Running a Bomb Dog with Buck Allen | SOURCE

Hey everyone, and welcome back to The Source Podcast, all things working dogs. This is Maya, and today I'm joined with my co-host Adam Crenshaw.

That's right, I'm back.

And our guest, Mr. Buck Allen, who some of you may remember from his time at CCU. If you want to go ahead and introduce yourself a little bit.

See, this is what's throwing me off because she just introduced me.

Well, you know, Buck, I don't think you really need much of an introduction if it's people that, that have been trained under you. So, you know, we were talking earlier and we said, Buck, would you, would you be referred to as famous or infamous. So, uh, I mean, the listener shall decide.

Well, for quite a few years I was known as the mean instructor.

Yeah.

Um, but yeah, I instructed here for 9 years.

Hurt a lot of feelings.

Yeah, hurt a lot of feelings, uh, especially in the bomb dog program because I was very hard on the bomb guys. Um, you know, prior to that I worked overseas, Iraq, Afghanistan, handling bomb dogs and bombing patrol dogs, was in law enforcement before that. So, you know, been working in some aspect with K-9 since 2008. Wow.

So what initially brought, like, your attention to bomb dogs? Why did you want to be a bomb dog handler?

He's psychotic. That's—

well, uh, 2011, when I was leaving law enforcement, I wanted to go overseas contracting. And bomb dogs were what was available. I mean, you didn't have a lot of drug dogs that were going overseas. I mean, there was a few in Afghanistan when I was working there, but primarily it was bomb dogs. You know, vast majority of the dogs were bomb dogs. I'd say well over 90, 95%. So that is what was available. You know, I wanted to, I wanted to go over there and a lot of it was, yeah, I wanted to work a dog. I wanted to work a dog, believe it or not. In that theater, and it was great money. That was a big part of it. We used to tell the military guys, you know, we basically do pretty much the same job, but we get 3 times the pay and y'all get 3 times the pride for your job.

Yeah, high risk, high reward.

Yeah, but you know, when I first started doing it, it was, you know, I told my wife I was going to go and do a contract. She goes, well, you you should be back in at least 2 years. I said, 2? No, no, no, no, no, I'm gonna do 1. I'm gonna make some money, pay off some bills, and that's going to be it.

Well, how'd that work out?

3 contracts later, you know, and believe it or not, I actually really enjoyed it. We didn't have children at the time, it was just me and my wife, and, you know, we were able to pay off a lot of bills and, you know, provide some extras and stuff like that. But I really did. I enjoyed the work. You know, I had a guy that I went to Iraq with the first time, who— his name was David. David had been contracting for years at that point, and he and I still stay in touch to this day. And he told me, he said, look, man, working a dog over here, a bomb dog, is different than working a dog back home. He said, you're either going to go over there, you're going to start doing it, and you're going to hate it. And you're going to do one contract and you're going to be done. You're going to check it off your list as things you did in your life and call it a day. He said, or you're gonna, for lack of a better term, get addicted to it. And that's kind of where I found myself. I, I would say addicted to it, but I actually enjoyed the work.

I really did.

It was very— not just financially, but it was very fulfilling. You know, I think those of us that are in law enforcement and stuff like that, you know, we have that protector type mentality. And for me, that was really fulfilled, as corny as it sounds, you know, in that environment.

I can absolutely see that.

Yeah.

It feels purposeful.

Yes.

Yeah. And even when I came home, you know, running the bond classes here was one of my primary primary jobs and, you know, kind of developing that program into, you know, what it takes to actually go out and do this job and survive. And that was always the mentality I took with it is, you know, certification was, yeah, you need to get certified. But my main focus was to teach these guys how to stay alive. So it wasn't about checking the boxes for SERT. It was about knowing how to deploy.

Yeah, we were, we were talking the other day, bringing up some Buck stories. and we were sitting right in this room and we were talking about, you know, how you hurt some feelings. You know, you'd have somebody doing route clearings and stuff like that, and then you would just go, boom, you're dead. Get, get that dog off my field. You know? Um, but you know, that, that was the thing, the point that, that we were making. Um, you know, when Simon and I were talking about it and having good laughs, we were thinking, or we were talking about how you did it not to just make that handler feel like crap, but for the betterment of the handler. You know, Simon talked you up real, real big the other day, which 50% lies, 50% true, whatever. But, but he was, he was talking about how you did a lot of things. And I guess we can attribute it to real-world application. You did a lot of things that made sense in order to protect that handler and that dog in a, in a real-world deployment in training. You married the two. You married training and real world together.

Very well.

