Quality Breeding: DOD Program Strives to Establish Proven Bloodlines for Military Working Dogs

QUALITY BREEDING

DOD program strives to establish proven bloodlines for military working dogs

STORY BY RANDY ROUGHTON PHOTOS BY STAFF SGT. VERNON YOUNG JR.

20 January 2015

OOlaf leaps over Staff Sgt. Sharif DeLarge, a military working dog handler from the 802nd Security Forces Squadron, during a controlled aggression exercise at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland. DeLarge and military working dog handlers assigned to JBSA-Lackland fulfill daily law enforcement requirements or train to remain mission-ready.

CLICK TO VIEW PHOTO GALLERY

[EDITOR’S NOTE: Names of dogs produced in the Department of Defense Military Working Dog Breeding Program begin with double capitalized letters.]
Saliva slides down OOlaf’s tongue, his eyes focused intently on Staff Sgt. Sharif DeLarge as the military working dog waits for the command. When DeLarge gives the word, the Belgian Malinois leaps several feet in the air, clenching his jaws around his prey – the wrap on his handler’s arm.
Had this been an actual suspect, OOlaf wouldn’t have released his grip until DeLarge gave the word. In this exercise, OOlaf demonstrated all three characteristics the Department of Defense Military Working Dog Breeding Program looks for in its dogs – predatory behavior, boldness in sociality and a willingness to work in any environment, whether dark, noisy or with any other distractions.
OOlaf, who was born in the breeding program’s fourth OO litter at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland, Texas, is the son of RRespect and a male stud dog named FFalcor. But OOLaf, who is affectionately called “Laffers” by his handlers, is more than just another highly motivated working dog. He, his parents ,, and RRespect’s sister UUkita, are also important links in a bloodline of high-quality dogs in DOD breeding.

OOlaf waits for instruction from Staff Sgt. Sharif DeLarge, a military working dog handler from the 802nd Security Forces Squadron, during a controlled aggression exercise at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland. DeLarge and military working dog handlers assigned to JBSA-Lackland fulfill daily law enforcement requirements or train to remain mission-ready.

This link is partially responsible for the program’s shifting focus from obtaining breeding dogs overseas and other sources to producing more breeding dogs themselves, said Dr. Stewart Hilliard, the 341st Training Squadron’s chief of military working dog evaluation and breeding flight.
The MWD are like other Airmen or Soldiers in the fight. They even have their own equivalent of a dog tag –identification tattoos inside their left ears. But just like there are some service members more prone to heroics than others, there’s something that sets the breeding dog apart from its peers – the bloodline.
To describe the difference between a typical MWD and a dog set apart for breeding, Hilliard uses the analogy of the difference between a typical Army private first class and a special forces Soldier, who has the unique genetics, physical, temperamental and character features to do a job most cannot.
“There are two ranges in the quality of a dog,” he said. “There is the dog that is the fine animal that is useful for military working dog service. But there is a quality of dog above that, which is one big working order above the common military working dog. This is the dog whose drive is stronger, whose nerves are stronger and whose courage is higher.”

UUkita, a military working dog with the 802nd Security Forces Squadron, gave birth to eight puppies at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland, Texas. The puppies will be kept in a secure location to prevent sickness before training the dogs for military work. When the dogs are mature enough to train, they will filter through a selection process to determine which dogs are qualified for military work.

RRespect was the result of a breeding between a Belgian-bred Malinois male from France with a DOD-bred female in 2010, which resulted in the program’s best litter to date, Hilliard said. The mating was repeated with the U litter later that year. Because females RRespect and UUkita, from the second litter, were representative of the superior genetics of their older siblings, they were kept for breeding, as well as frozen semen from a couple of the males.
“What’s special about RRespect and UUkita is they come from a very strong family,” Hilliard said. “When you look at their brothers and sisters, many of them are high-quality dogs. That means I know the family. The family is very high in quality, and they are very good bets, about as good bets as a dog breeder is ever going to have, for the kind of dog that, when bred properly, will produce more high-quality dogs.”
RRespect and UUkita, who have already produced five litters between them, are just two of 22 breeding females in the program, along with two standing stud dogs: FFalcor and OOlaf. But the program also has access to many other male dogs, including some privately owned males in Holland and The Netherlands, and between 10 to 14 others through frozen semen. Some of these dogs are long dead, but one produced SSheila, which recently birthed her own litter. Areas overseas ravaged by disease and instability could disrupt the program’s MWD supply.

UUkita, a military working dog with the 802nd Security Forces Squadron, feeds her litter of puppies at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland, Texas. UUkita, gave birth to eight Belgian-bred Malinois puppies. The puppies will be kept in a secure location to prevent sickness before training the dogs for military work. When the dogs are mature enough to train, they will filter through a selection process to determine which dogs are qualified for military work.

