K9 Veterans Day: Thank You To Our Four-Legged Heroes Like Rico The Malinois

We deployed a couple of times together to Iraq, and then actually we fell from a helicopter together. I would say for a stressful situation, that was one of them. Master Sergeant Smith, retired out of 5th Special Forces Group. This is Rico. Rico is a retired Sergeant Major. He retired whenever I was in E-8, and they always retire one rank ahead of us, so he retired as a Sergeant Major. In the unit I was in, in 5th Special Forces Group, I kind of worked my way up, you know, and then I wasn't in E-8, so I couldn't be a Team Sergeant yet. And they asked me, they're like, hey man, do you want to be our dog handler? And I was like, yeah, if I can stay on the team, I will operate a dog for the team. And so I went and did some training at Von Lick Kennels in Northern Indiana. I showed up down to the kennels, then I was given a dog. That dog was what we call a retread. Somebody had already trained the dog and messed with him. My dog didn't work out, so right in the middle of the course, they switched dogs, which I was like, oh, I'm not gonna pass this course. You know, I got a new dog, I didn't know. No one really wanted Rico because he was such a circus dog. He could jump, you know, you'd bring him out of the kennel, he would jump on you and stuff, and a lot of people were fearful of it. Me being around dogs, I saw that as an opportunity. And then these guys are just jam-packed energy. I can't put it, I mean, if you could take energy and wrap it in fur and give it teeth, you got a Malinois. Rico was my first trainable dog where I actually went through the course with him and then started what we call the pipeline, which is a number of training sessions in a row. We call it the pipeline, and that gets you ready for your first deployment. It takes quite some time for a dog to actually bond with you. You just don't pick him up and like, hey, let's go do some military stuff. It doesn't really work like that. It takes some molding and getting to know one another. I tried to train what he naturally did on his own into a military application. After I came back from there, I got actually reassigned to the kennel. So I came out of the team aspect and all I did was focus on the dogs. And anytime we had to deploy, I was assigned. They knew that they were getting me. Usually it takes one stressful situation and then the dog sees, hey, this guy's here to help me. And then you just build off that. And then actually we fell from a helicopter together. I would say for a stressful situation, that was one of them. We were doing fast roping and we had a new guy. He was an attachment. He wasn't an SF guy, he was attached guy. And he really didn't know how the mechanism worked that went on the rope. And he actually hit the release assembly on the descending mechanism. And so whenever I hooked into it and spun out, I had no control. I had no resistance on the rope. So we just fell. It was about 35 feet. I fell from the helicopter and lo and behold, we're a team and he was tethered to me. So out he came. We fell, bounced once. I got up, shook him like a briefcase. He looked at me and he goes, are you serious? And I was like, yeah, bro, let's do this. These dogs are resilient. They're very tough. I picked him up, shook him once to ensure that he didn't have a broken bone or he wasn't bleeding. And then he didn't bite me or anything. He was just like, hey, I can't believe that happened. I go, me neither, bro. Let's do this. We try to prevent the dogs getting hurt at all costs because this is our, you know, it's just like you wouldn't lose a weapon on purpose, you know, so I wouldn't let a dog get hurt on purpose or put him in a situation where I think he's going to get hurt. You know, stressful situations, dangerous situations, gunfire and stuff like that, that's just part of the job. So we're gonna put them in, anything that I'm putting myself in, I'm gonna put him in there. I will say as far as breaching, door explosives, different stuff like that, this guy has been in the mix. You know, man one, man two, man three, my canine. He's that close to the breach. And so he's been exposed to a lot of explosions, gunfire. The most dangerous in fifth special forces group being in a CQB unit would be the door explosions. So whenever we're breaching, we take a small amount of explosives, we put it on the door, we come back to the minimum safe distance, initiate the explosive and the dog goes in. I mean, immediately he's going in. So he's within 12, 15 feet of that explosive. On the medical side, these dogs get taken care of just like a soldier would. They're getting eye exams, ear exams, bone exams annually, if not bi-annually. And then the handler is doing a dailies. So what you're gonna do, you bring him in front. And the first thing I do is just bring him in close while I'm rubbing on him. I'm gonna sniff these ears, man. I'm smelling to make sure they smell normal. They don't have a funky infectious smell or