My first exposure to working police dogs came shortly after I started my police career in September of 1974 as an Air Force law enforcement specialist (812X0, for you USAF guys). Both basic training and my LE tech school were held at Lackland AFB in San Antonio, Texas. Lackland has long been the largest K-9 training facility in North America (maybe the world) because all of the military working dogs are trained there. I got to see the facility but since I had zero stripes on my sleeve, a K-9 partner was just a far-away dream.
In January 1975, I reported for duty at Carswell Air Force Base in Ft. Worth, Texas. Carswell was a Strategic Air Command base and this meant there was a large security component for the alert aircraft as well as regular police operations handled by the law enforcement specialists like me. Because I was new, I spent the vast majority of my first year working at the perimeter gates. We did frequent vehicle searches and these were usually augmented by drug sniffing dogs. They were good, really good and there were a lot of people whose careers came to an end because they had left some small amount of dope or paraphernalia in their car. In those days, a single marijuana seed (!) could result in a less-than-honorable discharge. All of the dogs I saw working the gate were German shepherds, the breed of choice for the USAF at the time. However, in late 1975, we got the opportunity to work with something new—a beagle named Turbo! Turbo was assigned to AIC George Lupton.
At the time, using a beagle for any type of assignment in the U.S. Air Force was a stretch and Turbo was the only beagle on the military payroll. Unlike the drug-sniffing shepherds, which were dual trained in protection, Turbo was single purpose. He was “just” a drug sniffer but oh, what a nose he had. Turbo had a whole different way of doing business than the traditional drug dogs. The shepherds would indicate an alert by going nuts and pawing at the area where they smelled the drugs. This sometimes resulted in damaged upholstery or scratched paint. Turbo, on the other hand, simply sat. That’s right, he just sat and looked expectantly at his handler and waited for his reward—a dime-size piece of soft dog food called Prime.
Because Turbo was small (even for a beagle), he could easily be lifted into otherwise inaccessible areas and, because he alerted by sitting, there was never any damage done to the area being searched. This came in handy when the area being searched had sensitive equipment nearby. Time and again, Turbo came up with the goods.
Turbo was also really effective at doing barracks searches. We had thousands of barracks rooms on the base that were in the style of two person dormitory rooms. And, on a base with nuclear weapons, tolerance for drug use or possession was absolutely zero. Turbo and his handler would simply walk through the hallways of the barracks passing within inches of every door of every room. If Turbo smelled drugs, he would come to an abrupt halt, do a double sniff and then sit down waiting for his reward. When this happened, we called the base commander and got a telephonic warrant for a search of the room. I got to make a lot of those calls and the commander always wanted to know which dog, the circumstances and the nature of the alert. When it came to Turbo, he always gave the approval. Once inside, Turbo would quickly ferret out the drugs, even when efforts had been made to conceal the contraband.
I never saw Turbo exhibit the slightest bit of aggression toward anyone but it’s fair to say he was one of the most feared dogs on the base. Watching Turbo work taught me a lot about dog handling. Specifically, the importance of reading your dog, how to factor air currents into your search and the reality that to a dog a gram is just as big a deal as a kilogram.
As happens in the military, Turbo, George Lupton and I parted company after a couple of years but to this day, I think Turbo is one of the coolest drug dogs I’ve ever seen—and one of the most effective.
