became very cooperative.”
Although any dog can be trained in detection, research indicates certain breeds, like the Malinios used in Daegu, have sense of smell that is 10,000 times more sensitive than a human’s.
“Let me say if someone tries to mask an odor in any way, it just makes the odor more pronounced for the canine,” said Graves. “My K-9 partner has been certified on 28 odors.”
While the U.S. and KATUSA soldiers go about accomplishing their important missions all around Daegu, they get some irreplaceable assistance from man’s best friend.
| Date Taken: | 07.08.2011 |
| Date Posted: | 07.14.2011 21:23 |
| Story ID: | 73752 |
| Location: | CAMP WALKER, DAEGU GWANG'YEOGSI [TAEGU-KWANGYOKSHI], KR |
| Web Views: | 146 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Daegu Working Dogs and Military Police: A Most Effective Partnership, by SPC Bryan Willis, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