That's why, you know, when we were working together here, um, someone— if I'm—

if—

because sometimes you would be busy and be like, hey, can you take this guy and do a, do a sweep this, or go do this? And I'm like, dude, I don't like doing the bomb dog stuff. And then when they'd ask me a question, I'd be like, save it for Buck. Just remember the question because I don't know. And, uh, but do you think, like, you know, you, you, you built a, a very good and successful bomb program here, here at Custom K9. Do you feel like that, that real-world experience helped you really develop that niche in, in developing that, that course?

Absolutely. So me and Alan Copps, who is a wonderful trainer in South Carolina, who I've known for—

since 2008, 2008.

Yeah, man's a wonderful dog trainer. He's one of the guys on my list that if I'm having problems with a dog, I call him.

Absolutely.

And me and him— and he's a long-time bomb guy— and me and him were talking one day and we were talking about the difference between a drug dog handler and a bomb dog handler. And I don't take anything away from drug dogs or drug dog handlers. Now we'll joke and we'll cut up, you know, and, you know, I'll tell friend when he's all grown up and a real man and he starts handling a bomb dog. Nope.

I'll stay a boy. No thanks. The stuff I look for doesn't blow up.

But we were talking one day about the difference between the two, and we came up with it as trainers, as people who were training drug dog guys and bomb dog guys. You know, there's stuff that you can get away with a drug dog with, you cannot get away with with a bomb dog. And, you know, for instance, you know, with a drug dog, you can prep the building prior to going in. We don't have that luxury. You know, we have to take it as it sits. If the lights are off or on, you know, with the drug dog, you can turn them back on if you need to. We don't do that with a bomb dog. We don't open and close circuits. You know, just examples. I mean, stuff that we have to think about that drug dog guys don't have to think about. And our conclusion was pretty simple. If we teach a drug dog handler to handle like a bomb dog handler, he'll be fine. No, he won't have any issues. But if we teach a bomb dog handler to handle like a drug dog handler, they run a high probability of getting hurt or getting somebody else hurt. So having that real-world experience and a lot of it for me I had to learn on the fly. I mean, there was some stuff when I went to my first bomb dog school, there was some stuff that, yeah, was very different than what I did with drug dogs here. So, and a lot of it was those instructors coming in, going, hey man, you can't do that with a bomb dog. But when I got overseas, I very quickly realized, and I was very fortunate that I had a very, very good kennel master at my first contract in Baghdad named Matt. Matt was a great boss. He was a— well, he wasn't a boss. Matt was a great leader and good dog guy. And, you know, he was one of those guys, if we were having a problem with a dog, he knew there was men on our team like me and David who had been trainers and stuff, who he would come to us and be like, hey guys, let's, let's throw around some ideas, see how we can fix this. You know, he didn't, he wasn't that guy that, by God, it's my way and this is how it's going to be. But he really kind of put me in the mindset, if you will, of not only trying to do my job, but trying to do my job in the safest way possible. And there was stuff that I found for, for me in my experience and the way I handled that, I felt was safer than what, you know, most guys or some guys would do because I looked at everything as a calculated risk. You know, we had— I've seen guys that— and this is going to open a can of worms, but I've seen guys who run bomb dogs off lead that way they can build distance. I never was comfortable with that. I tried it. I mean, I tried it with my first bomb dog. I never was comfortable with it. I found I was more productive on a long line. And, you know, and I can sit here and tell you stories that go both ways about the pros and cons either way. A lot of it's just finding what's best for you.

And some of that comes with experience.

It does.

It really does. And, you know, I don't want to get into a bunch of stories as far as on lead versus off lead. That's a whole separate podcast.

So, but make, make a note. That's Buck's next podcast.

But being able to come in here and like I say, not just tell these guys, hey, you know, follow the dog around, the dog's butt hits the ground, throw the toy. But being able to explain to them from, you know, this is what I've seen in the real world. This is what it's going to take to keep you in one piece. That was definitely a big driving force, if you will, behind how I taught the stuff I taught, even down to, you know, anybody who's been through a bomb course that I taught will tell you I was tougher on them than I was on the drug guys. I never tried to hide that. I tell them that from the get-go. I will be harder on you than I will be on the drug guys. For me, the biggest fear I had, without getting too personal with The biggest fear I had handling a bomb dog is that I would screw up and not that I would get hurt. But, and like I say, as cliché as it sounds, but that I would get somebody else hurt. That was a legitimate fear for me. And it kept me on my toes because what I didn't want is to have to go to somebody a year or two down the road and explain to a little girl or a little boy that I got their daddy killed because I got complacent. Placing her. I screwed up, or I wouldn't take it seriously.

