The life and times of our dog - VW. He was family!
In the mid 80's, EPD started the first K-9 Unit. It started with a dog called Bandit, and my husband was the handler. My husband drove to Moore, OK twice a week to train with Bandit. Unfortunately, way into the training, they found out that Bandit was gun shy! Well, you can't exactly have a police dog who is afraid of guns. So Bandit was given back to the kennel he came from, and VW came into our life.
This was way back in the day that lots of Police Departments had no clue how to set up and maintain a K9 unit. EPD got Bandit for $200, which just rolled over to VW. Today, K9 dogs cost around $10,000 and have hundreds of hours of "professional" training beyond that. We had none of that. We did the best we could with very limited resources, and most of that came out of our own pocket.
VW was a purebred German Shepherd. He was beautiful and incredibly smart. Because he was a K-9 dog, he lived with us, his family. At first, VW lived in a fenced in cage outside - where dogs are supposed to be (so to speak)! But VW didn't quite believe in that. We got several calls early in the mornings that he had gotten out and was running down our street. We were baffled! Finally we came to the realization that he had figured out how to flip the latch up on the gate, thus letting himself out to be free! We put a pin through that and VW was no longer an escape artist.
However, VW also was awake all day, barking at things, running around his cage, and doing dog things. Then at night, when it was time for him to go to work with his human, he was tired! So he slept in the patrol car.
Of course, that was not acceptable. A police officer sleeping on the job! Shame! The solution was to bring him in the house when they got off duty in the morning, and let him sleep in his human's room during the day while his human slept. Then he was wide awake and ready to catch those nasty criminals when his job began at night.
Big tough police dog! Right? Well, that depends upon who you were. If you were a criminal - yes. He was a big, bad, snarling, snapping, biting terror. But with his tiny humans, he was putty. His favorite activity when he was off work, was to lay on the living room floor and act as a pillow for his tiny humans and their friends. He was the perfect, patient pillow for them. They loved him, he loved them.
Now some police dogs don't really think on their own. They follow orders given by their owners. VW was not like that. When he was being trained in Moore, OK, his trainer would lay a path for him to track her. She found out in two days that she could not lay the same track EVER. He didn't even bother to scent her out, he just remembered the path and went right to her! Trust me, it wasn't an easy path. Very heavily wooded, on many acres. So she had to reset the path every single time she trained him. He was amazing.
His owner/trainer/human/my hubby was on duty one night. Hubby left the opening between the back partition where VW rode and the front seat open. He also left the driver's window down. Hubby's criminal decided he didn't want to be arrested and proceeded to fight him viciously. VW heard the uproar, went through the small partition into the front seat, jumped out the window, and went to rescue his human. The fight was over the instant VW clamped down the criminal's leg!
VW loved people. As long as my hubby told VW a person was ok, VW was a teddy bear. But if hubby said for him to watch - it was all over but picking up the pieces. We had an insurance guy here one day, and he loved on VW the whole time he was there. Just fell in love with him. Charley told him that the minute he left the house, VW would be a different dog. Of course, being of the male species, the insurance guy said that VW would not growl at him, or anything. They were friends. He'd spent the better part of an hour playing with VW. So hubby just grinned and let the insurance guy out of the house. Once the screen door shut, hubby put VW on watch, and VW nearly tore the door down to get to the insurance guy. I was laughing so hard, I had tears running down my cheeks. Yep - it's who you are, and what his human told VW to do as to how he acted.
VW loved being outside. We took him everywhere with us. To Colorado camping, to Branson, to Keystone, etc. At Keystone, we got him into the boat with difficulty, because he was a big dog, and he wasn't sure he wanted on that strange thing in the water. But we finally got him on the boat! We went to a tiny island, ran the boat to the shore of the island, and called VW off the boat. He jumped off the boat, and we spent several hours there. He played in the water, swam, chased the kids, swam some more, and collapsed on the sand when he was tired. He remembered that trip, and was always ready to jump on the boat after that for a trip to the little island.
VW was very very protective of his family. While camping in the mountains, we tied a long rope between two trees, and put a leash on the rope so it would slide back and forth. Connected it to VW's collar. That gave him freedom, he was close enough to protect us, and we didn't have to worry about cooping him up in the motorhome. We were at the bonfire one night, heard VW go berserk barking, and a terrified voice yelling. Ran over to VW. A lady had decided to cut through our campsite to get to her space. VW heard her, decided she was too close to his humans, and raised holy hell. He didn't bite her, but he sure scared the beejeebers out of her!
After he retired, VW would sleep in the hallway between our room and the kids room. He wanted to be able to protect both ends of the hallway. The kids knew he was there, so if they got up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom, they just learned to take a giant step over him going and coming back. Both kids say that even after all these years, they still take that giant step in the hallway if they are here visiting - like they used to do to step over VW.
They say dogs don't have strokes. But our VW did. Vet confirmed it. He lost control of his bowels, and could barely walk. Hubby was heartbroken. We were all heartbroken. We knew VW needed to go over the rainbow bridge, but hubby was not having it. We finally had an intervention - pointing out to hubby that VW was suffering and it was cruel to keep him alive. So hubby took him to the vet, who sent him gently over the rainbow bridge.
What a dog. What a companion. What a wonderful friend he was to us for years. Still miss our VW.
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