Page 458 - NIXBOOK

Kilo and I also trained at the US Coast Guard station near downtown Seattle. There were some cutters there, and a couple of
huge old icebreakers; one was decommissioned and kind of empty, but it was being kept in a reserve status so parts could be
salvaged from it for the other still-active icebreaker there.

We had special access to the decommissioned icebreaker. The instructors hid drugs all over it and it was big enough that several
K9 units could work in there at once, rotating between the engine room, the pilot house, the captain’s stateroom, some random
utility and mechanical compartments, and hallways. It was daunting, given the size of the ship, but fun.

To get on the ship there was a pretty steep set of stairs, and then once onboard there a lot of steep ladder stairs. It was good
training for the dogs; some were apprehensive at first but eventually they all got used to them and were able to go up and down
pretty quickly. Unlike one of the Coast Guard dogs, that had significant issues with the stairs. That dog wound up getting fired,
cause, well, USCG dogs need to be able to navigate up and down ship stairs like that.

With the Border Patrol, Kilo and also trained at the USCG Air Station in Port Angeles, which was picturesque with Canada to
the North across the Strait of Juan De Fuca, and to the South, the nearby Olympic Mountains.

There were indoor offices and barracks, and also some small patrol boats to sniff around in, for variety’s sake. Sometimes the
instructor there (a Border Patrol Agent) would hide cat food kibble in the areas to be searched, in an effort to confuse the
working dogs. Fortunately, Kilo ignored (most of the time) the “distracting odors” present; both incidentally and intentionally
placed.