Terry Adams Jr., a former US Army working dog handler, rates eight military dogs in movies and television shows for realism.
Adams breaks down various breeds of military working dogs, particularly the Belgian Malinois, in the search-and-apprehension scenes in "SEAL Team" S1E7 and E14, the explosive-detection dog in "Megan Leavey," and the guard dogs in "John Wick: Chapter 3 — Parabellum," with Keanu Reeves and Halle Berry. He looks at working dogs outside the military, such as the narcotics-detection dog in "Breaking Bad" S4E12, starring Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul; and the German shepherd in "I Am Legend," who protects her owner — played by Will Smith — at all costs. He also explains the safety protocols and realities of dog handling during warfare, such as detecting weapons and explosives in "Max," and "NCIS" S10E18, and the realities of post-traumatic stress disorder among retired military working dogs in "Dog," starring Channing Tatum.
Adams has six years of experience as a military working dog handler for the US Army, as well as 10 years of experience handling and training civilian dogs. He had three military combat deployments, all in Afghanistan. He is the founder and head trainer of Tactical K9, a facility for training civilian and military dogs.
You can follow him here:
https://tacticalk9.co/
https://www.instagram.com/tacticalk9approach/
Adams breaks down various breeds of military working dogs, particularly the Belgian Malinois, in the search-and-apprehension scenes in "SEAL Team" S1E7 and E14, the explosive-detection dog in "Megan Leavey," and the guard dogs in "John Wick: Chapter 3 — Parabellum," with Keanu Reeves and Halle Berry. He looks at working dogs outside the military, such as the narcotics-detection dog in "Breaking Bad" S4E12, starring Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul; and the German shepherd in "I Am Legend," who protects her owner — played by Will Smith — at all costs. He also explains the safety protocols and realities of dog handling during warfare, such as detecting weapons and explosives in "Max," and "NCIS" S10E18, and the realities of post-traumatic stress disorder among retired military working dogs in "Dog," starring Channing Tatum.
Adams has six years of experience as a military working dog handler for the US Army, as well as 10 years of experience handling and training civilian dogs. He had three military combat deployments, all in Afghanistan. He is the founder and head trainer of Tactical K9, a facility for training civilian and military dogs.
You can follow him here:
https://tacticalk9.co/
https://www.instagram.com/tacticalk9approach/
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FunTranscript
00:00Pretty bad a**.
00:06If the dog can't get your leg or arm, it's going to go for wherever it can get a solid bite.
00:13Hi, I'm Terry Adams, and this is Tiny, a nine-year-old Belgian Malinois.
00:16She is a trained dual-purpose dog, trained in tracking, detection for narcotics, and apprehension.
00:22I am an eight-year Army dog handler with also 10 years of civilian handling and instructing experience.
00:30Today, we'll be looking at military dogs in movies and TV and judge how real they are.
00:36Look left.
00:40Server is slack.
00:42Really, honestly, it's pretty spot-on.
00:44The only thing that would be different would be, in my experience, is directing the dog with a laser versus letting them freak sniff.
00:54You know, the dog being able to climb the ladder and hop into the window and then search from there with direction, all that's realistic.
01:02He's got something.
01:07That is totally realistic.
01:09If the dog is sent in to a building and sees a threat, then the job of the dog is to apprehend.
01:15The dog does target the arm.
01:17We do train him to apprehend from the arm and the leg.
01:21The things that we use are going to be a hidden sleeve.
01:25In this scene, the subject is actually using a hidden sleeve.
01:28That's how he's taking that bite without actually being bitten.
01:34Check here.
01:41I found him.
01:42Good body.
01:43When it comes to tracking a scent, a dog is awesome, especially in the conditions that they were in.
01:49The canopy holds a lot of odor, which makes it even easier for dogs to track.
01:55When it comes to my military experience, we have tracked more or less not insurgents, but we track more explosives,
02:05from the source of the explosive to maybe where someone is sitting, ready to ambush.
02:11So, yes, you can use clothing to search for a familiar smell for the dog.
02:18It doesn't have to be a living person.
02:20It can also be a dead person as well.
02:23I would definitely give it a 10 out of 10.
02:31Some of the things, if you notice that the dogs are targeting the arms and legs, you see that there's some stomach shots.
02:38So, you know, if the dog can't get to the arm or leg, then they're going to go for another area for sure.
02:47You see the two Belgian Malinois being worked together.
02:50The Belgian Malinois is an awesome dog.
02:54Before, the Shepard was the go-to dog.
02:57Now, the Belgian Malinois has replaced the Shepard.
02:59Based off of speed, stamina, size, they're not as big as the Shepard would be.
03:10Pretty bad a**.
03:13But this is not as common to teach.
03:16But once again, if the dog can't get your leg or arm, it's going to go for wherever it can get a solid bite.
