Read Online War Dogs by Rebecca Frankel - Free Book Online

marks—like scorecards or bedpost notches—are brands of the job and worn withpride. The badder the dog, the bigger the bite; the deeper the scar, the better the story.
    On a training field one young handler pulls off his shirt and upends his bandages to reveal the bite he received the day before. In this case, the dog hadn’t taken a temperamental turn; rather, it was the handler who’d made a move in the wrong direction during their bite-work training so that the dog, aiming for the protective layers, missed, and ended up raking off a good bit of skin right under the handler’s rib cage. Because the dog’s teeth only grazed the handler’s side, the marks look more like scratches—angry red and all the deeper where the canines had pierced the flesh.
    In the PowerPoint presentation Jakubin uses during the class portion of his seminar, one of the slides shows a particularly heinous dog bite. The label over the photo reads: “Super Epic Failure!!”
    The skin in the photo is ripped so completely, it looks as though a crude blade had sliced a square patch of skin from the sweetest, fleshiest section of this handler’s forearm. The blood pools in the wound, threatening to spill over edge; the rest of her arm is spotted with drops of red. Jakubin was with Staff Sergeant Ciara Gavin before she was rushed to the hospital. It’s the worst dog bite he’s ever seen.
    Gavin worked in Jakubin’s kennel at the Air Force Academy. She’d been partnered with a long-haired German shepherd who had a sweet temper. While this sweet dog had been competent in detection work, he never took to bite work, so Jakubin traded him to another base that was having trouble with a dog named Kelly, notorious for her volatile temperament and erratic moods. Not so fondly referred to as a “nasty little bitch,” Kelly had bitten at least three handlers and sent them each to the hospital. When she came to the Air Force Academy kennels, Gavin became her handler. It was Kelly who tore that piece out of Gavin’s arm.
    Kelly’s K-9 portrait hangs in the hallway of the Academy’s kennel with the others. Her forehead is stout and square, her ears lean at a somewhat sharper bend, turning out at their own stubborn angle. The lids of her eyes have a reddish hue and actually seem to glow. There is no other way to describe it—the dog looks demonic. Gavin, on the other hand, appearsalmost angelic in a cherry red fleece; the softness of it seems to warm the space around her. Her brown eyes radiate kindness.
    At best Kelly was merely unpredictable. Her moods changed suddenly and without warning or provocation; one minute Kelly was vicious and the next compliant, lying on her back offering her belly up for a scratch. Gavin would see the devil flash and then it would disappear again. And when Kelly went to that instant and ferocious place, snarling and bucking, it was like a rodeo, and wrangling her back down into submission was no easy feat.
    There was nothing especially foreboding about the day Kelly bit Gavin. She and Jakubin were just trying to work the dog through the fierce possessiveness she showed for her toys, attempting to establish trust and consistency by showing the dog that if she released the toy she would get it back again.
    Gavin was only standing behind Kelly, raising her arms and lifting the dog by the collar when Kelly whipped her head around, sinking in her teeth. It was the day Kelly beat Gavin at the rodeo.
    It was six weeks before Gavin was able to use her hand again. When she returned to work, Jakubin put Kelly’s leash back in Gavin’s hand, and she took it without thinking twice. Gavin could have refused, but in her mind, picking up Kelly’s leash wasn’t a choice. Pure pride and ego kept her going. In the end, it was the good kind of ego that prevented her from letting her fear override her confidence. It’s this side of ego in a canine handler that