Canine First Stray to Work For the Law
By Alicia Doyle, Ventura County Star (Ventura County, Calif.)
Three years ago, Dutch was a skinny stray puppy looking for food in a church alley. Today, the German shepherd is the first police dog in Ventura County, Calif. that went from the streets to fighting crime.
“Something like this is very rare,” said Cmdr. Jerry Beck of the Port Hueneme Police Department, which launched the county’s first canine program in the late 1970s. Dutch started working for the department in 2001.
“Now we’re the first to add a dog like Dutch to our program,” Beck said. “We’re once again pioneering something new.”
Now flashback three years.
Becky Miller, wife of Port Hueneme canine officer Bob Miller, found a hungry stray roaming in the alley near St. Paul’s United Methodist Church in Oxnard.
“He was a long, lanky little dog with big ears, and I could tell he had been out for awhile,” recalled Becky Miller of Oxnard, who already had four dogs at the time, including her husband’s police dog, Spike.
Known in their community for helping strays, the Millers gave the puppy a temporary home while seeking a new owner. After two weeks passed, “we knew we had another dog,” Becky Miller said.
Spike bonded instantly with Dutch, who soon began to tag along during Spike’s ongoing canine training. It wasn’t long before the puppy began to pick up Spike’s skills.
“That’s when I wondered if I could get a dog to go from a stray to police work,” said Bob Miller, a Port Hueneme canine officer since 1995 who has worked with many police dogs over the years. “I figured Dutch had the potential.”
Word about Miller’s efforts spread to David Inglis, a retired Ventura Police Department lieutenant who runs the Inglis Police Dog Academy along with his wife, Debbie, a former dog trainer.
Inglis gave Dutch free lessons when he discovered that Miller was working with the dog for free.
“Here’s a guy who’s using his family dog and coming on his own time, so I didn’t charge him,” said Inglis.
Police departments, he noted, pay about $12,500 for a working police dog and training.
While Dutch was attending canine school, “he kept surprising me all the time,” Inglis recalls. “He’s just one of those dogs that you could say ‘do this’ and he’d do it. I was constantly surprised at how well Dutch caught on, and his willingness to do the things he needed to do. He just had a heart to work.”
Spike died from a lung infection in 2001, the same year that Dutch earned his certification as a working police dog. Because there were no openings for a canine at the time, the pair continued training and finally hit the streets as official partners in July 2003. They make felony stops, conduct crowd control and handle other police work.
Like most canine teams, Dutch and Miller are typically deployed for high-risk situations, such as searching for suspects hiding in cars and buildings. Police dogs are efficient because they convey a different message than police officers, Miller said.
“When there’s a dog present, it’s a different story,” he said. “Dogs gain some respect.”
For instance, if a crowd is causing a problem and only four officers arrive on scene with one dog, “the crowd starts paying attention,” Miller said. “They know a policeman can’t shoot them ... but they don’t want to get bit by a dog. They’re not willing to take that chance.”
Miller believes there are other dogs like Dutch that could work as police canines if given the opportunity.
“This means giving them the time and effort to test them, work with them and get them on the streets,” Miller said.
Inglis said Miller and Dutch are an unusual example of what’s possible in the line of police work.
“This is a fellow who’s had dogs his whole life and was very much involved with Dutch’s training -- not a lot of people would be willing to do that,” Inglis said. “This is a combination effort on the part of the officer and the dog.”
Beck agreed Dutch and Miller are a rare success story, pointing to the fact that many dogs bred in Germany for police work don’t graduate to the next level.
“When you think about how many dogs don’t make the cut and that a stray made the grade, it’s fantastic,” Beck said. “This is something very rare that takes not only a special dog, but a special handler as well.”