oui

Search Work Sad Yet Rewarding
Article about K-9 Search & rescue(Oui)

I called WHT today after receiving my new issue. I had just read of C.L. "Roy" Pike and his need of a new dog to be trained as an attendant dog . I was amazed that he specifically needed a dog that was a shepherd/wolf dog. Even more amazing was that it is common practice in South Africa to use a wolf/shepherd dog for this purpose, totally unheard of in this country. I was calling to offer to donate a dog to Mr. Pike to be trained to his specifications.

In the call, I mentioned that Carol chelin, the woman who trained "OUI", the cadaver dog, had been training handicap assist dogs.

Although Carol is the trainer, Oui also has a handler with whom he lives and works for. His name is Chuck Lickwar. Carol and Chuck are writing an ongoing series of articles about Oui's training and lif'e adventures.

When oui was six weeks old, a woman by the name of Susan answered an ad I had in the paper. I was excited to learn she was interested in training my pyp for search and rescue, specifically cadaver recovery. When I learned she was Training director for Missouri S&R, I was convinced that this was a great opportunity for my pup.

A few days later, Susan picked up OUI, as I had already named him. As Oui's puppy training got started, I monitored his progress as I developed a proffesional acquaintance with Susan. Through her influence, I became interested enough in search and rescue to attend a week long dog training seminar at Big Ridge State Park in Tennessee, hosted by the FBI and the North American Search Dog Network.

By this time, Susan had developed a game with Oui she called "find Fred", Fred rhyming with dead. This consisted of hiding a scent article somewhere in her house at first. Then, the game was moved outside.

During this time with Susan Oui was allowed to roam the premises. Since he never went far, she saw no need to keep him convined. As I suspected, this caused problems for his future owners. Susan had done her job though, and Oui was imprinted to locate human cadaver scent.

Oui was about nine or ten months old when Carol Chelin first saw him, maybe a year old. She describes it as having fallen victim to the Tundra Charm. Carol uses the term "victim" because she had no control over the effect he would have on her. In her article, she states that beneath his rangy exterior glowed a sense of dignity, independence, intelligence and the gentleness of a killer whale.

Carol goes on to say that what most captivated her was the "secret smile", as if he new the punch line to a tremendously funny canine joke that the rest of us were not so privileged to know. It seems that when he had perpetrated some borderline criminal act, he would drop his head in the pretense of shame, shift his eyes toward some invisible audience and grin the "secret smile."

As successful as she has been with him, it is a wonder to me that she took him on. She had to wrestle him to get him to go in the kennel cab; not fight, there was no aggression involved, but he had to be convinced in a physical manner. Carol says that he gave in because he felt sorry for her.

Oui's free roaming ways made it difficult to adjust to confinement and Carol went through every trial and tribulation that many of you wolf dog owners can imagine and appreciate, and maybe then some. He also had no problem in laying a guilt trip on her by turning his back on her when she would go to check on him.

Evidently, Oui prefered recess to class and his obedience training took extra time, as he had to be convinced that the training had a purpose and was useful. It took about a year to rehabilitate him. In the meantime, his obedience training was accomplised and his scent work advanced, socialization was ongoing.

Carol states that it was love at first sight when Chuck met Oui. This was the association that completed Oui's existance and signaled the beginning of his career in the public eye.

In the past three and a half years, Oui has been on many searches and helped ease the suffering of families searching for their loved ones and aided authorities in closing the book on persons and murder cases.

Oui is also trained to find drugs, so he has helped in the conviction of drug cases. He has even apprehended a felony suspect that tried to bresk into Chuck' house. To do this, he had to break down his kennel door. Then he herder the suspect into Chuck's pickup cab and proceeded to guard him from the bed of the truck.

The suspect's accomplice called Chuck at work to rescue his friend by saying they had just been walking by. The police found evidence of the door being jimmied and a pry bar that had been dropped at the scene. Arrest were made.

What else may be in store for Oui remains to be seen, but besides working with Power Pete, the black lab, and Ruby Begonia, the bloodhound, Oui will have a new cohort soon. Little does he know, but tommorrow a six week old female ATS pup, Karmen Ishi will be coming to be trained as his backup in searches and eventually his mate.

I wish I could see his face when he realizes she has come to stay. I'm sure it will pass from shock to pure joy. At last, a companion of his own kind.

Having worked with several breeds in the past, including wolves, I thought I was ready for this TUNDRA SHEPHERD hybrid. So much for my thinking. As Carol told you in the October issue, (Tallgrass Training Journal "Official Newsletter of the ATSS Inc") Oui does not like being confined. More on that later.

