The Dog Squad Read online

  Len stayed at the Dog Squad for fourteen years. He’d walked into a derelict place with no dogs, and when he walked out he left behind a professional, well-respected squad. The squad earned such a sterling reputation that police members flocked to it whenever a vacancy came up; there were so many applicants that the squad could afford to pick the best of the best.

  LEN’S TRAINING TIPS

  Never hit a dog on the face or nose – they become hand-shy and nervous. This can lead to biting.

  Positive reinforcement is the key to good training. If a dog owner must use negative reinforcement, it should be a withdrawal of affection, a yell, a growl, or a quick pull on a choke chain.

  The dogs learn to track by searching out hidden toys. As their tracking skills improve, the toys are hidden further away – sometimes kilometres further, with twists and turns added for extra difficulty. Photo courtesy of Christopher Chan

  CHAPTER 2

  Mick Bream and PD Kendo

  Mick Bream had wanted to be a police officer since he was a small boy growing up in the United Kingdom. His father had been associated with the police, and young Mick had had an insider’s look into the job. If he made it into the police force, his greatest wish was to end up as a police dog handler. As a lad, he had seen handlers and their dogs lined up regally on parade on the TV at every major event, and he loved the way those men could put the highly trained dogs through their paces.

  When he was old enough to join the UK police, Mick was rejected as a candidate; while he met the height and fitness requirements, no matter how hard he tried he just couldn’t expand his chest to the required 36 inches. Dejected, he tried other jobs, but the lure of the police force didn’t let up. To follow his dream, he took the huge step of moving his wife and family to Victoria, where the police force did not have the UK police force’s strange chest expansion requirement.

  However, within days of Mick’s arrival in Melbourne in 1974, Senior Constable Norm Curson, a uniformed police officer on duty, was stabbed to death on the steps of Melbourne’s iconic Flinders Street Station. That random act of violence towards a police officer by a man later found to be insane, seemed like a bad omen. It stymied Mick’s enthusiasm for the force.

  Mick tried a couple of other jobs, and wound up driving buses. One day, he asked himself what turned out to be the most important question of his life: when you’re sixty and retired, what do you want to look back on – life as a bus driver? When Mick put it that way, his future was decided, and he joined the Victoria Police in 1975. Within months, he was doing general duties in the city and surrounding suburbs.

  Mick loved German shepherd dogs, and decided to get one for a family pet. He wanted a dog with good blood lines and he found a breeder whose sire was a German shepherd called Phal Von Agedeindam. Phal was one of the first full-blood line shepherds to be imported from Germany after importation bans were lifted. A lively pup called Kendo came from Phal’s second litter. On the maternal side was Jonquilla Firefly, who had English blood lines. Mick paid $500 for Kendo – a princely sum in the mid-1970s.

  Before his second year in the police force was over, Mick saw a vacancy for the newly formed Dog Squad. Mick submitted an application for the position; he could hardly believe his dream job had come about so quickly. Mick was young, keen and fit, and was given an interview with the officer in charge, Ray Walker.

  At the interview, Mick was caught on the hop with the question asked of all potential recruits: ‘Have you got a dog at home?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said warily.

  ‘Members of the Dog Squad can’t have their own dog,’ Ray Walker told him.

  The thought of getting rid of his new puppy helped Mick make a quick decision. ‘I’ve got a German shepherd pup,’ he told Ray Walker. ‘We’ve just started obedience training at a private training club and he shows potential.’

  ‘How old is he?’ asked Walker.

  ‘About seven months,’ said Mick. ‘I’ve formed a good bond with him and I’d be prepared to donate him if he’s suitable . . . if we’re both suitable.’

  Walker looked interested and explained that Kendo would have to pass a temperament test to be considered.

  Mick didn’t know what that would entail, but he knew his puppy had a good temperament. The only thing was that Kendo was quite placid, and Mick wondered if the dog could be aggressive enough for police work. When Mick was accepted into the Dog Squad, Kendo was put through his paces to see if he might follow his master into a career with the Victoria Police.