Yeah, that— one of the things I remember you saying to a class, um, was you kind of showed your hand a little bit on why you were tougher on them. I remember you saying that, you know, yes, I'm, I'm going to, to get you stressed out because if you can't handle this kind of stress, you know, this stress that's induced by instructor yelling at a handler or, you know, kicking a handler off the field because he did something stupid or whatever, you can't handle that stress, then the stress of a real-world deployment where there's actual risk involved, then maybe they need to rethink. What would you tell, you know, someone that may be listening that's like, man, I'm really interested in maybe handling a bomb dog because You know, to my knowledge, we, we— there's not been a bomb dog explanation on a podcast or anything, you know, really. So, you know, we have a lot of interest, but, you know, but what would you tell somebody, like, how to prepare? Like, you know, is there a specific makeup of person? Is it things that can be trained in a person to handle, or does it kind of need to be more natural. What advice would you give somebody that's like, man, I kind of want to handle a bomb dog, how do I prepare myself?

So yes to a lot of that. I think some of it is natural. I think a lot of it is experience-based. Like if you told me, give me the perfect makeup for the perfect bomb dog handler and When you were— when you said that, it actually came to my mind, and I've said it for years. If you had to— if you had to tell me, give me one person that you can pick that is the perfect bond dog handler as far as mindset and the way they think, it's Noah.

Yeah.

Yeah. Noah is, in my opinion, the poster child. And if you're listening to this, love you, Noah.

You're a good-looking man, though.

But Noah, when I was training was the epitome of the perfect bomb dog handler, in my opinion. Now, this is a man who had years in law enforcement. He'd been SWAT operator for years. To my knowledge, he still is. I don't know. Um, but Noah could think very quickly on his feet, and, and this is stuff that I ain't gonna say he was better at it than me, but he was better at it than me. Especially at where he was in training versus where I was years earlier at the same point in training. He could take direction very well. He didn't get his feelings hurt if I got on to him about something. And yes, I would induce stress, but I would— as they got better and better, the stress got turned up higher and higher. You know, you didn't come out day one and, you know, rake a guy over the coals. You know, because he walked through a door and didn't sniff it first. Noah could take direction very well, and that's a big thing. But Noah was teachable, and when you explain something to Noah, he could process it and he could apply it immediately. And if he messed something up, all you had to do was come to him and be like, you're trying here, but I need you to tweak this, and he could do it. But the big thing is the way he thought. So what I always used to tell people when I was teaching is a bomb dog handler has to be like a duck on the water. So if you look at a duck on the water, a duck can go across the top of the surface of the water and barely make a ripple, but underneath the surface, what you can't see is those little feet are paddling, you know, 90 miles a minute. And that's what a bomb dog handler has to be like. On the surface, what people see, you're calm, you're cool, you're collective, and you're calculating. But up here in your head, you've got to be processing stuff, you know, 100 miles an hour because you're not just reading the dog. You're not just, you know, looking to see if the dog's in odor. Yeah, I'm looking at that. I'm looking to see if my dog's in odor. but I'm also thinking 2, 3 steps ahead, not only for where my dog is going, but how I'm going to manipulate the line to turn him where he needs to go next, to make sure that I'm hitting all my productive areas, areas where I'm likely to pick up odor. Um, so I'm reading that environment, I'm reading the dog, I'm processing 2, 3 chess moves ahead. And, you know, at the same time, I'm reading the wind, you know, I'm reading the terrain. You know, I have to have an understanding of how odor is going to move on the wind, how terrain is going to affect that odor. And that's not something that comes natural to most people. You know, a lot of people being calm under pressure. Yeah, that might come naturally or might be experience-based, but understanding how to put this dog where he needs to be because how odor moves and how odor is manipulated and what that environment is doing to that odor. Is crucial. And for people who might want to get into this profession, I'm not trying to discourage anybody, um, that's a big one. You know, how do you process stuff on your feet? You know, I had a handler one time, I won't call his name, but he, uh, we were getting close to the end of this class and his dog was showing good odor in an area, but he just could not figure it out. And, and it was set up to be a hard hide. It was set up to be challenging, and really it was set up for him to learn, and, you know, not necessarily for it to be an easy find. He made the fatal mistake of where his dog was indicating, he walked past that area. And when he walked past that area, the real-world implication is that you either trip something, or either way, you're deep in the hurt locker now. You're dead. And I told him, I said— I was sitting on the couch watching, and I told him, I said, ah, you're dead. Take your dog out, think about why you're dead, and then I'll come out there and talk about it. Don't talk to anybody else in the class about what happened. And, uh, this old boy lost it. He snapped on me, yelled at me. And, uh, I told everybody else that wasn't an instructor to leave the room, which was just one other student, and it was a trainer student. I told him to leave the room, and, uh, I told him— well, I told him a few things, one of which was he wasn't going to raise his voice to me.

Yeah, check that tone at the door. Yeah, got a lot of bass in your voice.

