Page 453 - NIXBOOK

A K9 handler and his or her dog is commonly referred to as a “K9 Unit” – both are required and necessary to get the job done.
It might look like the dog is doing most of the work, but the handler does more than just transport and deploy the dog. The
handler needs to figure out where to best start the searching, and which direction to go. Outside, which was is the wind blowing?
Are there air currents that are going to help or hinder? During the search, the handler needs to pay close attention to the dog
to pick up on any visual clues that the dog might be finding the odor it is trained to detect. The handler needs to be sure the
dog does not miss any areas – which sounds easy to do but requires a bit of sustained concentration.

Kilo was taught to sniff for illegal drugs; heroin, cocaine, and methamphetamine. Now of course he could never tell me what
exactly he was smelling; when he alerted I knew he found something, but I of course didn’t know which odor it was exactly until
I got my hands on the actual substance. Cocaine, meth, and heroin can be smelled by humans, but dogs are much, much better
at it. Heroin is the stinkiest; it has a distinctive vinegar smell. (next time you have a big roll of packing/shipping tape – the clear
kind – quickly peel off a couple feet of it and then smell it. Black tar heroin smells almost exactly like that.)

For the second week of our training, Susan flew out to stay with us. I took her to the training center and introduced her to
everybody as my police “Captain” which impressed them all considerably but then she had to ruin it by admitting she was not a
hot looking cop who outranked me, she was just my wife.

Susan fell in love with Kilo right away. After each day of training we’d take him out; one time was a dog park, another time was
a lake with signs that warned of alligators, another dog park, and another time Kilo met some swans face to face at a park that
had a huge pond/lake and I discovered that Kilo had absolutely no interest in them. You’d think those long necks would be just
irresistible to a dog, but nope. No interest. And one time, we left Kilo in the hotel room for a bit while we went on an airboat
ride through swamplands near the Everglades, since that seemed like a thing to do while were there. And we discovered that
being 50 miles North of the Kennedy Space Center was close enough to see a rocket blasting off up into the sky, carrying some
kind of satellite. We also both decided pretty quickly that although Florida was nice and warm, the humidity was absolutely
insane and there was no way we would ever want to live there.

I finished the end of the two week course with a big test; the instructors hid some drugs and Kilo and I went and sniffed them
out. The same like we’d been training on, but this time it was scored and nobody helped us. It was stressful as hell for me but
we passed the test and we got an official certification issued by the United States Police Canine Association.

The three of us then packed up and we flew back to Seattle. Unfortunately Kilo was in a crate in part of the cargo hold because
despite what a lot of people (even professional handlers) think, working dogs are not the same as service dogs and they don’t
qualify to ride in airplane cabins automatically. Although if I had to do it again though, I would have at tried to get Kilo to ride
in the main cabin at our feet. He probably could have; he was such an official looking dog.

So Kilo came home with us and we introduced him our labs Jewell and Topaz. They were initially a little freaked at his high
energy level but after a couple days they warmed up to him, and I’m pleased to report they never had any fights.