Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
going as far north as Canada and as far east as North Carolina. It was an evocative and mys-
terious command. Some handlers added “ka-ha” to the front of it, as in “ka-ha napoo.”
The unusual command, handlers said, kept family members on the scene of a disappear-
ance from getting more upset. If there were reporters around, they wouldn't be clued in that
the dogs were searching for a body. Both claims seemed a bit of a stretch, especially since the
media appear entirely clued in, if there, and families, while ever hopeful, mostly aren't idiots.
One Pennsylvania reporter explained about the supposedly Native American command,
“Because it is in a foreign language, the command won't be confused with other speech.”
“An instructor uses an Indian word for aesthetic reasons,” another newspaper reporter
wrote of cadaver-dog training.
The term isn't Native American, and its provenance isn't particularly aesthetic: “Napoo” is
British and Australian slang from World War I, a bastardization of the French expression “Il
n'y en a plus [
ny-an-a-pu
].” No more. All gone. Finished. There is no more of it. British and
Australian soldiers became accustomed to two things in France: no supplies on shop shelves,
and death. They used the term “napoo” to cover everything from that Gallic shopkeeper shrug
that says, “Sorry, but we're out of beer,” to death in the muddy trenches. “Half the platoon
got napoo'd last night.”
We humans love words and the stories they tell when they get strung together. It doesn't
matter if they're true. Those who would trace the provenance of dog commands are certain
where they originated.
“You could tell who people were trained with,” said one seasoned handler in the North-
east. “'Find Fred.' That was Andy's.” Another handler from another part of the country told
me, shaking her head, that she always thought Andy Rebmann's favorite command, “Find
Fred,” was deeply insensitive, especially if family members were on the scene.
The only problem with the story about Andy's command is that, just like the origins of
“napoo,” it doesn't appear to be true. Andy shook his head, though his eyes glinted in sardon-
ic amusement. Never, he said, had he asked a dog to “find Fred.”
“I always use 'Look for it,'” he said.
Darn it. “Look for it” is so prosaic. Nor does it capture the essence of brutally practical
and politically incorrect Andy the way “Find Fred” does.
“Mor-te,” a North Carolina handler tells her big German shepherd, with an emphasis on
the T, so the word ends up with two syllables.
“Where's Mortimer?” another handler urges. “Where's Mort?”
“Where's Chucky?” a handler asks her border collie.
“Find bones,” Marcia Koenig, Andy Rebmann's wife, tells her German shepherds. That
one seems to work just fine. Marcia's dogs have found dozens of bones over the past two dec-
ades.