Yeah, actually, I told him he better take the bass out of his voice. And, uh, I explained to him, I said, look, if you can't handle stress that I induce in a controlled environment, this, this profession is not for you. Um, and that's honestly, that was my approach. It's not everybody's approach to it, but he was to a point where he should have been able to handle that, in my opinion. And I told him, I said, look, there's a lot of good handlers out there that wouldn't make terrible bomb dog handlers. If you can't handle this, you can't work a drug dog. Not taking anything away from the drug dogs, but that's something you don't have to worry about, you know. Is, is that, like I say, it's— bomb dog handling is one of those things that, you know, if you think you're— if you think you've got the right mentality for it, by all means, give it a shot. But don't be afraid to be truthful with yourself. Yeah. You know, if you, if you find, you know what, I just, I don't feel like I'm the safest person to do this. Yeah. Yeah.

You know, backing up a little bit, talking about kind of the, that makeup of a bomb dog handler. You mentioned Noah earlier, you mentioned Alan Cox, and both of which are pretty calm individuals. Like they, they don't get riled up very easy. Everything they do is smooth, calculated. You know, I've seen just Alan Cox, even if it's not doing a bomb sniff when he's tracking, if he's off, he may put his dog at a down stay, take a knee and think through his next step. That's so— yeah, I think I see that, you know, where you kind of have to have that a little bit natural makeup of I can remain calm under stress, I can be calculated. And think 3, 4, 5 steps ahead, which is something I'm terrible at, hence why I would never work a bomb dog.

A lot of people, they— you hear it so much now it almost becomes cliché, but it really is true. It's the epitome of slow as smooth as smooth.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

I mean, it really is.

And then, and then the other part of that is you're also controlling an animal during that, which is, which is a totally different thing. You know, that comes through your training your line work, all of those things. How important, you know, let's, let's say you got a guy and he's got the makeup, you know, natural ability to do these things. Like, what other mechanics other than just how he is goes into handling a bomb dog? I guess to me, if you're a successful bomb dog handler, you haven't blown yourself up. Maybe that's— I don't know if that's the right look at it. Yeah, exactly. You know, but one of the things that sticks out to me is line work. You used to instruct heavy on line work, making, making smooth transitions from one location to another. All these things. What are those mechanics that you instruct handlers working bomb dogs to do to be successful? And I guess in being successful, you're being safe. What other, you know, is there anything, is line work it?

Line work's a big part of it, and we'll get into why. You know, a lot of it is taking a second before you go in to, to read that situation and read your approach. You know, I used to tell people on a building approach with a drug dog, yeah, we can go, we can go in, we can prep the area, we can look for plain view drugs, we can do all this kind of stuff. With a bomb dog, when I come into that, you know, my sniff starts pretty much after I get the dog out of the truck and break it. And especially if I've— if we're doing something like a dynamic entry and I'm clearing a route for a SWAT team that's coming behind me, you know, so I have to think about that. You know, not only am I clearing a path for me and the dog, not only am I being careful not to step anywhere the dog hasn't been, but I got to make sure that these guys that are coming behind me ain't stepping over where the dog hasn't been. You know, The mechanics of it and proper line work, and even down to the way that you talk while you're handling, are very important. For example, my last bomb dog that I— he was the last dog I worked in Afghanistan, and then when I went back to Iraq, I took him with me. He was a Dutch Shepherd named Roos, and Roos was head and shoulders the best bombing bomb dog I ever I ever worked as far as me working. And what I started to see, because I was a big stickler on my line work and we did a lot of route clearance and we did a lot of building clearing as well as vehicles and stuff. But what I started to see the more we got training, when I would manipulate the line, especially working a 30-foot line, when I would manipulate the line, I would always do it the same way with my hands, right, left, and whatnot. I started noticing one day that Roofs, when I would go to manipulate the line right, he would go to turn before the line actually put pressure on the collar. And I realized that without knowing it, I had taught my dog hand signals. And, uh, and so I started messing with it. I'd point just like I always would with the line. I'd point, and if he didn't turn, I'd give a little tug and he'd turn. And, you know, but that wasn't something that he just happened to pick up. You know, that was something that took us hundreds of man-hours of training. And it was the same thing with him verbally. I could let him into a room and I could, depending on how large the room was, you know, I could clear most of the room without stepping in it. You know, a room this size I'd never walk into. Or, well, you ran a very high probability I'd never run into. It, or never go into it, excuse me. But I also could, because I had paired the corrections and the guide rope with the leash, and then with what I was saying verbally, you know, I could manipulate Roos' movement verbally. If he was going around a room and he missed what I thought was a productive area, all I had to do, I tell him, say, "Back up, up, up." and he'd go up, he'd sniff, I tell him good boy, and we continue on. Yeah. Um, but that's something that, because I understood— and I'm not trying to sound like I'm bragging— because I understood the dynamic behind pairing command and correction as long, and then praising the behavior I wanted, that I was able to teach him. But, you know, not only having the mechanics, but having the right mechanics and then sticking to it as far as rep after rep after rep. I see a lot of dogs, whether they be police dogs, contract dogs, whatever, that are mediocre at best when they have the potential to be great. And I've seen a lot of great dogs that you never would have thought from the jump would have been great dogs, but their handler put in rep after rep after rep and not just go into training, but putting in good quality training and being consistent and, you know, being patient, understanding, you know, Rome wasn't built in a day and you're not going to build that dog in a day.

