Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
Everyone standing there knew what Kimbo would have done. Earlier, Mike Baker had
decoyed, stashing himself underneath the composite tile floors in an abandoned laboratory
building. Watching him thread himself into the small space, more cramped than a coffin,
gave me claustrophobia.
Dogs are object-oriented. Once the less-experienced patrol dogs realized Mike's scent was
somewhere in the room, they went to look for him behind doors. One leaped repeatedly at
the large refrigerator unit in the room; Mike's scent had crawled up its side. Several other
dogs figured an interior hallway window was the key. They kept levitating toward it, hoping
that a person would materialize on the other side. The idea that someone could hide literally
under their paws flummoxed them.
Dark little Kimbo, who looked more like a Tasmanian devil than a Dutch shepherd,
would not have been fooled. He would have smelled Mike in the small holes in the particle-
board, then tried to dig him out of the floor with his claws and teeth, with Danny mak-
ing sure he didn't entirely succeed. Mike muttered one night, while watching Kimbo enter
a deserted cigarette factory in downtown Durham, stiff-legged, ready to rumble: “If you're
going into hell, that's the dog you want in front of you.”
Kimbo wasn't there that night to show them how it was done. Danny retired him when
he was twelve years old, older than most patrol dogs. Kimbo's toughness kept him going; he
was finding dropped guns until the end.
Sometimes retirement is planned, as it was in Kimbo's case. Danny's new patrol dog, Rin,
a handsome dark German shepherd, is a third again Kimbo's size, a happy and all-around fine
dog. Danny, a Malinois and Dutch shepherd snob, had to dial back his faux anti-German
shepherd rhetoric—too soft, too slow, too big—although because it was Danny, the dial
didn't move too much. Kimbo stayed at home in an increasingly customized kennel space,
getting spoiled by Danny's daughter, who sneaked him into the house when Danny was at
work.
Waiting too long for a dog to retire is a big mistake. It shows when K9 officers look with
almost tender pity as a dog's back leg starts to shake when it should be solid, or when a decoy
gives a dog less of a swing on the bite sleeve because he's worried about hurting the dog. That
protective feeling can get officers injured.
Sometimes retirement comes tragically fast. One hard-charging five-year-old Malinois in
Durham came up lame, and within two weeks he was diagnosed with degenerative myelo-
pathy, a disease that destroys the spine and shortens the life of working dogs. He was of the
force a few weeks after that. He would never again vehemently thrust his Kong toward K9 of-
ficers who reflexively and protectively cupped their hands over their crotches when they saw
him arrive.
