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The group of officers I was in included a guy who was working as a bomb dog handler at The Strategic Petroleum Reserve fuel
depot in Louisiana, and there was a drug dog officer from Tennessee, and a sheriff’s deputy from Georgia, and two guys who
were federal Customs Agents at American Samoa, way waaaaaayyyy West of Hawaii. I had thought for sure I would get a “farthest
travelled” award but those guys had me beat considerably.

Bill personally went to Germany several times a year to hand pick dogs from breeders there. The attraction of European dogs
was that they were all bred very carefully and had bloodlines superior to American dogs, in a general sense. Which meant
virtually none of them got degenerative hip Dysplasia problems or other common overbreeding health issues.

While I was there in New Smyrna Beach a dog trainer from the Netherlands showed up. He had brought 3 floppy eared labs with
him that he wanted to sell to Bill, I think the going rate was $5,000 each. They were good looking dogs but Bill had to test each
dog, because he wanted only the best and he wanted to be sure they were the best. One of the tests was seeing how readily the
dogs would jump up onto furniture, like dressers and counters. “Drug dogs need to be agile and have no reservations about
jumping all over the place when they hunt down drug odors” he explained to me while he watched with growing displeasure at
the dogs’ reluctance to really work the rooms they were put in. He didn’t even bother putting them in the room that had a floor
completely covered with empty water bottles of all shapes and sizes. Any good dog, when put in there to hunt down a hidden
drug source, would not care at all that there were hundreds of loud crinkly slippery bottles covering the floor. That was one of
Bill’s special tricks to weed out the best dogs from the average ones. After the last Dutch dog failed the tests, Bill told the man
“I can’t take any of these dogs you brought. And the two you came with last time are also not good enough; I’m giving those
ones back to you, too.” Which meant that poor guy from the Netherlands had to bring 5 dogs back with him. I don’t know what
it costs to fly a dog across the Atlantic but I’m sure it was well over $500 dollars each way. Bill was unapologetic. “I only have the
best dogs here, and nothing less” he told me.

At the end of the first day, I took official custody of Kilo and brought him back to the hotel room with me. It was a first for him
and I had to watch him closely since he had a habit of peeing on anything and everything that needed marking, to include hotel
beds. He only got mine twice.

I should mention that Kilo’s original German name was “Roni.” Which I thought was kind of stupid. I knew if I brought him
back as “Roni” my coworkers would sooner or later start calling us “Mac and Roni” or “Noodle Roni” or “Rice and Roni” and I
didn’t want any part of that. Time for new name. Something that sounded more badass and impressive than “Roni.”

I had remembered a case I had worked about a year earlier, when I arrested a young man and his girlfriend and took them both
to jail. And impounded their car that they had been living in. And I called Animal Control to come get their pitbull puppy, since
they couldn’t bring it with them to jail. “You’re taking our dog away?” the young lady had cried at the time. “Oh, no, not poor
little Kilo!” And I was all like “What?! You named your dog Kilo?!” Of course they did, they were drug addicts and thought it was