MWD Chase shows off his remarkable agility.
The RNZAF’s Military Working Dog Unit (MWDU) is celebrating its 50th anniversary and the final day of August saw the passing out of two new dog handlers at RNZAF Base Auckland, Whenuapai.
AC Ronald Benton is from Taranaki and enlisted as an aircraft mechanic in May 2015. However, after discovering Force Protection while on recruit course, he began junior trade training for his new path a year later. A tour of duty with the MWDU followed before commencing the MWD handler’s course in June 2017.
The course is 12 weeks long and includes obedience, agility, patrol clearances, apprehension procedures, operating in a deployed environment and basic canine first aid. Cpl Liam Elder of the MWDU says that MWD handlers are not vets and that the RNZAF does not employ vets. However, handlers must be proficient in canine first aid as they could be many miles from the nearest vet when deployed.
AC Benton’s MWD is Axel, a Belgian malinois, born in September 2014 and accepted for service on 21 August 2015.
AC Mathew Martin of Upper Hutt began Force Protection junior trade training in May 2016 before being posted to Security Forces Auckland. After expressing an interest in the MWDU, he completed a tour of duty before starting the same handler’s course as AC Benton.
AC Martin has been teamed up with Belgian malinois Chase, the first of this breed to be employed by the RNZAF and accepted into the service on 30 May 2014.
The MWDU was formed in 1967. The RNZAF had just purchased Orions from the Americans and the contract stated the aircraft required a certain level of security—either armed guards or patrols by MWDs. The RNZAF chose dogs as they can do the work of seven or eight people at a fraction of the cost.
They were initially known as the RNZAF police dogs, and the first four handlers were trained by the Police at the Police Dog Training Centre in Trentham. The RNZAF now has its own training school at Base Auckland.
The name has changed too, from RNZAF Police Dogs to Air Security Dogs before settling on the current Force Protection Military Working Dogs.
The core responsibility of the MWDU is maintaining the security of RNZAF bases through the night. Not just the flight line and aircraft either—perimeters, living quarters and the domestic side of the base are also patrolled.
MWDs are also required to board and fly in all RNZAF aircraft, including the helicopters. For the new dogs, it’s a foreign environment and training takes place in a methodical manner, until they are comfortable flyers and happy to be winched off the aircraft.
Such training begins with the dogs getting used to being in a still helicopter. This accustoms them to the metal floor, the smells and being close to the crew and controls. Next the dog is put aboard a helicopter with its engine and rotors rotating, before finally undertaking a flight.
This is critical when it’s considered that handlers and their dogs have been deployed to the Solomon Islands as part of Operation Anode and on numerous exercises throughout Australia and New Zealand.
For most of its 50-year history, the MWDU has employed German shepherds but recently has been utilising Belgian malinois, such as Axel and Chase, and Dutch shepherds too. These breeds tend to have a longer working life and suffer fewer degenerative issues than their German shepherd cousins.
“The dogs are retired later in life, when they start slowing down and are unable to do their job,” says Cpl Elder.
“They then undergo socialisation training to ensure they are suitable for a home environment—often their handler’s home. The relationship between handlers and their dogs is pretty special.”
The MWDU’s 50th anniversary will be officially marked with a formal dinner at Whenuapai on 2 December.
- Report by Nicholas McIndoe, photographs from LAC Dillon Anderson/NZDF.