Page 6 - Nellis Creech NTTR Bullseye 4-15-16

6 April 15, 2016
www.aerotechnews.com/nellisafb
‘K-9 leads way’
By Airman 1st Class Nathan Byrnes
99th Air Base Wing Public Affairs
NELLIS AIR FORCE BASE, Nev.—To
say that a strong bond between a military
working dog and their handler is crucial is a very small portion of their mission and
an understatement, particularly in a career capabilities of the handler and the dog.
field where the dog and the handler rely
heavily upon each other in high pressure
and potentially dangerous situations.
The relationship between MWD and
handler requires a greatly heightened
level of communication and understand-
ing than normally found throughout the
Air Force.
Staff Sgt. Adrian Alvarez, 99th Security
Forces Squadron military working dog
handler, and his military working dog,
‘PJ’, showed a small part of what a handler will learn all the basic functions of the
and working dog are capable of during a
demonstration on April 7, 2016, at Nellis
Air Force Base, Nev.
“When you look at a demonstration,
it shows the capabilities and obedience of
our dogs and also serves as a dual purpose
as the public gets to see and understand
that our dogs do bite and they do attack,”
said Tech. Sgt. Christopher Hinds, 99th
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SFS kennel master. “It serves as a natural
deterrent.”
While demonstrations serve as a good
way to display and inform the public of the
capabilities of MWDs, they only highlight
“Primarily, our mission is to provide
capabilities for narcotic and explosive de-
tection as well as patrol work.” said Hinds.
Due to the high risk nature of their mis- tion,” said Hinds. “Typically, the training
sion there is no room for mistakes, which
is why the handler and dog go through rig-
orous training at Joint Base San Antonio-
Lackland before becoming operational.
“The handlers go through a 55-day
training course,” said Hinds. “There they
medical portion from how to treat a dog
to some basic advance medical. They will
learn how to control the dog through the
patrol training, which includes the bite
work, obedience and marching.
“Next, they will go through the detec-
tion portion. During this portion, the han-
dler will learn how to work a dog and how
to actually find the odors and learn what
the dogs do when they react to the odor.”
Call 702 568-9968
Anthony Q. Chan,
BULLSEYE
Facebook.com/NellisBullseye
U.S. Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Kevin Tanenbuam
‘PJ’, a military working dog assigned to the 99th Security Forces Squadron, bites down
on a padded arm sleeve during a demonstration at Nellis Air Force Base, Nev. April 7. The
MWDs go through training just as intense as what the handler goes through during their
own 55 day training course.
The MWDs go through training just as formal certifications and if they pass the
intense as what the handler goes through certifications they will be assigned to a
during the training course. base.”
“The dog itself is on a 120-day timetable MWDs are only trained in one specialty:
where they have to learn how to do detec- to be explosive detection dogs or narcotic
detection dogs.
is broken in half, 60 days of detection and
60 days of the patrol work, bite work and “You will never have a dog that does
obedience. The dog will then go through
_____________ See K-9, on page 7
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