  Inspector Ray Walker believed in the importance of matching a good dog with a good handler; this combination was vital. Inspector Walker also looked for a close bond between handler and dog. Training and rapport were vital, as well as a mutual respect. It turned out that Kendo’s main attribute – a level temperament – was one of the primary characteristics the squad looked for in a dog, and he was accepted into the program.

  Kendo was officially donated and signed over to the squad, and he started training shortly afterwards in Course 3 – the third-ever training course at the new squad – along with four other police officers: Peter Given, Kevin Bastin, Keith Aston, and later Jim Dixon, who rejoined the course after losing his previous dog. It was a close-knit team, with Dixon proving to be an invaluable resource since he had already trained a police dog.

  While Kendo was exceptional in obedience training, he took a little longer than the other dogs to learn how to do some tasks. In those days, crawling was one of them. Trained police dogs had to know how to crawl on command for any number of potential situations that might await them on the beat: they might have to crawl in order to remain unseen in long grass in a search for offenders; they might have to crawl in a siege situation to keep themselves from a gunman’s sights; or they might have to crawl into small, confined spaces in the search for drugs or lost children.

  Of the five dogs on the course, Kendo was the last to master the crawl. The other dogs got it almost immediately, but when Kendo finally did it, Mick was as proud as a parent. ‘That’s my boy!’ he cried.

  He was proud again when Kendo was the first dog to score 100 per cent for man work, which meant that he could attack, chase and bite on command – and, most importantly, he could do a call-off better than all the other dogs. A call-off was one of the most essential commands. It required a dog to immediately let go of an offender when called to, or to leave a chase and return to the handler on command. This proved difficult for a lot of dogs that, once they latched onto the pretend offenders in training, found it hard to let go. Other dogs got so caught up in the fun of a chase, they found it difficult to stop on command and return to their handlers.

  While Kendo was sailing through the training at the squad, things had to change at home once the family pet became a fully fledged police dog. When Kendo first entered the Bream family, every­one wanted to see the new pup. As a police dog, access had to be restricted, and Mick had to be with Kendo every time he met someone new. During training, Kendo had to learn to be suspicious; as a pup, he never barked if someone came to the front door, but as a police dog, he had to be trained to do so. The pecking order in the Bream family also had to change, because dogs are pack animals and will follow the pack leader. At home, Mick had to be top of the pecking order, with Kendo second in line; Mick’s two children came next, and his wife was at the bottom. The thinking behind this was that Kendo would never be uncertain about who the family’s pack leader was if Mick’s wife was last in line. If Mick ever argued with his wife, the dog had to be put outside; it was possible that if the dog sensed Mick’s wife winning an argument, he might switch allegiance. Luckily Mick’s wife was good-humoured about the new arrangement.

  Because of the rigorous nature of the training, only three of the five dogs made it through. Kendo was one of them, and became Police Dog Kendo – or PD Kendo for short.

  Shortly after qualifying, Mick and PD Kendo took part in a training day out at the Westmeadows training centre. Inspector Ray Walker had
selected the pair to be trained for drug detection as well as general duties work. Initially the squad did not have specialist drug or explosives detection dogs, and was considering the feas­ibility of having dogs trained wholly for armed offender and siege situations to perform duties with the Special Operations Group. In those days, the establishment was not as plush as it is today. At the end of the entrance driveway there was an old wooden garage, which, apart from being used for storing items, was also used to hide drugs for training purposes. It was winter, and a directive had been issued that all dog handlers had to put hessian sacks over the rubber matting in the rear of the police-issue Holden station wagons, to prevent the dogs from slipping and sliding around when it was wet. The training session that day involved the dogs sniffing out drugs hidden in the old garage. While PD Kendo was still in his holding kennel, Mick was told to go and get one of the hessian sacks for the back of his police car. Inside the musty old garage, Mick dubiously picked up a hessian sack from the top of the pile.

