Thanks for dogged love

By Andrew Stackpool

LAC Greg Koenig, his wife Kelly and son Nikolas were one of the families to be presented with a certificate of appreciation from the School of Fire and Security at RAAF Base Amberley for caring for a future working dog named Piper, at right with CPL Ben Geurts.

Photo by CPL Ro Burke

* * Certificates of appreciation have been presented to families who looked after MWD pups.

FOSTER families with dogged determination have handed back five seven-monthold German Shepherd puppies to RAAF Base Amberley so the dogs can continue their lives in Defence.

As a token of thanks, on March 2 the RAAF Security and Fire School CO, Wing Commander Dale Watson, presented certificates of appreciation to the families.

The School operates a dogbreeding program to provide the ADF with German Shepherd and Belgian Malinois military working dogs.

The Juvenile Canine Development Cell (JCDC) manages the program.

According to Sergeant Kyle McQueen, from the School, periodically some of the four-month old pups are found to require more intensive environmental and social exposure than is available at the cell and are fostered to selected families.

“The families have them for three months and return them to us at seven months,” he said.

After their return, the pups are reintroduced to training to remember what they had been taught before they went on the foster program, and are re-evaluated for their potential to become MWDs.

All five pups recently fostered passed the re-evaluation.

“The JCDC staff are extremely pleased with the high standard of the dogs returning to the juvenile program,” SGT McQueen said.

“We found that they had done a complete turn around, in terms of their performance.

While they were lagging in some specific areas compared to the kennel- reared pups, they were much stronger in those areas where they had previously been weak.”

SGT McQueen said fostering was like a “puppy kindergarten”.

“The more they are exposed to aspects of their development that are weaknesses or potential weaknesses, the less problems they might have later in life.

In the foster environment they will become used to those problems and overcome their fear of them.

The foster environment is a model for real-world situations.”

SGT McQueen said he put out an expression of interest for suitable families and was inundated with offers from Amberley.

“I have a pool of some 25 families and hope to build up a good- sized network.

We are continually looking for potential foster families in the greater Brisbane area.”

He said the School provided everything, including food and emergency veterinary aid.

 

A CARER’S PERSPECTIVE Leading Aircraftman Greg Koenig and his family cared for a 17-week-old female MWD pup. “The pup was fantastic,” he said. “She just wanted to play and we had dog toys for her. She was rough on the backyard as she enjoyed digging it up. At least that helped turn the garden beds. “At the beginning, she was worn out after a walk round a single block.

 

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