An ammunition can helps a military working dog handler learn one of the most important lessons of working with an animal in the Military Working Dog Handlers Course at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas. Handlers practice “praising” the ammo can for several days to help develop what instructors call the “paycheck” voice, before they are issued a dog for training in the course.
That voice becomes an essential part of the bond between the Airman and his dog and is especially crucial when they deploy to places like Afghanistan, as two MWD teams did in 2010.
Staff Sgt. Justin Kitts, a 56th Security Forces Squadron MWD handler at Luke Air Force Base, Ariz., worked 63 missions outside the wire with his Belgian Malinois, Dyngo, while they were attached to the 101st Airborne Division at Forward Operating Base Wilson in the Zhari district. They found three improvised explosive devices while clearing routes for U.S. Army and Afghan troops during Kitts’ deployment.
Staff Sgt. Chris Keilman, a 902nd Security Forces Squadron MWD handler at Randolph Air Force Base, Texas, doesn’t claim any IED finds while he was deployed to the Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force south of Kandahar province with his German shepherd, Kira. But Keilman takes just as much pride in the job he and Kira did to help keep troops safe from IEDs.
“I take pride knowing that while Kira and I were out working, my guys did not get blown up, killed or maimed,” he said. “Finding explosives is awesome, but as long as my guys, my dog and I came back safe, that’s my find.”
Kira was assigned to Keilman in December 2009, after he graduated from the canine handler’s course at Lackland. He received his deployment orders less than a month later while he was still trying to bond with his new canine partner.
“They told me it was going to be a tough break from her last handler because she was fairly attached to him,” Keilman said. “I ended up doing a month and a half of rapport work, with no commands. I was just running with her, being pretty much a playmate and establishing slight dominance with her, but not being really aggressive about it.
“It’s an always evolving relationship and taking new steps. She always has to continue to build confidence in me and me in her. She has to completely trust that I’m not going to do any harm to her and vice-versa.”
Both MWD handlers deployed several times in their security forces careers, but their first deployments with their dogs presented even more challenges. One major step was their first mission outside their forward operating bases.
“Even though I had deployed before, a lot of it was new to me,” Kitts said. “It’s a lot different when you step outside the wire. That initial first step outside the wire is when it really hits you what you’re actually doing. You know your job is to search for bombs that kill people. But something happens, and you don’t even think about what you’re supposed to do. You automatically do it because of the training you’ve had as a team to respond to different events. For me, I felt comfortable being outside the wire. I knew it was my job, and I went out and did it.”
During Keilman’s first time outside the wire, he and Kira walked ahead of a vehicle as they were on the way to their house, almost an hour’s walk.
“That was probably the most nerve-racking time, with that being our first time outside the wire,” he said. “You never know what to expect. There were other dogs, Afghan kids running around and adults, so you’re really on your toes and on edge.”
When a MWD detects an odor, the handler can instantly tell because there is a dramatic change in his behavior.  The behavior varies from dog to dog. Dyngo normally searches a wide area, but once he detects an odor, he will cut his search area as he closes in on his target.
While Kitts was deployed, MWD handlers in Afghanistan were shaken by the news of the first female handler killed on duty. Army Sgt. Zainah C. Creamer of the 212th Military Police Detachment at Fort Belvoir, Va., was killed by an IED while on duty in Kandahar in January. It was a somber reminder of how hazardous the job of the MWD handler is in Afghanistan.
There were times during Kitts’ deployment when Dyngo sensed he was upset and would nuzzle up to him. One day, it was the other way around — the handler had to comfort his dog. They were outside the wire during a firefight, but Dyngo wasn’t bothered by the AK-47 fire. As he and Kitts took cover behind a wall, a remotely powered grenade detonated a few feet away. The dog began whimpering and cowered down at Kitts’ feet. Kitts found a safer place and broke off a branch from a nearby tree, which gave Dyngo something to chew on and calmed him.
“If for some reason, I was the one to be shook, which happened numerous times during our deployment, he’d be there to comfort me in some way,” Kitts said. “I had to do it that one instance during the firefight. That demonstrates we are a MWD team, not just a dog and an Airman.”
Sometimes when a MWD team clears an area for their unit, troops will thank them for the dangerous work they do. Some just give Dyngo and Kira some positive attention when they return to the base. But no one has to say a word to let the handler know the importance of the work they do.
“For me, no one had to tell me anything,” Kitts said. “I knew what I was doing was valuable. But the whole time we were doing it, I thought it was really cool because this was what we’ve been training these dogs for. They get trained as puppies at Lackland to find bombs. A lot of the dogs don’t get to go to Afghanistan or Iraq and have a real-world find and do what we train these dogs to do.”