03:27Scaling the wall to bite the subject is very realistic.
03:31In the military, it wouldn't be so realistic, only because if we had a threat up high, we would just neutralize that threat.
03:39But if we wanted to get a dog up high, that is a possibility.
03:47You see a lot of crossfire from a lot of the good guys and the bad guys.
03:53The dogs probably wouldn't last very long in the real world.
03:57Probably within, after the first or maybe second bite, they would have been shot by someone.
04:03Realistically, we wouldn't put our dogs freely in danger of a lot of that.
04:08They'll be sent to a specific target and then brought back to us to make sure that we're not getting any crossfire.
04:16These dogs are really desensitized to gunfire.
04:19It would have been also great to watch them have ear and eye pro based off of the new technology that's provided today.
04:26I'm going to give that a 7 out of 10.
04:29There's a lot of shooting going on, and normally a handler isn't going to put their dog in harm's way of that many guns.
04:36Oh, and Dennis, can you pull out some of your people for us? Confuses the dog's nose.
04:44They're searching a building. They have everyone leave.
04:48Normally, we would not necessarily detain everyone, but we would isolate everyone to a certain area.
04:54So then that way we know no one's physically going to harm us as we search the building
05:00or try to figure out a way to throw the dog off as we're doing it.
05:04This is a DEA dog, and they're looking for meth and narcotic.
05:16The handling from the handler wasn't all that great.
05:19He did a lot of touching stuff.
05:22In the real world, especially in the civilian world, a little more than military,
05:27it's a big liability to sit there and touch the objects that you're wanting the dog to search
05:33because you can cause the dog to give a false indication.
05:36You want to minimize, as much as possible, your manipulation of the dog.
05:41So when conducting a building search, we would let the dog free search.
05:47Then we would come back and detail.
05:50When we detail, we would stay off of the object but point towards where we want the dog to search.
05:58How long we got to be quiet down here?
06:02They're gone.
06:05We're good.
06:07So here we see the dog doesn't indicate on possible narcotics.
06:11It just means that the dog wasn't in the best area for a sniff.
06:17Now, with the narcotics being a floor under, the dogs can catch the odor with it being a floor under,
06:25but it would have to be in a productive space, which are areas where odor collects,
06:32and the dog can then track it to source.
06:36We'll give that handler a 3 out of 10 for his handling skills.
06:42Hey, kid, stop!
06:48The dog is barking.
06:50That can be a sign of the dog having odor to an explosive.
06:56We like a little bit calmer alerts when it comes to explosives just because of how volatile they are.
07:03And with something like that, it's either a mine or an IED, an improvised explosive.
07:10We don't want to do anything that can trigger that explosive to go off.
07:15Most times our indicators are going to be a down or a sit instead of a barking
07:21just because we want that calm behavior.
07:24And based off of the placement of the odor is how they indicate.
07:29So if it's something that's lower to the ground, they will perform a down.
07:33If it was something that was higher up into a ceiling or placed into a wall, they're doing a sit.
07:42Seek, Dex. Seek. Come here. Seek. Attaboy. Seek.
07:48You see that the handler says to the dog to go seek.
07:52It is a common word, zeek, zook, find it.
07:58These are all common words that are used throughout the military and civilian to go and search for an odor.
08:06Find it.
08:12What is that?
08:14You see that there's a Labrador.
08:16This is a common choice of breed for an explosive detection dog.
08:21The reason why they make really good explosive detection dogs are, one, nice in nature,
08:27very high, high driven, very good at hunting odors,
08:33rather if that's an explosive, narcotics, or even a bird.
08:37The handling of the dog would have been different, definitely.
08:41The dog would have been a little further out from the handler.
08:44Most of these dogs are used to clear routes where there were old minefields
08:48or just routes that are known for insurgents to place IEDs.
08:53We would want the dog to be a good distance so that we can save the handler
08:58just in case the dog trips the explosive.
09:01All right, good boy. Good boy. No booms. No booms. Good dog.
09:05Words of encouragement are a big thing for dogs.
09:08In these situations, you're not able to reward the dog physically
09:12with a tug or a ball, some sort of toy.
09:15When we train these dogs, we teach these dogs that explosives or narcotics
09:20equal this big reward, this toy.
09:24And so that's why they are so willing and eager to go out and find these explosives.
09:30In this scene, you see that the dog is a little bit more vocal.
09:35It's not a deal breaker.
09:37The biggest thing is we understand that these dogs are working off a motivation of a toy,
09:43which is what causes the frustration, and that's where you get those barks from.
09:48I would give it an 8 out of 10.
09:50The reason for not having a 10 out of 10 is based off of the handling of the dog.
09:59Found something!
10:03Good boy.
10:05The way she's utilizing the dog is all correct.
10:08We didn't necessarily use flags. We used chemlights, though.