The first task at hand was to create the bond that is required for a successful relationship with any animal. With any significant percentage wolf, this as well as establishing yourself as the alpha prescence is critical. Oui is very slow to give his trust. many people mistake this behavior as fear. Not true. the only thing Oui fears is Carol or myself being angry with him if he does something wrong, which is pretty rare. The best part of this is that he punishes himself; often without a word being said to him. Suddenly, he is flat on his back exposing his belly, tail tucked, ears flat, with the most pitiful look on his face that you can imagine. Now all I have to figure out is what he did!! One important note: Oui has never been struck for correction, punishment, or in anger.

Socialization presented some interesting challenges. First of all Oui does not care much for living human beings. And even after controlling this instinct, there are still people that he will have absolutely nothing to do with. I have learned over the years to have a great deal of respect for this behavior. He seems to have an additional sense that we lowly humans lack. In many ways, I envy him. Socialization is also an ongoing process. A severe cutback in outings and contact with humans will allow him to go back to his old habits. Initially he would try to make himself invisible, simply perplexed as to why these two legged creatures kept invading his domain. And for some silly reason, they wanted to TOUCH him! After a while, he began to realize that some of this strange breed were not so bad, especially the female ones. With his acting talent, he could convince them that he was completely neglected, and abused and could get scratched all over in apparent sympathy. What a life. Soon he became comfortable enough to where if you were not a good scrather; you would be lucky to get an acknowledgement of your walking in.

"I will give you my love, my trust and i will do my best to please you and make you proud of me BUT; I REFUSE to left confined and alone." This is an unspoken but learned oath that Oui has made.

I have made the painful and sometimes expensive mistake of underestimating Oui's reasoning power as well as his determination to not be confined and alone. Here are some examples. Thinking that the safest place for him was in the house, I put down fresh food and water, made sure a screened window was left open for ventilation and went to work. Imagine my confusion When Upon return, I was greeted in the driveway by you know who! The next day, I left no windows open. (I had crank out windows at that time.) When I returned home that evening, there he was in the driveway again, with one of those "I screwed up and hereby submit myself for summary execution" looks on his face. Upon entering the house I find myself minus all of my curtains. Then I find the escape route.

After testing all of the windows, he found the one with a bad latch, pushes it open, (breaking the crank mechanism), and lets himself out. After confering with Carol, a foolproof plan is devised. First, the window in question is nailed shut, next Oui is placed in his kennel cab in windowless dark room in the basement with plenty of water available and a radio playing in the back-ground. That ought to hold him. WRONG!!! I also gave my work number to a neighbor that saw him get out the second time. When I got to work there was a message for me to call him. Oui was currently under my pickup taking a nap. It only takes me 12 minutes to get to work. What could have possibly gone wrong?!

It goes something like this. Oui opened the kennel cab door,(nothing was bent or broken, he learned how to operate the latch.) he then went upstairs to the same window and knowing that it opened the day before, kept pushing until something gave. Unfortunately what finally gave was the entire window assembly, casing and all. Amazingly, there was not a scratch on him although the window was a total loss. OK, you only have to hit me with a hammer so many times before I say ouch. Leaving him in the house is out.

Outside confinement has been just as tricky. Standard tie out cables provide inadequate at best. A simple tensioning of his massive neck muscles, and a running start would overcome either the swages or the snap or the cable itself. Upgrading to a quarter inch cable and extra heavy snap worked for a couple of days until he figured out how to manipulate the snap and free himself. he did not take off, he just did not like the imposed limits. My neighbors say he would not even leave the yard. Finally drastic measures were taken. A kennel was built with extra large post, heavy duty fabric to include a top. Then a concrete pad was poured to include encasing the bottom of the fabric. Seems a bit overkill? One day later , guess who greets me in the driveway with that "SECRET SMILE"? Aftercombing what little hair I had left, I visited a fence manafacturer that helped me design a kennel. Because the door was not encased in concrete, it was a fairly simple thing for Oui to unweave the fabric and exit the kennel. Enter two more poles set in three feet of concrete with a quarter inch cable strung between them. then add two cast iron swivles with a cable between them, and a full closure screw on connector on one end and a ten thousand pound test pully on the other end which goes over the trolley cable. This combined with tying each link of the door fabric to the frame finally did the trick. After a couple of weeks it was MY turn for a secret smile.

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Copyright © 1997 Tom Baswell
This Home Page was created Wednesday, November 19, 1997
Most recent revision Friday, October 23, 1998