Yeah, we've talked a lot about what it takes, you know, for the handler. But what about, what about dog selection for a bomb dog? I think You know, because that, that can— they may make a heck of a dope dog, but they may not be the dog you want to go sniff for something that goes boom. What, you know, what, what, what would you look for in selecting a bomb dog candidate?

So that was one of the things I used to do when I was here, as you well know.

Yeah.

If we had a group of dogs that hadn't been imprinted yet, we had class coming up that had, let's say, 2 bomb and 2 drug handlers in it. Just for, you know, giving a number. You know, we'd bring the dogs in and there was certain testing I would do to determine who was going to be my bomb dog, who was going to be my drug dog. And there's times I'd walk out of a building and I'd look at the dog or look at kennel staff and say, this dog right here may find one bomb. It'll be his first and his last.

Yeah. So basically, if the, if the dog looks like he's on crack, he probably doesn't need to be a bomb dog.

I like a fast dog personally. I like a, I like a dog that's 900 miles a minute. The flip side of that is I've also got more experience than a new handler, right, on how to work a line and how to give and take pressure where it needs to be taken to get that dog where I want him to go. Um, the biggest thing that I would look for on dogs, yes, I need a dog that can, that's high drive. But I don't need a dog who's aggressive with odor, you know. I don't need a dog who is going to sniff something or he's going to go chasing a ball and the first thing he's going to do is just start, you know, beating the crap out of a locker trying to get the ball out of it, or punching it with his face or anything like that. I've tested quite a few bomb dogs that, yeah, they'd find a ball that we might have thrown under a chair or something like that and they just back up and wait. And that's one of the things, when I see that, I'm like Okay. Now, I've trained some bomb dogs that I remember we did a couple of bomb dogs for a department years ago. And the trainers or the— some of the senior handlers who were all drug guys, they wanted to test the dogs and they picked these two dogs. They were both floppy-eared dogs. They picked these two dogs who were great dogs. They— but they were also the last two dogs out of the fit to be bomb dogs. Because one of them was extremely aggressive with Oakley, and that was something that we were able to train out of. But if I don't have to untrain that, but that natural behavior, I'd rather not, as long as the dog's got the drive, you know, to carry it over.

Yeah.

Um, but yeah, I mean, there's a lot of stuff that goes into selection. I mean, without even looking at patrol and tracking ability or you know, anything like that. The biggest thing with the dog for a lot of this is environmentals. You know, bomb dogs go a lot of places that drug dogs just necessarily don't. You have bomb dogs that work in a courthouse. So this dog may be searching, you know, a parking deck at a courthouse, or they might be in the courthouse as people are coming through or what have you. That's a dog who has to be able to work around other people, you know. And I see a lot of, a lot of dogs who, especially you get them in the public like that, everybody wants to come up and pet them. Yeah. You know, I like that handler who's not afraid to look at them and say, hey, he's working right now. You might ruffle some feathers. I've done it, you know. Um, I remember in Afghanistan, I had a little girl want to come up, pet my dog. And my dog, uh, it was my second bomb dog. It was questionable at times if he even liked me, but she wanted to come up and pet my dog. I told her, I said, man, he's not a people person. And she got mad at me. She goes, well, he's a military working dog. I said, he's a contract working dog, but yeah, how is he not a people person? I said, he's a working dog, he's not a pet, right? And she got mad at me, and I thought, you know what, I should just be like, okay, And at your own risk.

Yeah, that's the new patch we need to have.

There you go.

A t-shirt, maybe.

Yeah, because I'm telling you, he would have ate her up. This dog had just got off a flight in the back of the noisy C-130 from, uh, Kandahar, and we were on a flatline, and he was not happy. Yeah, he— it was hot, he was tired, I was tired, we were both over it.

You were both ready to bite her.