Circumstances overseas may eventually make raising quality dogs even more important. Areas that are politically unstable, plus those that have become ravaged by disease, can wreak havoc on the program’s supply of MWDs, Hilliard said.
“A situation where we get all of our supplies from overseas, particularly from parts of the world that could conceivably become unstable, could disrupt our supply of military working dogs,” Hilliard said. “Also, potentially, disease concerns could affect our supply of military working dogs. There are a number of factors that are beyond our control that could rather suddenly and catastrophically interrupt our supply of military working dogs.”
Almost two decades ago, DOD foresaw this problem on the horizon, which was the reason the breeding program was founded in 1998 — so the department would eventually have the capability to produce its own breeding dogs. Currently, the program is producing 15 percent of its MWD inventory, Hilliard said.
“But that means we know how to do it. We have the facilities, we have the techniques and we have the genetic material,” he said. “So if suddenly our supply of military working dogs overseas were interrupted, we would be in a position to ramp this program up to produce a larger proportion of military working dogs.”
While the breeding program’s focus has moved toward breeding more of its own dogs, the end result remains producing what’s known as dual-purpose dogs – those that are proficient in both substance detection and patrol, Hilliard said.
“We also try to supply for DOD first-class dogs, dogs of extremely high quality, because it’s hard to buy a first-class dog in the open market,” Hilliard said. “Everybody wants that dog, and DOD doesn’t pay the highest prices.
“So one of the points in having a breeding program is because if the litter is ours, and there is an absolutely stupendous dog in that litter, we get that dog because we bred them. So it’s a way for us to get top-quality dogs.”

Staff Sgt. Sharif DeLarge, a military working dog handler from the 802nd Security Forces Squadron, braces for impact during a controlled aggression exercise with JJany at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland. Devine and military working dog handlers assigned to JBSA-Lackland fulfill daily law enforcement requirements or train to remain mission-ready.

MWD handlers see the effects of the breeding efforts in the FFalcor bloodline in their own dogs. At least, DeLarge sees the qualities of a supreme working dog in OOlaf.
“I can tell you that physically, he’s an agile, fast, strong and hard-hitting dog,” said DeLarge, an 802nd Security Forces Squadron MWD handler. “His detection capabilities are spot on, which is essentially the most important job he has as a military working dog. I have no doubt in my mind that he has one of the best noses in the kennel when it comes to detection.
“OOlaf’s desire to please me as his handler is especially exceptional when it comes to any task I give him. In a sense, he is the definition of an impeccable military working dog, and all of these attributes make him nothing less than perfect for the breeding program.”
The breeding program produces an average of 11 litters a year, but several litters since the program’s inception have proven to be more influential than the others, in terms of producing the bloodline that Hilliard has been searching for. Two litters born in 2001 and 2002, called the A1 and C1 litters, were the combination of a female named Boyca and a male named Rico.
“Boyca was the beginning of everything,” Hilliard said. “She produced dogs better than we had any right to expect. This was the beginning of our success.”
About seven years ago, a union between OOri and a Dutch shepherd named Kim produced a number of quality males, including FFalcor. Eventually, FFalcor replaced Arnold as a stud dog and sired the litter that produced OOlaf.

Staff Sgt. Mark Devine prepares to release JJany during a controlled aggression exercise at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland. Devine is a , a military working dog handler assigned to the 802nd Security Forces Squadron. Military working dog handlers assigned to JBSA-Lackland fulfill daily law enforcement requirements or train to remain mission-ready.

The bloodline represented by dogs like RRespect, UUkita and OOlaf is expected to produce generations of dogs to come for the breeding program, Hilliard said.
“Hopefully, what will happen is in the next several years, I will develop a large pool of dogs that are sons and daughters of UUkita and RRespect and other females that are related to each other in varying degrees. In each case, what we have done is probe the results of taking our bloodline and mixing it with another bloodline of very high-quality dogs, looking for where we should go in the future to produce the best dogs for us.”
MWD breeding specialists believe that several decades of establishing its own bloodline   will lead to more success on producing the type of dogs that will serve the DOD the best in the future.

CLICK TO VIEW PHOTO GALLERY

- See more at: http://airman.dodlive.mil/2015/01/quality-breeding/#sthash.mjlk26WW.dpuf

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.

