All in a Day's Work
Photography: Patrick Cone
Seven-month-old Ledger’s whole body wriggles as he plays tug with his guardians, Brooks and Phyllis Robinson. The game takes a turn, however, when a voice shouts, “Red light!”
“That’s enough,” says Brooks. “Sit.”
The yellow Lab hesitates, hopeful the game will continue. Brooks firmly guides Ledger into a sitting position while the pup’s attention stays focused on the toy. The game is one of many training exercises in Ledger’s path to becoming an assistance dog. He is only one of the many dogs in Summit County who work for a living. Park City offers these employable canines a range of careers, including guide dog, police dog, avalanche dog and herding dog.
Ledger—Guide Dog for the Blind
The Robinsons, Ledger’s sighted guardians, are “puppy raisers” for the non-profit organization Guide Dogs for the Blind. They are also his first teachers.
“We start training with house manners and basic commands. Just as with little kids, you have to reinforce things,” says Brooks, who usually has Ledger by his side when he’s at work in City Hall, running errands or at home. The recall command, or “come” is the most important instruction for Ledger to follow, says Brooks. “Someone who is visually impaired doesn’t always know where the dog is” and relies heavily on that command.
Advanced training—learning to navigate staircases and crosswalks and asserting ‘intelligent disobedience’—will come after Ledger is 14 to 18 months old and moves on to a guide dog training facility. His time with the Robinsons, however, includes lessons average Park City dogs might have a hard time following.
“They have to learn not to be distracted by food,” says Brooks. Assistance dogs need to filter out many distractions, such as noise, crowds and over-enthusiastic dog lovers, but ignoring food takes special training. “We’ll set him up: we’ll put food on the floor and walk him past it. He needs to learn not to even look at it,” Brooks says.
Even though Ledger is a loving, bright and well-mannered dog, he may not meet the high standards of a guide dog. If that is the case, the Robinsons will have first dibs on adopting him as their own pet or finding a home for him. If Ledger does pass all the tests, he could start working anywhere in North America. “[He] is providing eyes for someone who can’t see,” says Brooks.
Thomas—Police Service Dog
A routine “sniff” might deploy Thomas, a 3-year-old Belgian Malinois, to I-80 to check out a suspicious vehicle. If his sensitive nose whiffs an illicit scent on the outside of the vehicle, Thomas barks, scratches or bites at the smell. Those indicators, or signs, determine probable cause for Detective Rochelle Ramage to search the interior of the car.
“He’s my partner,” says Ramage, who is also Thomas’s full-time guardian.
Not all sniffs lead to drugs, however, and Detective Ramage may plant a soaked cotton ball on her coworker’s car so Thomas has something to find. “It’s important for him to get his satisfaction,” she says.
Thomas is a decorated patrol dog, certified to search for cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine and marijuana. He joined the Summit County Sheriff Department in 2005, becoming the junior patrol dog to Castor, the department’s first Belgian Malinois.
Thomas has very high “prey and fight” drives, which are important qualities for a police dog, says Ramage. The young dog is trained to “find and hold,” so that if he sets out to find a moving suspect, he latches on until he receives the command to let go. Thomas detains a passive person by standing ground and barking.
This working dog doesn’t seek hugs and kisses from humans. “He’s much more interested in playing or finding something,” says Ramage. His detached attitude doesn’t develop into aggression, however, and Thomas regularly visits schools and scout groups to demonstrate his job to kids. Training will continue this summer, as Thomas heads to SWAT school to become certified at taking higher risk assignments.
Dogs like Thomas can prevent the use of force in certain situations and save human officers from entering dangerous situations, says Ramage. She added that including Thomas and Castor in the department were smart investments by Sheriff Dave Edmunds.
Lila—Avalanche Dog
When Lila steps into her bright yellow uniform, she knows it’s time to work. And if this black Lab catches wind that a search is on, her rarely relaxed frame becomes even more eager.
As an avalanche dog at Deer Valley Resort, Lila’s main responsibility is to find buried victims after a snow slide. Her drive to find any hidden object guides her through a search, says Sue Anderson, ski patroller and Lila’s guardian. “Work is fun for her,” says Anderson. “She thinks it is playtime.”
Lila’s training began when she was only eight weeks old. Six years into the job, Lila continues to train year-round. In the summer, the pair patrols Deer Valley’s trail network, and Lila has even helped on high-profile searches, such as the Elizabeth Smart abduction in 2002.
“Some dogs need to get excited to go to work. With Lila, she wants to find what’s buried. Her attitude is: it’s time for work. We gotta go,” explains Anderson. But the scent of a victim is not always easy to find, and Lila can feel discouraged. “When she starts to get frustrated, she comes to me and barks. Then we go off and play for a little while,” says Anderson.
Although Lila’s heart may lie in the search part of her job, she spends a fair amount of time in public relations as well. “Taking Lila down the run on the dog-boggen is great speed control,” says Anderson. And when the pair gets on the chairlift, “people will miss the next chair to watch us.”
Lila visits elementary schools to help illustrate her work on the mountain. She is a regular visitor in the Deer Valley daycare center as well. “The kids love to see the dog,” says Anderson.
Minnie—Herding Dog
“She can’t keep up with my horse now, even though she’ll try. She can’t follow my commands any more, so she doesn’t know what I want her to do.”
At around 13 years old, Lorin Fawcett’s registered Border Collie Minnie has already had an impressive career herding sheep at the north end of Summit County. Now, as she slows down, she has retirement ahead of her.
As Fawcett’s personal dog, Minnie has always had the winters off from sheep herding. “I don’t want my personal dogs to get spoiled,” says Fawcett. “Everybody’s got their idiosyncrasies, what they like and what they don’t like.” Fawcett’s two herders, for example, give their commands in Spanish, while Fawcett uses English. So to keep Minnie in tune with Fawcett’s voice, style and mannerisms, the fourth generation sheepherder keeps her at home in Henefer, while his other four dogs work the winters with his herders in the desert.
Fawcett will take on two new dogs this year and start them on careers in sheep herding as well. Although Fawcett calls himself a “lazy” teacher, he smartly hands over the education of young dogs to experienced hands—or rather paws. “I use the old dogs to train the young pups,” he says, chuckling.
Dogs like Minnie naturally circle a herd to hustle sheep back to the rancher. Time and training shape innate instinct, and the dogs learn to turn the herd left or right, guiding the sheep instead of just retrieving them. Despite having worked with a few different dog breeds over the years, Fawcett says he is drawn to Border Collies. “They have the natural instinct not to bite,” he says.
The career change from herding to family pet is a deserved one for Minnie, according to Fawcett. “She earned her retirement,” he says. “She’ll have the opportunity to eat and sleep and get fat. I won’t require too much out of her anymore.”
Monika Guendner is a freelance writer who aspires to have the passion and work ethic of her canine subjects.
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