Motivation is the primary tool in working with explosive-detecting canines. “Everything in their training is considered a game to them. It all depends on their reward, whether they’re going to work for it or not. What’s their drive like? One dog might like a squeaky toy, and another dog might like a rubber kong Keve’s favorite,” Huntley explained.
“The hardest thing about training a dog is the way you approach the training. Not every dog is the same. Some learn quickly, some don’t. So you have to look at this dog and figure out if the dog is responding to your first method of training. If not, you’ve got to go to something else, sometimes to the point where you want to pull your hair out. Finally you stop and try something totally off the wall and all of sudden it starts working and you say ‘WOW,’” Huntley said, noting that Keve was a difficult dog to train.
The reward of a rubber kong may motivate a dog, but it usually takes something deeper to motivate humans. Complexity and new challenges are what drive humans to work and gives them hope for the future.
“It’s the greatest job I’ve ever done. I never have the same day twice. In dog training there’s always something different that I’ll learn or see every single day. I guarantee that if I pull my dog out one day and do some sorts of training with him or her, and then the next day I do the exact same training scenario, the dog will respond differently.”
Motivation alone is not nearly enough to get me through days of intense mortar attacks and the risks associated with detecting explosives. Sergeant Huntley found that his faith strengthened his courage: “It made me a stronger believer in God in his master plan. That brought me a lot of comfort. If something was going to happen to me, it was going to happen to me, and there was nothing I could do about it. I wasn’t as scared anymore.”
Although he was definitely nervous at times, his faith helped him to block out the jitters. “My faith helped me to stay focused on the mission at hand; I wasn’t focused on being scared,” Huntley reflected.
After serving in Iraq for seven months, an uninjured Huntley safely returned to the United States.
Father: Thank you for giving us inner strength for the times we need it the most.
“My God is my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield and the horn of my salvation. He is my stronghold, my refuge and my savior from violent men you save me.” (2 Samuel 22:3)