One Step Away Military Working Dogs Close in on the End of Training

On Oct. 26, 2010, nearly a month before he was scheduled to return home, Marine Sgt. Jonathon Blank lost both legs in an IED blast during a mission and was medically evacuated with three other wounded Marines.
Because of the higher improvised explosive device threat, many military working dogs from other areas had been moved to Kandahar province. As a result, Blank’s combat and reconnaissance patrol in Helmand province, Afghanistan, had entered a building in Sangin without the dog it had on earlier missions.
“If we had our dog with us, I know she would’ve found all the IEDs in that compound,” Blank said. “I’d probably still be walking around and serving today.”
While Blank was at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas, working with the Belgian Malinois dog he adopted as his service animal in October, another group of dogs moved one step closer to their own duties as MWDs.
Seven of eight dogs in the “R” litter successfully completed puppy training, and four moved into the 341st Training Squadron’s Dog Training Section in August. Two of the dogs, including Rrespect, were in pool status while they awaited their training start date. One dog, Rrevae, didn’t qualify for dual training as explosives detection and patrol because of her reluctance to bite, but is training as a specialized search dog. Rrigatoni was the only “R” litter dog who didn’t make it into training. Her foster parent adopted her.
A couple of weeks into his training, Rruuk stood on his back legs in the DTS training lab for his 14-day progress check. He sniffed at a shelf 4 feet from the floor, detected an odor and then crouched into a sitting position to await his reward — a big, rubber ball from his trainer. Despite a caudectomy, a medical amputation of his tail, due to an injury caused by repeatedly slamming his tail against his kennel fence, Rruuk continues his rapid progress. He loves to search. He loves to bite. And he loves his reward for working.
“In my world, you don’t want a dog you have to coax to do anything ,” said Bernadine Green, the breeding program assistant manager and training supervisor, who also was Rruuk’s foster parent before he began puppy training. “You want a dog that comes right out of the gate and says, ‘Let’s go to work.’ He’s that kind of dog.”
Rrespect, Rruuk and the rest of the “R” litter were born June 2, 2010, at the Department of Defense Military Working Dog Breeding Program at Lackland. Their names begin with repeated first letters to designate them as products of the breeding program. Each litter is named with successive letters in the alphabet, restarting with an A after each Z litter.
When breeding program dogs complete puppy training, they move over to DTS training, which consists of 120 training days, split evenly between explosives detection and patrol work. Just as there is a major transition from foster care into puppy training, the dogs also have to adjust when they move into DTS training. They have one primary trainer, but also must work with trainers on a team ranging from four to seven people. Trainers quickly discovered from the first four “R” litter dogs that they learned much of what they needed from their puppy trainers.
“These dogs were bred for this,” Green said. “The breeding program trainers were able to do some advanced patrol training with them and even had the dogs on bite suits. They actually had the puppies searching, alerting and sitting on the training aids before they ever went over to DTS. They were doing training that the dogs normally would’ve done in DTS, so some of these puppies should burn through DTS training like nobody’s business. “
While Rruuk’s primary trainer, Tech. Sgt. Michael Iverson, was away on temporary duty a couple of weeks into his training, Staff Sgt. Victor Nelson stepped in his place. He saw in Rruuk much of what he’s observed in many dogs from the breeding program.
“I compare it to coaching Barry Sanders’ or Michael Jordan’s son,” Nelson said. “It’s just a matter of guiding them along the path. As far as genetics and talent, they already have it.”
The “R” and “U” litters were the only litters produced by two of the program’s most productive breeders – Arnold and Ssonja. So far, the “U” litter has shown as much, if not more promise than the “R” litter, with at least two “outstanding dogs,” said Dr. Stewart Hilliard, military working dog logistics chief. Then 7-month-old Uumbro particularly impressed with his bite work at an Air Education and Training Command seminar at Keesler Air Force Base, Miss.
Ssonja is now retired, but Arnold was bred with her sister Sscarlett for a litter that was whelped in October. The breeding program staff plans to continue this bloodline by breeding one of the “R” offspring, Rrespect, with a successful Belgian Malinois stud in the Netherlands named Robbie Smulders. The program already has a male, female and one complete litter sired by Robbie Smulders.
“This litter of dogs represents what we call a DOD bloodline,” Hilliard said. “[The ‘R’ litter] are the fourth generation of DOD breeding, and they are an outstandingly successful litter. Seven out of eight of these dogs passed their tests admitting them to training. What this showed us was that the combination of our most successful stud dogs with a dog from our bloodline could be very successful.
“One of the interesting things about breeding is there are no guarantees. Even if we’ve had a very successful breeding of a particular male and female, if we repeat the breeding, there is no guarantee the result is going to be as good as the first time. This shows you that genetics are highly variable, that environment plays a big role, and it is very subtle interactions between genetics and environment that lead to good working dogs.”
The “R” litter dogs are rapidly closing in on the end of their MWD training at Lackland and the day when most of them will get their base assignment and meet their first handlers. Once she completes her DTS training, Rrespect will remain at Lackland for breeding and to work as a training aid. Rruuk, Rromano, Rrobiek and Rroddie are scheduled to finish DTS training in early February, but trainers expect Rruuk to finish much sooner.
Meanwhile, Blank, who now has a computerized knee on his right side and a mechanical knee on his left, continues his rehabilitation. He’s working toward getting his final prosthetics while he also gets to know Kelsey, the 5-year-old Belgian Malinois he adopted as his service dog. He knows more than anyone how more dogs like those in the “R” litter could be lifesavers for Soldiers and Marines.
“I would say they’re priceless because they save lives and limbs of service members,” Blank said. “We had pictures of guys standing on the exact same spot my IED was. There are only so many things we can do with metal detectors and visually inspecting the area and probing the ground.
“As much as it costs to train a dog, to get a dog in service, in the end, their training and sacrifice saves Soldiers’ and Marines’ lives and keeps them in the fight,” Blank said. “If I had a dog there that day, I’d still be serving today, bringing all my knowledge and determination to the fight.”