Boots: The story of a stray pup turned Narcotics K9

Boots is a seven-year-old Border Collie / Queensland Heeler mix who was certified by the ASCT as a narcotics-detection K9 in April of 2011. Some people say she's a Border Collie / McNabb mix, but due to her unknown life prior to our finding her, nobody knows for sure. Her life story is one that may make you think differently about the next “useless” stray dog you run across. You never know what potential may lie inside of that pup.  It was a Tuesday evening in mid-December 2005, around 9:00 pm. My wife, Ellen, was driving home from work, here in Winnemucca, Nevada. The heavy snow that was falling made visibility very poor. She thought she saw something standing in the middle of the roadway, but was unsure. Suddenly she saw the white mane of a small dog, and swerved to avoid hitting the pup. She pulled to the side of the roadway and got out of her car. She then flagged down two cars that were approaching, to keep them from running the animal over. She snatched up the pup, and took it home. Based upon the dog's condition, the snow and the extreme cold, had Ellen not found the pup when she did, the dog would have most-likely not made it through another 24 hours.

Ellen came home and informed me that she had picked up the stray. I went to the kitchen to see the dog, and found a very small, very young female pup, black and white in color. We already owned two dogs, so I told Ellen that I would try to adopt the new pup out. I estimated the age of the little girl to be around 5 weeks. After a few days of searching for someone to adopt her, the pup's personality and brains won her a spot in our hearts, and family. We took her to a vet, got her shots, and had a tick removed from inside of her ear. We also named her, actually my wife did. All of the pup's feet were white. I suggested “Socks”. My wife liked “Boots”. I'm happy to admit that we chose “Boots”.

Over the next few years, Boots became my constant companion. She was never really trained in the normal obedience skills. She just picked things up, very quickly. Heel, sit, stay, come, all of the regular commands seemed to come naturally to her. Then, in November of 2010 I decided to make a career move from the Winnemucca Police Department to the Humboldt County Sheriff's Office. Both agencies cover the same geographic area, and I had worked alongside the S.O. for 11 years. I knew the Sheriff, Ed Kilgore, very well, and we made an agreement that he would get me a narcotics K9 if I came to work for him. Two weeks later I was a member of the HCSO.

In mid-December of that year, the Sheriff called me into his office and told me that an ASCT trainer in Elko, Nevada (located approximately 90 miles away from Winnemucca) had a Belgian Malinois that would turn one year old in February of 2011. He told me that would be my Narcotics K9. I, of course, was thrilled. I had wanted to work with a police K9 since I was in the Army in the mid 1980's, but it had just never worked out. After my initial joy, I thought about the situation a bit. By this time, my wife and I had adopted 4 more “rescue” dogs, giving us a total of 7 dogs in the household. I wasn't sure how well a spring-loaded, one-year old Malinois would fit in with our pack. I also couldn't see leaving Boots at home while I drove off to work every day with another dog. Boots pretty much went everywhere with me, and I was worried that she'd be crushed by my betrayal.

So, I spoke to the Sheriff, and told him of my concerns. I had never trained a dog for police work, but I did have a lot of exposure to police K9's over the years. I understood that the major traits needed to make a good narcotics dog were brains, and a super-high play (prey) drive. Boots possessed both of these qualities, so I asked the sheriff if he would allow me to try to train Boots. If it worked, he could give the Malinois to another Deputy. Sheriff Kilgore told me to go ahead and give it a shot.Soon afterwards, I contacted ASCT Master Trainers Mike Marshowsky and Doug Fisher. Both are law enforcement officers in Elko, and Mike is the breeder who had the Malinois that I was initially supposed to get. I brought Boots to Elko and let them run her through a few tests. Both men agreed that she had potential, so I got the imprinting and training information from them. In early January 2011, Boots and I started training.