Biting for our freedom: Whidbey’s four-legged sailors

Naval Air Station Whidbey Island’s military working dog kennel, like most facilities on the base, hang familiar military and police flags, but these ones look a little different.

With paw prints, silhouettes and illustrations, these flags honor the dogs alongside the sailors. Portraits of Masters at Arms Brazas, Brodsky and Douangdara, Navy dog handlers who had fallen on Iraq and Afghanistan combat missions, display upon the entrance.

“Those are like our Mount Rushmore of dog handlers,” said Kennel Master Ryan Jarnberg, “because the things that they did to pave the way for the way we trained during that war time.”

Whidbey’s military working dogs are not so different from other police K9s. Master-at-Arms Petty Officer First Class Tyler Grizzard said that they have single-task dogs that sniff during investigations or bite during conflicts as well as dual-task dogs that do everything.

The process to become a handler is a bit different than a police force, Grizzard said. The path is typically boot camp, Master at Arms school and then dog school, though this process can vary depending on assignments and needs.

Navy dogs may look a bit different as well. While the most common depiction of a police dog is a German shepherd, Whidbey currently only has one German shepherd working. The rest are Labrador retrievers, Dutch shepherds, Belgian Malinois and others.

There is no breed requirement or even size requirement, Jarnberg said. Navy submarines bring on Jack Russell terriers suited for the tight spaces.

The main consistency, Grizzard said, are the ears: the Navy tends to employ more pointy-eared then floppy-eared dogs.

The life of a Navy dog is hard but rewarding. Their journeys typically begin in Europe, which have breeding and training facilities that can meet the demand.

Grizzard has participated in Navy “buy trips” in Germany and Holland, he said, where they purchase 100 dogs at a time.

Stateside vendors also provide dogs depending on the needs, said Jarnberg.

The Navy fosters the dogs as puppies, tattooing their left ears with a four digit code, a letter and three numbers, in case they escape. At this age, the dogs come in monthly to train with the current working dogs.

Much of the training courses take place in Texas, said MA3 Nathaniel Avila. Dogs go through narcotics and explosive detection courses and bite work. Each of these are supplemented with obedience training. Dogs certify in each skill before they move onto the next skill.

At six months, the dogs evaluate, and at 1 year old the Navy decides if the dogs have what it takes. Typically at about age 1.5, after some final training once they have been accepted onto the crew, the dogs become full-time sailors.

Retirement age varies, Jarnberg said. At around 8, handlers keep closer eyes on them and provide more frequent veterinary trips to establish when they should be pulled from the team. Some dogs, if they don’t show signs of slowing down, work for the force at 13 years old.

Then, they go to couch life, he said. The current handler gets first dibs on bringing the dog home. If the current handler declines, the dog goes down the list of past handlers, then kennel staff, then Navy security, then the base at large, then the general public.

Almost always, Jarnsberg said, the dog goes to the handler.

Typically sailors see a big personality shift at retirement, he said. Even the high-strung dogs spend the last few years of their lives mellow, taking advantage of the new lifestyle.

Dogs and handlers are assigned together based on personality, he said.

“We have a saying in our world, everything runs down leash,” he said. “If I am a very high-strung individual, and I’m a perfectionist and I get mad very quicky, that energy feeds down the leash to the dog, so if you’re dog’s also like that, it’s probably not a good match.”

The dogs, like the sailors, are regularly deployed.

“These dogs are constantly all over the country and the world searching venues and entry points where vehicles may come in for a rally or whatever it may be,” Jarnberg said.

Avila recently returned from the United Nations General Assembly in New York City. Everywhere the president and other dignitaries go, a military working dog sniffs beforehand.

One thing civilians may not realize about military working dogs, said MA2 Christian Ramirez, is how much fun they have. As handlers walk past the kennels to pull a dog to sniff for explosives, they are all excited and hoping they get picked.

“Their drive to do what other people wouldn’t find fun, they love to do it,” he said. “They love the challenge.”

For many dogs, the work is the play, Jarnsberg said.

“One of the dogs here, he just wants to hunt for explosives forever,” he said. “His reward is a tennis ball, but even as he finds (the bomb) and I give him his reward, he spits it right back to me. He wants to go search again. That’s the fun in it for him.”