Yeah, yeah, but, uh You know, and that's the thing, handling this environment, you know, the first dog we did for Clemson University several years ago, when we went up there and we looked, we met with a handler who had handled before, Zach Owen, and we went through the route that he took on game day and stuff. And as we were going to leave, AJ looked at me, he goes, what do you think? I said, he needs a fast dog that is very very thorough, who can run for a long time. And AJ goes, can you train it? I said, yeah, this is easy. I said, I don't train the dog for the handler. I train the dog for me because that's the type of dog I like. And I'm talking about a dog who can ignore the crowd, you know, stuff like that. And I did. And Zach was great. He took direction very well. And once he once he got that dog and he started working, and he started— he actually told me one time, he goes, you know, my last dog, I don't— he said, I worked for— I think he worked that dog for 4 or 5 years. He said, I don't know how I'm not dead. Oh gosh. Um, he said, because what we're doing here is so much— and I'm not bragging on me, I'm just saying that's, that's the kind of dog I like. And this dog, when you talk about environmentals— now every dog's not going to have to do this with a bomb dog, but you know, Woodrow This was a dog who would be on the— and I actually did it with Zach one day. It was a few years back and Clemson was playing Louisville, and at that time for that season, it was the biggest game that they had had yet. And they beat Louisville like they owed them money, um, but it sold out crowd. There was people literally hanging on like the gates or the fences and stuff trying to look in. Sold-out crowd. I think they said there was like 30,000 people that were there who didn't even have tickets and were just like tailgating in the parking lot. It was ridiculous. And at one point, they wanted Zach to go sweep the sidelines. But here's the thing, we didn't pull the player. This was during a commercial break, so I went down there with Zach and, uh, we went to sweep the sidelines. Everybody was still down there— the players, coaches, cheerleaders, whatever, news media. It was such a big game that College GameDay was there. And Woodrow and Zach cleared Clemson and Louisville sidelines. Took them 2 and a half minutes.

No.

And when we came out, actually it was when Noah was in bomb school. Yeah. Because I took him up there with us and took a trainer student up there with us. And it was so loud you couldn't even hardly hear yourself think. And, uh, when we come off, knowing them told us that while we were down there searching, 2 and a half minutes to clear both sidelines with people on them. And it wasn't just walking them through, we were, we were clearing. They said it was 107 decibels on the field in a sold-out crowd with people screaming, and that dog could have cared less. The only time he came off a sniff, there was a kicker doing warm-ups, kicking the ball into a net. He kicked the ball and Woodrow looked over at it and went right back to work. Yeah, you know, so being able to handle that type of environment— not every dog's gonna have to do that, but, you know, we have quite a few handlers that we've trained over the years who, you know, go and do these big concert venues and Some of them travel all over the country with some of these companies clearing these concert venues and stuff like that. So being able to handle that environment is important, especially in the selection process. You know, there's a lot that goes into selecting a bomb dog that you might not necessarily have to worry about with a drug dog. You know, I don't, I don't know that many people that are putting a drug dog in a 50,000-seat concert or a college event.

Dog's going to be very busy.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

Dogs walking.

Willie Nelson concert. Dogs sitting, just walking in, just, okay, I'm here.

Get the dog out of the car, he goes and pees and just sits.

Yeah, yeah, that's it.

Um, but you know, and even being able to, to deal with people, you know, um, I hate to keep going back to the same dog, but like Woodrow, people be hanging down, hey Bucky, trying to get his attention, and he's like, nah. And one time it was during the spring game, the first time we took him up there, that dog up there, uh, he went up there and I was handling him, I believe. And a couple kids were like, hey buddy, Woodrow went over there, he's like, hi, I love you. And I'm like, Nate, find it.

Yeah.

And Zach never had to deal with that again. Yeah.

Well, you keep saying, keep saying Woodrow. Um, a lot of people that went to Clemson while he was working there don't know that dog is Woodrow.

Yeah, they call him Woody.

Yeah, so yeah, Woody. Um, one day they're gonna have like Woody Hall probably at Clemson because that, that dog, he was famous on campus.

He was. Yeah. Oh, they used to do this thing where they, uh, they put it out like on the website or whatever, the— I think it was Clemson Police website— so where's Woodrow? Yeah. And he would take a picture of him somewhere on campus and people would call, like, send in guesses as to where he was.

Yeah, yeah, that was— that's Woody for, for those who remember him fondly.

But no, I mean, it's like I say, it's a, it's a big thing as far as, you know, picking the, the right handler, but picking the right dog that can handle the type of environment you're going to be working in. And yeah, selection is, is crucial. You know, it's just like when we pick a protection dog, just because a dog's a good bite dog don't mean he's going to be a good protection dog. You know, just because a dog's a good bite dog don't necessarily mean he'd make a good police dog. Yeah.

So I guess my question would be, how important is that bond between a handler and a bomb dog?