10:11If we did do a flag, it was a makeshift flag out of Roxanne reflective tape,
10:15where we would just drop it at a known area of interest,
10:20and we used the chemlight to mark how far from said IED.
10:26Clear!
10:28Levy, check that vehicle!
10:31Explosion!
10:33I've actually been in a situation similar to this without the explosion.
10:37My dog passed an IED because of the wind current.
10:42We were traveling north to south, and the wind current was going north to south.
10:49So with the odor being pushed past us, me and my dog actually walked right over an IED.
10:58My dog caught it about 50 yards, and he picked it up going back.
11:03But the IED was rigged for MRAPs, and our little weight wasn't big enough to trigger it,
11:10but we could have definitely been in a situation like that.
11:17Megan Levy and her dog partner were wounded from an IED.
11:23The military uses dogs commonly for this reason,
11:28to be able to protect soldiers from being hurt or killed,
11:33which is one of the reasons why we train the dog to work at a greater distance from us.
11:40She was a little bit on the luckier side.
11:43Based off my experience, I have lost a dog from an IED.
11:47I'm going to give it a 10 out of 10 based off the equipment, based off of the situation itself.
12:00A lot of the military working dogs are fairly temperamental.
12:05I definitely have a few bites on me currently from dogs when I was in the service
12:12that going in, leashing them, and they decided to go ahead and bite me.
12:17So we do use muzzles quite a bit for more aggressive dogs.
12:23Typically in the beginning when you first meet your dog, you're not meeting them with a muzzle on.
12:28Just because of the establishment of a bond, we don't want to stress the dog out with having a muzzle on.
12:34Now, if it's a very high-risk dog, then yes, we would put a muzzle on,
12:40just because we know that that particular dog is more than likely going to bite you.
12:54As the handler approaches this dog, he approaches slowly.
12:57We would want to approach a little bit more confidently,
13:00just to show the dog that we're not giving off any fear so the dog doesn't take advantage.
13:06The voice, the way he's speaking to the dog is all correct.
13:09We don't want to come in with a harsh tone, but we also don't want to come in with a passive tone as well.
13:15We want to come in with a confident, inviting tone.
13:27He gets down to the dog's level.
13:29Wouldn't necessarily get down to the dog's level as in face-to-face,
13:34only because that's a very big risk.
13:38But also, we don't want to come in and hover the dog as a dominant and showing a dominant's play.
13:43Realistically, he could do this, but he would put himself into more of a dangerous situation with having a dog right in his face.
14:00Most dogs don't really care about their ears.
14:03It's just every dog has its own trigger.
14:05It could be its paws, it could be a leg, rubbing the side of them, putting your hand over their head.
14:12In this particular dog, its trigger was its ears.
14:21This dog's on Prozac for PTSD.
14:24You have some that when they retire, totally normal, regular, they can really turn into a pet, a household pet.
14:34My last military working dog, he actually went to a home as a retirement, a home with kids, and he's been doing great.
14:43This particular dog is suffering from PTSD and anxiety based off of its military experience and based off of the loss of its handler as well.
14:53Rating-wise for this scene, I'm going to give it a 10 out of 10.
14:55It's very realistic for a dog with PTSD and aggression issues and with a trigger of touching the ears.
15:11It wouldn't really be realistic to send a dog on another dog, one, because we don't train that.
15:16Because it would be more of a distraction, especially when it comes to military working dogs.
15:22And even as law enforcement, they wouldn't want that.
15:25With the dog not having training to do that, this would be more of a natural reaction versus training.
15:37With Sam being a German Shepherd, it is fairly common for a protection dog.
15:42Dog is very loyal. It is a great protector.
15:45And it is a dog that will give its life to protect you.
15:48This scene, I would rate a 3 out of 10.
15:50Really, we would never send a dog on another dog.
15:54Okay, Max. Go search.
16:01It is an option to have the dog search free of handler.
16:05One of the things with that is you do take a big risk.
16:10Because you do have, like, you have the kid with the ball behind a corner.
16:15You know, there's a little bit less control.
16:17So normally you'll see a dog on a very long line, like 30 to 50 feet worth of a line,
16:24to be able to control a little bit better just in case you do have that sort of situation.
16:38You see the dog, he indicates on the weapons.
16:41That's very common with an explosive dog.
16:44We do teach it black powder, which is in most weapons.
16:48And smokeless powder, which is in weapons as well.
16:51He probably missed that guy that was around the corner.
16:54Because he was overwhelmed from the odor of the weapons that were down there.
17:00My rating for this, for Max, is definitely going to be a 10 out of 10.
17:03Everybody has their way of searching, and that's one of the techniques.
17:07And he performed it very well.
17:09Based off the clips that we watched today, my favorite scene is going to be the John Wick.
17:14We don't see that particular style happening with all that action.
17:19But it's amazing to watch those dogs.