Carl, my brief time with a lovely much understood dog

toglhot

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After finishing rookies I was posted to the police dog training school to undergo training as a RAAF Police Dog Handler. My course wasn’t scheduled to commence for a couple of months so I and the rest of the course members, as they arrived, were employed in husbandry, making up feeds, feeding dogs, cleaning kennels and walking and grooming dogs.

There were two banks of kennels, the top bank housed police dogs, mostly trained police dogs who were without a handler, either because the handler discharged or various other reasons. We, as recruits were forbidden from handling police dogs and told to be careful of one dog in particular – Von. Von was a rather large fellow and extremely aggressive, not too many handlers or recruits actually went in the kennel with him, ever his handler was a little scared. None of the other dogs gave any trouble as long as we didn’t push them or try to handle them. In the early days of the mustering, it was pretty much a cowboy outfit and a lot of the dogs were quite large and very aggressive and stories of handlers being attacked by either their own dog or someone else’s dog weren’t rare. How many were actually true, I don’t know, but I did meet a couple of handlers with bad scarring, one on his face, another on the calf. Six weeks into course I was to join the scarred ones, an L shaped scar still clearly visible on my chest 45 years on. Prince and his handler being responsible. Six months later I received a lot of other scars, still visible, from my own dog Dante. Then almost 25 later a earned another scar on my left forearm from Chum.

In the lower kennel bank were housed recruit dogs, untrained dogs the RAAF had recruited from people who no longer wanted them. As long as they passed our test and looked reasonably like a shepherd the RAAF accepted them, and boy were there some strange looking shepherds. We recruits all had our favourites, dogs we hoped would be allocated to us for course. We also had our pet hates. Just the one in the lower bank – Carl. Carl wasn’t a large dog, jet black, he actually looked more like a labrador than anything else. He had a large round patch on his left rear leg, completely devoid of hair, looked like a burn. Seems he belonged to a builder who took him to work everyday where Carl guarded the trailer and tools within. But, Carl started getting overly aggressive with other workers on site so Carl was offered to the RAAF.

Carl was ok going into the kennel, welcoming everyone with a wagging tail and a smile on his face asking for a pat. We obliged of course, but when we tried to leave his kennel he objected strongly, standing in front of the gate and growling, requiring one of the other recruits to use the hose, drenching him and forcing him to back off so the recruit could get out in one piece. This continued every morning and more than once I was trapped in his kennel, yelling out to be rescued. Unknown to us, instructors were watching us, to see how we interacted with the dogs.

Part of our duties was to walk the dogs, there was a paddock up the top end of the school where we took the dogs, walked them around and groomed them. One day I drew the short straw and was tasked with walking and grooming Carl. Got him out of the kennel OK, walked him up to the paddock OK and sat on a log for a smoke. Carl lay down and started rolling around so I reached out and gave him a bit of a scratch. Oops, Carl came up fighting. I stood up quickly, extinguished my smoke and took him back to his kennel. Bloody crazy dog!

I of course had my favourites, Sam being number one. Sam only had one eye and was not really aggressive, but very, very confident, about two or three years old, set in his ways and wouldn’t be pushed around. We formed a good bond and I got along well with him. Every morning the dogs were exercised on a walking machine, Sam being the only one that gave any trouble: Being as he only had one eye, he was terrified of the thing and objected very strongly to the instructors forcing him onto the machine, snapping snarling and carrying on. One morning I saw one of the CPLs wrestling with him, so I stepped up to assist feeling sorry for Sam as he was obviously terrified. I gently coaxed Sam on to the machine and stayed with him for his exercise, talking to him and settling him down. Nevertheless, every morning the instructor would drag poor old Sam onto the machine snapping and snarling, never once trying a different method.

Course started and on the first day we were asked to submit a list of dogs we were interested in and also a list of dogs we were most definitely not interested in, Carl made it on to everyone’s not interested list. The instructor entered the room and without a word wrote the names of the dogs on the board selected for course: Guy, Boy, Prince, Brutus, Fred and last of all, Carl. He then entered a recruit’s name next to each dog. By the time he got to Carl, my name was the only one left. To say I was upset is an understatement. My First thought what must these instructors think of me?

First time out in the field we entered our dog’s kennel, hooked the lead on and walked the dogs out, no problem, Carl was happy with that. But, the whole time I was out in the field training, I kept on worrying about kennelling him up and getting out of his kennel intact. As it turned out, Carl didn’t object at all.

The first few days were very hard on the dogs, as a result, as we recruits entered the kennels, the dogs saw their handlers coming, so rushed into their kennel boxes refusing to come out. Not Carl, he was at the gate wagging his tail and very happy to see me. Carl picked up things quickly and was ecstatic to see me everyday. About eight or nine days into course Carl developed red splotches on his neck so he was kennelled in the isolation kennels until they could find the problem. I continued training him and he continued wagging his tail being happy to see me. Carl had amazing sight, the isolation kennel was right up the top of the school near the exercise paddock, about 200metres from the classroom, every time I stepped out of the classroom he’d look and when I got about 150metres away he’d recognise me and jump up and down wagging his tail and howling. He was going to be a great dog.

Unfortunately, the red splotches spread to much of the rest of his body and two weeks into course he was taken to the Vet for the second time. When the Husbandry SGT returned he was without Carl. An instructor took me aside, told me Carl had been withdrawn from course and told me my new dog was Dante, ‘oh no’ said I ‘another crazy’

I never saw Carl again, presumably he was euthanised, I was never told why.
 
Great story Toglhot. Most dogs are good at heart; some difficult ones just need the right approach, like Carl.
Very sad ending that he went without you saying goodbye.
 
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