In my opinion, it depends on the dog. So like I say, my dog Bo, my second— my male, my second bomb dog— it was questionable at times if he even liked me, but we still got the job done, right? You know, um, Roos liked me, but at the end of the day, it didn't matter who was on his leash, he was going to do his job. I was telling somebody the other day, we were talking about bomb dogs, and I brought up Roos. We were talking about out— actually outing McCoy. Roos had the mentality, and this was him, when we'd be doing a route clearance or anything really detection related, Roos would go in, he'd find the explosive, and I'd pay him. And he'd sit there and he'd play with a toy and, you know, whatnot. I'd go up to him, I might play with him for just a second, and usually when I stood up and he knew I was done playing, a lot of times he'd go ahead and spit the ball out and he'd go right back to work without— he didn't have to be told, he would go right back to work. But that was the kind of dog he was. What was funny though, he would out if he thought he was going back to work, but if we ever started walking back toward the vehicle, you wouldn't get that ball back. Yeah. Because he knew he wasn't going to get to work anymore. Woodrow was the same way. That's all that dog wanted to do was work. Uh, one of the, the last leg that, uh, that Zach was at Clemson when he had, uh, when he was working Woodrow before he went to another department, Woodrow jumped out of the, out of his truck and he kind of hitched a little bit on his leg and then he went right back to work. And not because Zach had to talk him into it, or, you know, because their bond was that way. He just— that dog wanted to work. And he told AJ— was up there with me, and we had a bunch of students up there— and he told me, he said, hey, will y'all look at this? He kind of hitched when he got out of the truck. I was watching him. I said, he ain't hitching now, you know, kind of limping or whatever. Well, he put him up, he goes to get him out again, and he does it again. And then he goes right back to work. Well, Zach started noticing he's, you know, he's a little soft on that leg, so he takes him to the veterinarian. The veterinarian runs a scan on him. They go, oh yeah, he's got a hairline fracture in his front— I think it was his front right leg. And that dog was still working. You know, Zach did a live deployment one day with him, and, um, they had a— it was a, I believe, an abandoned bag So he's clearing up to it like he's supposed to, and he's running a serpentine pattern, and he starts seeing— now this dog hasn't winced, he ain't limped, nothing, not yelped, anything— but he starts seeing blood on the ground where the dog's walking. So he calls him back to him, he says, come here. And it was dark outside, and he picked up his leg and the dog had a 40-penny nail sticking through his foot coming out the top.

Oh my God.

And he never slowed down working. Now, is every dog going to be that way? Absolutely not. Goggles in Myrtle Beach, who's another great bomb dog, uh, would she be that way? Yeah, you know. But you look at, you know, dogs like Goggles or Roos or Woodrow or a bunch of other dogs— I'm just naming some that come off top of my head— will they do the work without the Yeah, because that's them, you know. So how important is that bond with the handler? Yeah, you want that bond to be there.

Yeah.

But because when you tell that dog something, it needs to mean something, whether you're praising them or whether you're getting on to them. But, and it goes back to dog selection, a lot of times is what's this dog's work ethic like? And I think when you're looking at whether it's drug dog, a bomb dog, you know, that's a lot of what we look at. Yeah, there's some great dogs out there. My first bomb dog, I'll be honest with you, his name was Rex. I didn't like him because he was a shepherd. No, it's— well, no, it's just his— me and him were like oil and water. I mean, to the point where my kennel master in Baghdad actually told me, he said, I don't know why they paired you with this dog. He said Because a lot of times with him, you know, we'd be doing it. But once— I mean, you're— now you are talking about a hot environment. I mean, the hottest I ever seen in Iraq was 140. It was a dry heat, right? Yeah. I could throw a rock and hit the Tigris River for at least 6 feet. It was not a dry heat.

Dry heat.

You know what else is a dry heat? An oven.

It's still hot.

Yeah, that's hot. You know, I seen a dog one time hit the pit floor and start high stepping steal. Yeah, I saw Rex one day go to alert and he hovered about that high, about 3 inches off the ground.

Yeah, I'm not putting my butthole down there either.

Well, this interpreter kid, one of our interpreters, he goes, why is he doing that? I said, you strip your britches off and set your junk on that asphalt. Let me know how much you like it. But, you know, he had to be— he would have been a great dog at an apartment where he might be running a couple sniffs a night or something like that. But when— and it goes back to environment— a dog who we might be running a few hundred cars a day in that type of condition, you know, you had to really talk him into it, tease him into it, stuff like that. Whereas, you know, with some of these others I mentioned, you don't. I mean, you look at Woody at, uh, Clint's, which I think he's retired now, or Myrtle Beach and Goggles, if she still works there, she may be retired too. These were dogs who would— you had to stop, you had to slow down, or they would go till they just gave out.

Yeah.

