Cairo might have been better at skydiving than I was. I mean, he never jumped on deployment, simply because he didn’t have to—more often than not, we would land by a chopper and hike in to the target, or fast-rope from twenty to fifty or even one hundred feet overhead. But he jumped in training. A lot. And he was as cool as could be.
When we finished the program in California, we returned to Virginia for more training and to prepare for our next deployment. We took trips to various sites to work on different aspects of training—we’d go to Arizona, for example, to work on skydiving for a couple of weeks at a time. Of all the things I learned to do as a SEAL, skydiving was probably the one I found most challenging. Not because of the fear factor, necessarily; like I said, even though my knees would weaken and my stomach would rumble when climbing a utility pole on a summer job in high school, I didn’t really mind jumping out the back of a plane. That might sound illogical, but it actually makes perfect sense. Or, at least, it does to me and to a lot of guys with whom I served.
When you’re only a few stories above the ground, everything looks real—and yet, just distant enough to envision the damage that will be done when you splat against the pavement. From ten thousand feet, however, the earth seems distant and almost unreal. I rarely felt even the slightest flutter of butterflies when skydiving. Over the course of my navy career, I made at least three hundred jumps, nearly all of them during training exercises. I became competent enough that I never caused any problems or suffered any injuries, but it was not a strong suit. I knew some guys who were extraordinary skydivers, with thousands of jumps to their credit. They loved it! Didn’t matter if it was day or night, windy or calm. These guys just wanted to jump. They were the ones you wanted leading a string of guys out the back of a plane because that is a huge responsibility. You read the wind wrong, by even the slightest margin, and you can get fifty men hurt or killed in a hurry.
One of the reasons I regret not becoming more proficient at skydiving is because I never got the opportunity to jump with Cairo. The dogs, as you can probably imagine, did not jump alone. They were muzzled, harnessed, and tucked safely in a big pouch, almost like a baby carrier, worn by a human skydiver. Together, they would float to Earth under a huge tandem canopy. Typically, the dog carrier was one of the strongest jumpers in the unit. Practically speaking, for this particular exercise, skydiving skill was more important than dog-handling experience. Some dogs naturally found the experience terrifying.
Interestingly, though, most of the dogs seemed to almost enjoy the skydiving experience. Cairo fell into that category. I’d load him into the pouch of a more seasoned jumper and give him a big pat on the head before each jump. When it was time to exit the plane, I’d usually be somewhere in the middle of the line—the best jumpers would go first, leading the excursion, while the tandem jumpers (those carrying dogs, or paired with support personnel who had no jump training) would go last. I’d turn to Cairo and his handler, give them a thumbs-up, and leap out the open bay. A few second later, Cairo would be on his way. Sometimes, I’d look up and get a glimpse of him floating gently above me. I could almost see him smiling. He never freaked out. Not once.
I’ll admit that in those moments, I sometimes wished that Cairo had been attached to me. It would have been a cool experience. But it would have required significantly more advanced jump training, and I wasn’t sufficiently motivated. I have tremendous respect for the guys who dedicate themselves to it; it’s a vital part of the job, and it’s dangerous as hell. I’ve seen a lot of skydiving accidents in training. I just didn’t want to push my luck. Besides, I had my hands full with Cairo, even if he wasn’t jumping out of planes with me.
For the next six months, from December 2008 to June 2009, Cairo and I were virtually inseparable as we trained for our first deployment together. Technically speaking, military working dogs resided in kennels on the base, but Cairo often came home with me at the end of the day and slept in my house. This was frowned upon but usually ignored, as everyone understood the importance of a handler forging a tight bond with his dog. What better way to do that than by taking Cairo home and splitting a steak with him?
The training was ceaseless and at times challenging. I discovered quickly that Cairo, like all combat assault dogs, preferred bite work to almost any other aspect of training. This was both understandable and problematic. From our perspective, odor detection was the most important skill a dog could possess. The ability to sniff out weapons or explosives could save dozens of lives on a mission. To Cairo, though, the reward for even exemplary scent detection (a hug or a pat on the head, or even a treat of some sort) was far less satisfying than the rewards associated with the successful tracking of a target.
A bite.
Once a dog got his first taste of human flesh and blood, he naturally became even more committed to bite training. For Cairo, this happened during an exercise at a training center, while we were preparing for our first deployment. My friend Angelo, a master-at-arms, was playing the role of target as Cairo did some scent-detection work inside a very basic concrete building meant to simulate some of the places we would encounter in Iraq and Afghanistan. Angelo had positioned himself on top of a closet-like structure, some nine feet off the ground, while Cairo went about his business. Angelo was not wearing a bite suit because he was presumably safe from such a high vantage point. But when Cairo found Angelo—his target—he went absolutely nuts, jumping and barking like crazy. We all just sort of stood there watching as Cairo leaped higher and higher, until, somehow, Cairo soared high enough to sink his teeth briefly into the back of Angelo’s ankle. It wasn’t a serious wound, but it did hurt like hell.
It was one of the most impressive athletic feats I had ever seen from Cairo, and for the effort, he was rewarded with his first official bite.
The taste of blood.
Good luck competing with that. Cairo was a great dog, friendly and playful and trustworthy around strangers, but he was still a dog. Centuries of breeding, combined with the best training money could buy, had made him a highly adept hunter. Nothing made him happier than to sink his teeth into his prey. That’s just a simple, irrefutable fact. As a result, Cairo, like all combat assault dogs, required endless refresher training on the less enjoyable and (to them) more mundane aspects of their work, primarily scent detection. Once exposed to biting, especially real biting with bloody results, a dog wanted nothing more than to bite again.
Consequently, I began spending more time with Cairo working on scent detection than bite work. This had already been trained into him, but reinforcement was especially important given his natural inclination to be more interested in bite work.
