Altus working dog team enhances security forces mission

  • Published
  • By Airman 1st Class Megan E. Acs
  • 97th Air Mobility Wing Public Affairs
ALTUS AIR FORCE BASE, Okla. --   Military life can be tough, especially for those in security forces, whose first and foremost mission is to protect, defend and fight to enable Air Force joint and coalition missions. However, a select few Airmen get to face those day to day challenges with a furry, four-legged partner.

U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Justin Ridenour, 97th Security Forces Squadron military working dog handler, has been working with dogs since 2011 and says he loves his job as a handler despite the challenges and requirements it brings.

Military working dogs are often trained to detect either drugs or explosives. Ridenour and Yyoda, his assigned working dog, patrol the base daily, searching for anything out of place, and also act as on-call handlers for the City of Altus and surrounding counties.

As a military working dog handler, off time is often sacrificed to the job.

"You have to dedicate some of your off time to the kennels before you're even allowed to put in for the job," said Ridenour. "When I was in Turkey, if we had three days off, two of the three days were spent training. Sometimes it would be eight hours or sometimes 12 hours. We were always working over there."

Working with a dog isn't all chew toys and treats; training is a constant for military working dogs and their handlers.

"The obstacle course is an everyday thing. Then you do basic obedience on and off leash, and you want at least an hour of search time a day, which includes walking patrols, checking buildings and checking cars," said Ridenour.

In order to get the dogs to listen, a considerable amount of time has to be spent with them, developing a rapport, mostly through playing. After a while, the dog will start listening to their handler. Usually, if there are enough dogs at the time, the kennel master and trainer will try and match up a handler with a dog based on personality, so they work well together. However, this is not always possible.

"I've had four dogs. Sometimes you click and sometimes you don't. You just have to adapt to the way the dog is," said Ridenour.

While playing is an inherent part of the job, Ridenour said it's a lot of work as well.

Every day there's training," he said. "You have to do records on the dog and annotate if it had any problems as well as have a way to fix it. You record how you're going to fix it, and how the dog is progressing."

Before starting duty, both handler and dog have to go through individual training at Lackland Air Force Base, San Antonio, Texas. For the handlers, this includes five weeks of patrol training which covers how to do the obstacle course, scouts, building searches and any aggression work, followed by six weeks of detection training.

For the most part, the basics are taught at Lackland. The specifics are picked up when the handler and dog arrive at their first bases.

To teach the dog to detect narcotics or explosives, boxes are placed in a line, with a scent placed in the very first box. As the dog learns to detect the scent, more boxes are added. When the dog learns this, the boxes are then put out of order, and eventually more scents will be added in. When the dog has learned to detect the scent, the odors will then be placed elsewhere in the room, or even outside, without the telltale box. Additionally, more scents can be added in, increasing the challenge.

While the dogs play an important role in making sure the base is clear of narcotics and explosives, this is not their only role. Military working dogs also provide a great avenue of deterrence.

"When a canine shows up, a lot of people give up what they're doing," said Ridenour. "There was a situation in Turkey where an individual was aggressive toward a few security forces members, and when the dog team showed up, the individual gave up."

Ridenour said his favorite part of the job is doing detection and aggression work, and enjoys watching the dogs progress.

"One of my buddies in Turkey taught his dog a barking guard, which is when the dog jumps in your face and barks while he's walking backwards, escorting you back to the vehicle," he said. "Say someone ran, and you released your dog on them and they gave up. If the dog does that, they're not going to move."

Right now, Ridenour is training Yyoda to complete the obstacle course off the leash. The obstacle course consists of a tunnel, an A-frame, a buried tunnel, stairs, three hurdles and a catwalk. When Ridenour was first paired with Yyoda, the dog was missing obstacles. Now, Yyoda hits all the obstacles most of the time, occasionally skipping a hurdle.

"When I was a new handler, it was difficult trying to figure out different ways to get the dog to do what I wanted it to, but now after training and learning and watching other people, I've picked up their habits and training methods," he said.

A self-proclaimed dog person, Ridenour even decided to keep one of his former canine partners permanently.

"My very first dog, Tiesto, was twelve years old. When a dog can no longer work, they can sometimes get adopted out," said Ridenour. "Tiesto went deaf and wasn't really caring about anything. When it got toward the end of our time in Turkey, he was just following hand and arm signals because he couldn't hear me. When I left there, I adopted Tiesto."

Adopting Tiesto is the most memorable experience Ridenour has had working with the dogs, he said.

"When I was a kid, I would see law enforcement with the dogs and I always wanted to do that. When I joined the military and found out later they had military working dogs, as soon as I could, I put in for it," he said. "I love being a canine handler. I probably would have gotten out if I wasn't a dog handler, but when I went canine, and went to Turkey, I reenlisted for six more years. I love it."