  Watched secretly by a small battalion of colleagues, Mick innocently shook out the sack and, to his horror, saw a snake fall out onto the floor. He went cold, dropped the bag and broke speed records getting out of the garage. He realised it was a prank the minute his fellow officers all roared with laughter.

  His next encounter with a snake was real. Real and dangerous.

  Mick and PD Kendo were called to Castlemaine to assist in the search for a missing elderly woman. It was believed she was lost in an area of bushland adjacent to the township. Mick conducted a free search of the area, which meant that he let PD Kendo off the lead so that the dog could run through the bush and open scrub, to see if he could pick up a scent. The dog was searching about 20 metres in front of Mick, but as PD Kendo approached a bushy area where Mick would have lost sight of him, he called the dog back.

  At the same instant he uttered the command, Mick noticed the ominous brown and yellow stripes of a tiger snake on the ground, about halfway between him and his dog. The deadly snake’s head was raised in the striking position: its tongue flicking, head weaving, neck flared out.

  In that moment of horror time seemed to slow down. Thoughts raced through Mick’s head. During training PD Kendo had never dropped to the ground immediately on command; it normally took him five or six more steps before he would hit the deck. This small deficit in his otherwise excellent dog had annoyed Mick, but the two had worked on it. Despite both their efforts, PD Kendo had made little progress. However, on this occasion half a dozen steps would put the police dog right in the reach of the deadly snake. Mick’s heart thumped in his chest as he called for PD Kendo to drop.

  For reasons known only to the dog, PD Kendo hit the ground immediately, a safe distance from the snake.

  Head moving in a slow, mesmerising way, the snake looked at the police dog, then turned its head and looked at Mick, then lowered itself and slithered off into the bush, away from both man and dog. PD Kendo was unperturbed; his handler took longer to recover. The rest of the search was completed with one eye out for the elderly lady and one eye out for snakes. The old lady was later found alive and well by State Emergency Services searchers.

  Mick and PD Kendo’s first arrest came just a couple of weeks after graduation. Mick was on-call and answered the phone in the middle of the night. Senior Constable Len Taylor was on the other end of the line and asked Mick if he knew where Elphinstone was.

  ‘Near Fairfield, I think,’ Mick said.

  ‘No,’ said Taylor. ‘You’re thinking of Alphington. Elphinstone is near Kyneton.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ said Mick, who had only lived in Australia for a couple of years.

  ‘Two offenders have stolen a car and gone joy-riding. They’ve rammed five police vehicles in the chase, then ditched the car in bushland. They’ve escaped on foot.’

  Mick quickly loaded PD Kendo into the back of the police station wagon and made the 90-kilometre trip. Needless to say, the police were keen to catch the perpetrators. They had located the wreck of the stolen car in the bush outside Elphinstone, and police on the scene assumed the two offenders had made off into the scrub.

  By the time Mick and PD Kendo arrived, the offenders had a two-hour head start. Mick fitted his dog into a harness and attached a 10-metre tracking lead. PD Kendo picked up a scent, leading from the vehicle into the bush, and took off after it with Mick close behind. Given that this was the first time the two had tracked offenders, the outcome was a little uncertain – at least for Mick. On the other hand, PD Kendo seemed to know exactly what he was doing. Two police officers accompanied them; if they found the offenders, the dog and handler would need backup. PD Kendo led the police officers through scrub land for around 4 kilo­metres until they came to an open dirt track. This wasn’t good, because dirt didn’t retain scent for as long; it tended to dissipate as the dirt was dislodged in the breeze. PD Kendo only hesitated for a moment before picking up the scent again. He led Mick towards fresh sets of footprints on the other side of the dirt track, and the group kept going.

  At some point during the long walk through the bush, PD Kendo lost the scent. Mick stopped and gave him a breather. They had a play for a couple of minutes, then Mick let the dog move around the area to see if he could pick up the scent again. Sure enough, PD Kendo indicated ‘found it’, and they all set off again. Luckily, long distance tracking didn’t present any problems for the dogs or handlers. At the squad, daily 6-kilometre walks kept both the dog and handler fit and ready for these types of situations. The two general duties officers were struggling a bit, though.

