so by no means is it easy

Will R
Have you ever heard of National Guardsman going to K-9 handler school?

Dennis,
The trouble with being on Reserve or National Guard status is that you only work a weekend a month and two weeks a year on duty. This is obviously not a good set up for something that requires daily contact with it's handler, like, oh say, a K-9. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

And due to the time commitment required for deployment in today's flexible theater of operations, I'm not seeing that use of Reserve or NG troops as K-9 handlers would be very common, or practical.

This would be a good question for Chris Duhon, as he's back fairly recently from this conflict and his observations would be more current than mine.

Im not a Guardsman, my friend at work is, he's currently in some palace near Bagdad. He tried to talk my into enlisting in the VANG. It didn't seem like a good idea after I sobered up. I retired out of the Navy already and the wife would have killed me.

Congradulations and thanks Mr. Wood. God bless keep you safe.

Just recently got out of active duty air force and now I am in the guard...

The SF people I know have told me that you have to be a regular Security Forces person (base cop) until you get your 5 skill level... then I think you have to be approved to become a MWD handler. So if you have flubbed up, you probably sealed your fate to be a regular Security Forces person until you can crosstrain to another career field. Its not something just anyone will get the opportunity to do.

Just to give people a little insite on the regular Security Forces career field(which MWD handlers have to do prior to becoming handlers), I am crosstraining into it soon and most people I know think I have lost my marbles... So for alot of people guarding assets does not sound very exciting, and from the trouble alot of cops get into while on duty, I think sometimes they make their own disasterous fun. I figured for one weekend a month it sounded better than shuffling paperwork.

I was also told that if you do become a AF MWD handler, be prepared to not be at home often. They deploy, deploy, deploy. So if you even consider having a normal family life, it probably would not be a good career move.

I suppose being deployed, deployed, deployed is kind of the norm at this point for most of the branches anyway. But for a newbie it might sound super cool and macho to be gone all the time with your MWD, but for some folks it can start wearing thin after months, the new supercoolness starts wearing off after being gone from home so often... Just something to think about for folks thinking about becoming AF MWD handlers.

Will,

The promotions in the AF have gotten better the past few years... still not as quick as other branches, and AF has to take job and AF knowledge tests for rank in active duty, as well as have good performance reports. They were handing out E-5 like candy not too long ago. The upside to slow promotions, is that they tend not to knock rank down as fast as other branches that promote quickly.

I was one of the lucky ones as far as MWD is concerned. Went to my first dog school as an E2 and made E8 while I was at the dog school at Lackland. with the exception of about 2 years, my entire career was MWD. I was just lucky to be in the right place at the right time. My point, they need some E6's, 7' and 8's.

DFrost

Out of curosity...

A friend just joined the Navy with the idea of working into dogs. He is an exellent trainer and decoy (works with the local PD and is certified by a couple of dog sports as a decoy). Anyone know the size of the USN working dog program. I told him he would be more likely to work in to it in ANY other branch.

I retired in 97, so my knowledge is dated, but the only working dogs I've seen used by the Master at Arms force was drug detection dogs. While I was active duty they where transistioning from USMC personel to USN personel for physical security and law enforcement. so maybe they have it all turned over by now. I did see some MAA's going through the MWD school on the TV. There program can't be very large yet. so that could be a good thing for someone starting a career.