Cairo was pretty good about maintaining a businesslike attitude, but there were days I could almost tell he was disappointed and bored:
Wait a minute. All I get is this tennis ball? I don’t give a shit about that anymore. I want to go find that dude we’re after and bite him. Okay?
This was especially true as the dogs became more seasoned. Therefore, it was important to work regularly on scent detection and find new ways to make the training interesting and fun. I frequently took Cairo to the beach and worked on odor detection with him. In Arizona, we’d do a full day of skydiving, and then, even if we were both exhausted, I’d make sure we got in some scent work. Once in a while, as a reward for good odor-detection work, I’d let him go after someone in a bite suit. For both of us, the bite work was more fun, but the scent work was more important, and it was a skill that deteriorated swiftly, so I tried to stay on top of it.
On a more fundamental level, dog handlers were constantly reminded of the fact that we were dealing with working dogs. I don’t mean we were reminded by navy brass or anything like that. No, I’m talking about the irrepressible DNA of a Belgian Malinois that has been bred for generations to be among the best working dogs in the world. I constantly worked Cairo not only because that was my job but because I knew how unhappy he would be if he didn’t get enough high-quality exercise.
Any working dog will make your life miserable if you are too selfish or lazy to recognize and respect his genetic makeup. When I was a little kid, we had a Siberian husky for a little while. His name was Smokey—appropriate enough, I suppose, because most of the time this guy ran around like his fur was on fire. I was too young to be his primary caretaker, and although I played around with Smokey a fair amount, I always ran out of gas before he did.
I remember one day he literally pulled a tree out of the ground. It wasn’t a huge tree, but neither was it a little wisp of sumac or some other shallow-rooted wannabe. Nope. It was at real tree, maybe ten feet tall, young, with a narrow trunk and low-hanging branches. New growth, no doubt, but settled enough to have sturdy roots. Well, one morning, Smokey started digging around the base of the tree, pawing and scraping and shoveling like a maniac. I sat out on the porch and watched with amazement as he dug frantically for what seemed like hours. Every so often, he would stop digging, rest for a minute or so, and then begin tugging on the tree. He’d wrap his jaws around the trunk and pull. Then he’d jump up and grab one of the branches and pull on that. Pretty soon, the tree was bent over at a forty-five-degree angle. Then a ninety-degree angle. At one point, I went outside and tried to coax Smokey away from the tree, figuring he’d have a heart attack if he kept it up much longer. But he wouldn’t quit.
It went on for most of the day—Smokey alternately digging and pulling, digging and pulling. At first, just his muzzle and paws were covered with dirt, but after a while, he almost seemed to change color. The entire front half of his body was caked with dirt. Periodically, he would stop and work his jaws and run his tongue over his teeth and the outside of his mouth. He would cough and do something that looked like spitting. Clearing the sand from his airway, no doubt.
But he would not quit, because, well, he was a husky, bred to run and race and fight. Every time I hear about someone buying a husky as a family pet, usually in response to some movie they’ve seen—or worse, because their kid had been following the Iditarod in school and thought the dogs were cute—I can only roll my eyes. You want to know what it’s like to own a husky? It’s like this: sitting in the backyard, watching Smokey pull a tree out of the ground with his teeth.
That’s the way the battle ended, with Smokey backing up and backing up, his paws dug into the dirt for leverage, his jaw clamped around the trunk, blood dripping from his teeth after hours of effort. There was no way he was going to give up. Either that tree would come out of the ground, or Smokey would die of a heart attack. And you had to respect him for that. Eventually, Smokey’s ceaseless effort was rewarded. The tree wiggled like a loose tooth and began to give up its roots. I remember being amazed at how much of the tree had been hidden beneath the surface: a couple of feet of tendrils, caked with dirt and debris.
When it was over, I applauded and ran over to give Smokey a hug, but he wasn’t all that enthusiastic. He sniffed at the roots, circled the tree for a minute or two, and then walked away and took a well-deserved nap.
That, in a nutshell, is what it’s like to own any type of working dog. Most people, I believe, are aware of what they are getting into, but not everyone. A few years ago, there was a movie called Max about the relationship between a military working dog and his handler, which predictably caused a spike in interest in Belgian Malinois. I can only imagine how unprepared most of these owners were for handling such a magnificent but demanding animal. This concept holds true for any dog bred to work. If you buy a hunting dog just because you like the way it looks and expect it to be happy lounging around your living room all day and night … well, be prepared to buy new furniture. I mean, you bought a hunting dog, right? Take him hunting!
Cairo was a military working dog, bred and trained to be part of the most elite fighting unit on the planet. He needed to work, and so I worked him. At least twice a day, I’d let him run until he’d had enough. As winter gave way to spring and our first deployment together loomed on the horizon, we spent less time at the beach and more time training on less forgiving surfaces: concrete, pavement, rocky hillsides, and mountains. Military working dogs don’t often wear boots, after all (I mean, booties are available, but the dogs hate them!), so they had to be acclimated ahead of time to the rough and uneven terrain they would face in the mountains of Afghanistan.
If Cairo had trained only on grass or sand, his feet would have been devastated by the shock of suddenly running all night over rocks and concrete. Even a properly prepared dog could find the transition challenging and end up with sores and blisters on his paws so severe that they limited his ability to work. To minimize the likelihood of foot problems, I worked Cairo daily over surfaces that ordinarily he might have found unpleasant. But he was such a happy and energetic dog that he quickly adjusted. We’d run together on sidewalks and uneven, rutted trails. We’d play fetch in parking lots. Slowly but surely, Cairo began to develop calluses on his pads—thick, crusty shields that would protect him against the brutal terrain he was soon to face.
By April he was ready—physically, temperamentally, tactically—for his first deployment.
And I couldn’t wait to see him in action.