Wiggles & Jiggles Pet Care
Sgt Gray, his family and Kyzer courtesy photo D.Shultz
Last week was quite a week for one of our local K-9 dogs. As we all know, NAPD Kyzer won the 2011 National Working Dog Hero award. But it leads to the question, what is a Working dog? How is that different that a family pet? The children at the award ceremony asked some amazing questions that I thought I would share today.
Q: What is a Working Dog?
A: Well, first of all a Working Dog is not a family pet. A Working Dog is an animal that performs a task or an assignment for his owner or handler. For example, Kyzer is a Working Dog, although he goes home at night with Sgt Gray, he is property of the North Andover Police dept. He is an employee whose task is to find narcotics or to help with search and rescue.
Q: How many hours a week does a Working Dog work?
A: A Working Dog always works. His job is twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, and three hundred and sixty five days a week.
Q: Does a Working Dog go to school to learn how to do his job?
A: He sure does, it all depends what type of skill he will become specialized but he will go to a training school, work with a mentor and have to pass a series of tests too!
Q: What type of Working Dogs are there?
A: There are several different types of Working Dogs. It all depends on what you may need. There are police, fire and military dogs, Seeing Eye dogs to help the blind, Hearing dogs to help the hearing impaired and dogs that are trained to help with everyday tasks. There are even dogs that are being used by the medical world to help “sniff” cancerous cells and other potential diseases in humans. Basically, any task a human may need assistance with a dog can be trained to do.
Q: Does a Working Dog retire?
A: Yes, in time a Working Dog does retire. When the dog has reached a certain age or is unable to perform his task, he will be replaced by a new dog.
Q: Then what happens to the dog?
A: The Working dog becomes a Family Pet. That’s right, he will go and live with his handler or another loving home and gets to hang out, play or even sleep all day. Not a bad gig for a job well done!
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