  Eventually the bush and scrub land thinned as PD Kendo led the police officers into the small township of Taradale, and then through a park to the town’s war memorial. Beneath it, on the concrete, two men were sleeping off the effects of a hard night.

  Initially, Mick was uncertain that PD Kendo had the right men. In the four hours it had taken to track the offenders from the stolen car, he certainly didn’t imagine coming across them sleeping like babies. Part of Mick’s apprehension came from the fact that this was their first arrest. Practice and training was one thing; real offenders were something else. Just to be certain, Mick led the dog away and cast him. That meant giving PD Kendo the freedom to go wherever he wanted on the harness while guiding him in a circular motion. The dog headed straight back to the two sleeping men.

  One of the other cops prodded the men awake and the first thing they would have seen was a large panting German shepherd looming over them. Given the size of PD Kendo, the three uniformed police officers leaning over the men were probably of secondary concern. The two men came quietly, encouraged by the presence of PD Kendo. Mick will forever remember the words of one of the men as he was being led away in handcuffs: ‘Bloody smart copper dog,’ he had said. ‘If it wasn’t for you, we would never have been caught.’

  And they wouldn’t have been caught – of that, Mick was sure. Mick and PD Kendo had tracked the two offenders for a distance later calculated at 8 kilometres. It remains the longest recorded track for a Victoria Police dog.

  The squad was the highlight of Mick Bream’s police career. He and PD Kendo even appeared on a couple of episodes of the TV series Cop Shop. Nearly forty years later, Mick remembers it all like it was yesterday.

  After his time at the squad was over, and after PD Kendo was just a memory, he could never bring himself to get another dog. ‘I only had the one dog,’ he says today, ‘and have not had one since. To me there would never be another dog as good as Kendo.’

  MICK’S TRAINING TIPS

  Never ever raise your hand to a dog; they may fear the hand, and become fear biters.

  Treat them how you would treat your kids.

  Always give a dog immediate feedback. They don’t understand being told off for digging in the garden hours earlier. If you catch them in the act, chastise them.

  Include lots of praise and play in your training.

  An even temperament and natural obedience are necessary attribu
tes for any police dog. Photo courtesy of Christopher Chan

  CHAPTER 3

  Dog handler down

  When he was gunned down by notorious shooter Pavel ‘Mad Max’ Marinoff, Sergeant Gary Morrell lay wounded and bleeding under a tree in a churchyard. His loyal police dog was at his side . . . albeit barking frantically and ready to bite anyone who came near his injured handler.

  Gary Morrell was a new recruit to the Dog Squad at the end of 1980, training a large, energetic black-and-gold German shepherd called Digger. A family in Werribee had donated Digger because they were too busy to devote the time needed to train a dog of his size and aggressive temperament.

  At eighteen months of age, Digger was a little older than was ideal for a police dog to start his training. But from the moment Gary laid eyes on his new dog, he could see that Digger had get-up-and-go. The minute Gary threw a ball Digger would go flying through the air to get it. More often than not he wouldn’t bring it back, but that was okay. He could be trained to do that. And at the squad, a dog’s desire to retrieve and hold on to an article like a ball or toy was seen as a positive trait.

  When a handler gets a new dog it’s just like the beginning of any relationship; both parties need to get to know each other. And there can be some early bumps – or, in this case, bites.

  When Gary and Digger were alone the dog seemed fine; the trouble started when there were other dogs around. Of course, at the Dog Squad there were other dogs around all the time. Once, not long after Gary got Digger, he was grooming him alongside another handler and his dog. Digger growled at the other dog and Gary issued the standard correction – a quick tug on the choke chain. In a flash, Digger turned on his handler to bite. Gary pulled his hand away, but not before Digger had raked his razor-sharp teeth along Gary’s finger. Then there was blood.