anything. I'm just kind of running my hands. He'll let you know, he'll kind of jerk at something sore, you know. I'm running through the tail, let him over through here. Belly, hey, belly, come on. Yeah, good boy. I tell him to get on his belly and I check him out. I'm looking on the inside, be sure he ain't cut, be sure he ain't got no ticks or anything on him. He's been outside. I look at his teeth, be sure none of them are broken. You know, they don't have any calcium or anything built up on them. I take a look at his eyes, get real passionate with him. What are you doing, bro? You know, look at his eyes and stuff. Just look him all over real good. Then once I do that, he's kind of chill. Get back in your bed. Yeah, yeah, bro. Yeah, bro. He does have some issues, man. Cause obviously he's been in there. So his left ear, sometimes whenever the pressure gets, just like if you have your allergies or whatever, if pressure gets too high or something like that, this left ear will droop. He's probably got some nerve damage in there from being close to the breach and stuff. The overpressure, you know, a lot of people think all the explosions happening, that's the dangerous part. It is if you're on the other side of it, but you got to understand as an assaulter, I'm receiving that overpressure five to six times daily. You know? So we came over one night, we came over this wall going through the dark, being extra quiet, you know, bad guys can hear you. And so I ascend over the wall, lower my canine to the bro hemes, you know, feeling all good about it and get over there. And then I get over it. And then when I turn around after, you know, descending around this wall, I'm like, bro, we are not safe right here. And he goes, we got to go, we got to go. You know? So what do I do with the canine? I just pick him up and use my body to block the percussion of the explosive, you know, coming through there and just, and then I'm just handing him off and just going, go do what you do, bro. When I first retired Rico, he was still a very much working dog. He just had a breathing issue. And so he still had that go, that drive. So how can I redirect that drive to be beneficial to him? And it was with the Canine Olympics. So we went to the Canine Olympics and he absolutely crushed it. And I'm really proud of him. I would say for a operating canine and a handler, paperwork is minimum. Cause they kind of know, hey, it's your dog. You've got exposure to it. You know what you're getting into when you accept this dog. But as a, I have to do say, for legal reasons in the military, they do sign a waiver and they have to get evaluated. So your average person can't go rehome a dog that has been through a certain situation until we evaluate that person to see if it's going to be a good fit. And then we'll bring them in, let them see and make, hey, this dog's rambunctious. Do you like this dog? And then kind of see how they fit. And if they fit good, then yes, we want to send him to a good home. Cause these dudes work for us, you know, they put their life on the line just like we do. So we want to ensure that their remaining years isn't stressful. It's a good time. And it's the best for the dog. Rico's such a good dog. He passed with flying colors and they're like, all right, man, you can take him home. The powers to be immediately after I became the kennel master of fifth group. And after becoming the kennel master, well, it's take your dog to work every day. And so I was bringing him in, but I was still going to work. And then I slowly backed it off where he wasn't going to work and he just chilled at the house. So with that being said, I could not stop working his mind. The worst thing you can do for a Malinois is neglect his mind because they are such smart dogs. So I would do little tasks around the house, like sit him over here, put a tennis ball over here, make him watch it for a little bit, and do like exercises like that. So he's still, in his brain, he's still doing something functional as far as work, but he's not putting himself at danger as far as looking for bombs or anything like that. And you don't want to kind of be like, okay, he's a dog, he's retired. He's just a dog because he's not. He's got a lot of experience. He's got a lot of stress. He's working through his stress as well. I mean, he loves to bite. He was a very good bite dog. And so I kind of took that out of his life. I don't want an aggressive dog at my house. As far as like PTSD and anxiety and stuff like that, I always lean toward a dog more than I would any psychiatrist or therapist or anything like that because they kind of let you figure it out on your own. And if, I mean, if you need those things, by all means go to them, but a canine will help you through it. Just letting you know that there's someone there always. I don't regret doing any kind of canine work. It's been rewarding a hundred percent of the time. I feel very lucky by being able to have this guy. I mean, look at him. Come on, bro.