Playful to Protective: Military Puppies' Potential

The day in the whelping barn at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas, when we first met the eight puppies featured in Airman’s military working dog series, one question became our focus. We wanted to know how these Belgian Malinois pups, then 8-weeks-old and as playful as your typical household dog, would develop into the military working dogs that protect our troops and innocent citizens at some of the world’s most dangerous and violent places.
The series is designed to follow one of the puppies from birth to the day it becomes a fully-trained military working dog. The day our photojournalist, Tech. Sgt. Bennie Davis, and I were introduced to the puppies about two months after their June 2 birth, they were nipping at our feet, falling over their siblings, with paws landing helter-skelter on our legs. On our next visit about a month later, one of the puppies playfully crawled all over the back of photojournalist Lance Cheung and even tried to use his camera as a toy by dragging it across the floor.
As cute as these puppies were, I found it difficult to imagine the work both trainers and foster parents would face to develop them for the important work they have in their future. But even then, the puppies showed signs of their promise in what trainers call the piranha stage, when they try to latch on with their jaws on anything within striking distance, such as our pants and shoestrings.
We also saw some of the natural attributes of the breed when the breeding program’s puppy development specialists gave the litter the puppy aptitude test at the 8-week point. This test evaluates the puppies for social attraction; social and elevation dominance; retrieval; and sight, sound and touch sensitivity. But the three main things the specialists want to see in the dogs are prey and hunt drive and social attraction to a handler. All three attributes will be crucial to their future as military working dogs.
But we saw even more signs of promise the next time we saw the puppies, after they were placed in their foster homes at 12 weeks. Foster parents aren’t expected to teach obedience, as they might do with their own pets. Their responsibilities are mainly to make sure the dogs remain healthy and to introduce them to as many experiences as possible while they’re in their homes.
The most surprising thing I learned about fostering one of these dogs is that the ones with the most potential are often the most difficult to have in your home. As one foster parent in our story described it, fostering a military working puppy is like having an extremely intelligent child — one who’s always exploring, testing and finding trouble. “It’s really like having a toddler in your house again,” said Bernie Green, a 341st Training Squadron military working dog supervisory training instructor who fostered one of the puppies in the R litter. Foster parents endure their dogs’ crate and potty training, biting, chewing and digging, as well as the barking and whining, Sarah Dietrich, another foster parent, told us of her work with her third military working puppy, Rrespect. They also have a much stronger motor than most personal dogs. A walk around the block isn’t going to tire out a Beligan Malinois puppy. It will just get them ready for more exercise.
But fosters also get to see their puppies constantly exercising their considerable problem-solving skills. For example, one puppy’s favorite hobby is putting her toy in a difficult place, such as in a hard-to-reach corner or under a bed, just to figure out how to retrieve it again. But all of the drama becomes worthwhile as the foster parents begin to see their dog’s future more clearly. The dogs grew quickly, just in about a half-dozen meetings our staff had with them. They are physically beginning to resemble the size they will be as adult working dogs, when they will range from 55 to 75 pounds. But the most important changes that will happen will come during training, when they go through what amounts to college for the military working dog. This is when they learn basic obedience and skills like attacking on command and sniffing for specific substances.
Watching the puppies in action so far has given us part of the answer to the question we’re seeking. Rrespect and her siblings already show their problem-solving abilities and natural talents for sniffing and focus on potential prey, which they will all need when they eventually graduate from military working dog training and meet their first handler. I’ve a feeling we’ve just begun to answer the question about how this transformation happens. The next part of the answer should come when the puppies return from foster care to Lackland for puppy training sometime this month.