Or, you know, or till they overheated themselves. And Roost, my last Mal dog, he was the same way. So bond, yeah, has a lot to do with it. But the main thing as far as selection when it comes to that is workability. Will that dog carry that mission through despite the bond. And I used to tell handlers here, with K-9, you don't get to have a bad day. You know, that dog does not understand from, from one day to the next. If, if you come to training, if you go to work and you and your wife just had an argument, she told you that she's cheating on you with the mailman and she's leaving, she don't love you anymore, she's taking the kids and you can go pound sand, she never loved you anyway. You know, this experience— no, no, it's what I told your wife to tell you. Nice. But that dog doesn't understand that. So all he knows is that the handler's upset, he don't know why. And that bond can play an effect there. And I've had dogs myself that were that way, that if I was upset, if I was mad or something, they knew it. But when it comes time to work, It's time to work and Daddy might be upset, but we got crap to do. Let's go. Yeah. Yeah. And a lot of that, like I say, goes back to selection and not only you selecting a dog, but being competent to perform that task. You know, there's a lot of great handlers out there who cannot select a dog or can't select a dog for the right mission. Just like we were talking about with the two floppy ear dogs earlier. Great dogs. But they were the last two dogs I would pick for a bomb dog. And it made my job a lot harder because of it.

Yeah. Well, I think we've had some good, some good discussion. I only have one other question. The last question I think we need to end on is if a bomb dog handler and a drug dog handler got into a fight, who's going to win? Or is it going to be a draw?

Who's working the mouth?

Huh?

Who's working them out?

No, no, no, no.

Who's working them out?

The drug dog handler.

Oh, he's— what's a bomb dog?

Floppy ear.

Well, the bomb dog handler is probably going to lose the fight, but he's got the floppy ear dog, so he's going to get a lot more attention from the nurses.

So he wins in the long run.

He wins in the long run.

Okay, leave it up to Buck to turn the Turned the tables on me.

All right.

Well, that didn't go how I wanted it to, but no, great, great discussion. It's always good to hear from Buck. We've worked together for a long time, known each other for a long time. So it's always good whenever I can see you and for you to be able to share your expertise in the bomb dog handling world because, you know, just because you may be great at training drug dogs and drug dog handlers. Bomb dogs, it's a totally different ballgame in my opinion.

It should be.

Yeah. And I will say this, one thing that I've taken from your instruction that I do even still is, and whether I need to or not, I don't know why, I just thought it was a great concept for bomb dogs. So I've kind of adopted it in, in drug dogs is I start my dogs search before the threshold.

Yeah.

You know, even though I can go into a building, turn ACs off, turn lights on, all that stuff, I've got— I can do all that. But for whatever reason, it just seems like a great concept to put into practice. Your dog's out. I mean, dope can be hidden anywhere for me. And so I start them out at the threshold. That's something I've kind of adopted.

Well, and it's important to do so. You know, I can sit here and tell you story after story of guys who went into the house, ran their drug dogs, and no, they know dope here, and then the drug unit finds it under the porch. Yeah, yeah. You know, which happened to somebody I know, know well. I know through somebody else, you know. Or you look at, uh, Ryan Watson, actually. Uh, when he was handling Nero, he— his dog caught odor and there was a bunch of weed actually hid out in the yard. Yeah, well, no, I think it was buried in a jar, but he, uh, uh, you know, the dog called odor and he read that behavior outside and went with it. So yeah, I mean, dope, like I say, can be hit anywhere. It's not just inside the house.

Yeah.

You know, even searching a car on the side of the road. I mean, how many times do we go up on a car and run the car and that's it? Yeah. And they toss the dope and they toss it over there 6 feet. The dog's trying to go to it.

We're sitting there going, nay, nay, how dare you find that dope? Get over here and sniff this car.

Exactly.

Yeah. So I think we've had a great, great conversation, you know, maybe hopefully answered a lot of questions for somebody maybe sitting on the fence or Should I, should I run a bomb dog? Maybe it's an interest. And even going into the differences of dope dog to bomb dog, the application, the differences in how we run these dogs because there are some, I think it's been a great conversation. Hopefully people listening can have at least a better understanding of what it takes to to run that, that kind of dog, that caliber of dog, and, and know what it takes to be that kind of person, to be crazy enough to handle a dog that's finding things that go boom, you know. But, but yeah, thank you. Thanks, Buck, for bringing your, your expertise. And you said anytime. We're gonna go ahead and put that on record, Maya. He said anytime. So, and we've already talked about the next The next one. Yeah. So, and then we'll talk about maybe one, one day we'll talk about floppy ear versus pointy ear. That'd be another conversation.

Well, thank you so much for joining us, Buck, and thank you to Crin for co-hosting another episode. I think we've got a familiar face around here. I hope everyone listening learned at least one thing from this podcast, like AJ says. We'll be back on Tuesday for our short set, and we will catch y'all in the next one. Don't forget to follow us on our social media accounts to stay up to date with all things CCU.