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I was rather lucky to get the dog- Ranger from 2PDF (people defence force). He is a very old dog, almost 10 years old which is equal to human age almost 70. He is the 2nd oldest dog in the course and is enemy of the oldest dog in the course, Marco (11yrs old). Both Marco and Ranger are very well-known to be obedient, though Marco is slightly more obedient than Ranger. They can't stand each other. They would go crazy and starting barking at the sight of each other. Ranger has a good sense of smell and will go crazy at the scent of blood from any menstrating female dog, which happened during our course. He also has two wives and two children.
Our daily routine:
Everyday we got to fall in by 7.45am and get ready for temperature taking and to wash kennel. We would bring the dog to take temperature by poking a thermometer in its ass and later put the dog inside exercising ground while we wash the kennel. Shits and urine are common encounters when we wash the kennel. Luckily, Ranger is a dog with kennel pride and will not do its business inside the kennel.
After kennel washing, it's time for obedience drill. Firstly, we learnt about the basic commands like "sit", "down", "stay", "heel", "come" and also corrective command "leave" given when the dog made a mistake or not obeying instructions. After that, we went on to do drill. Yes, the same as the one in army- turn left, right, back and marching. It sounds a bit dumb but then SAF stresses a lot in drill in cultivating discipline. So too bad, the dog have to learn our drill too since it is employed in SAF. Haha... My obedience drill is rather good because Ranger even knows how to adjust himself when he is out of position, whereas for other dogs their owners have to push them into the correct position.
After lunch, we usually have lectures which allows us to know a lot about dogs, how to judge their behaviour, how to take care of dogs, how to do basic first aid for dogs and the different employment of dogs etc... These lectures I felt, though couldn't cover very in depth (because this is only a two weeks course) but is sufficient enough for us to know how to handle a dog well.
After lectures, we have baiting. "Dogs are a very dangerous weapon,"2WO Ravi said. I didn't fully understand his meaning until it comes to baiting. When a dog bites, it is not just one hole created. It would cause a few deep punctured wounds on both side of the flesh it bites. The photo of an example of the wounds caused was shown to us and it was very gruesome. We started to realise that handling a dog isn't as simple as thought and true enough injuries occured. For baiting, we have an intruder who would be wearing a baiting sleeve and a prowler doing prowling with a dog. When the prowler saw the intruder, he would call the dog to watch him and then shout for that person to stop. When that intruder refused to stop after three warnings, the dog would be release and he would run forward to bite the intruder. The one acting as an intruder therefore must be very careful and offer the baiting sleeve out for the dog to bite. The prowler would then call the dog back and then do a body search on him before calling for more help using a walkie talkie.
Things often don't go as well as the procedures as stated above. The dog sometimes would refuse to stop biting and come back. When that happens, I will have to choke the dog to make it release its bite. Once, the dog also accidentally bite my friend's left arm which doesn't have the baiting sleeve on. Luckily it is a shallow bite as it realise its mistake and release its bite quickly. I myself was also bitten before. Mine is because the dog bite onto a gap on the baiting sleeve, which actually is my own mistake for allowing it to do so, and created a small hole on my skin. It is very painful though and the pain lasted for three days.
After 2 long weeks, the course finally came to an end. It is not easy and I looked forward to taking care the dogs in the detention barrack. It will not be easy as the dogs there will be fiercer since their jobs is to guard the detainees. And of course, looking forward to the monthly off I will get as a dog handler... Haha
Ah bing || Sunday, June 25, 2006
The place that I was posted to wasn't as bad as I had intendly thought, though the facilities there are rather bad compared to the last two places that I have stayed in. The food is also somewhat different from what I used to eat. The food is cooked by JWs (Jehovah Witness) whose religion forbids them from serving NS and was sentenced to 3 years and 3 months by SAF. They have an secret recipes of cooking all kinds of meat (passed down for generations) which I think is able to match restaurants standard. Security in detention barrack is very high. It is surrounded by a few layers of fences with concertina wires on top of it. The route to cookhouse to have our meal also required us to pass through 4 gates. Therefore, I have a feeling of being locked up too when I first reached there.MP in detention barrack also got quite a bit of power even though we have rather low rank. The detainees have to address us as sirs (uncommon because we only address officers as sirs in other parts of SAF) and have to greet us. There is also yellow lines in many parts of the cells and they have to ask us for permission before crossing. As MP, we can also give punishments like push-up, standing parade (standing at attention position for a long period of time). Especially those who just came in, they were tekan very severely to ensure that they comply to all our orders and also move fast.
As a person who is not fierce by nature, I choose to go to security side, dealing less with detainees. I will be in charge of CCTV, dogs, guard room and also escorting of detainees to courts or hospitals. Therefore, I will be going through the two weeks dog handling course starting from next week back in SAFPU again.
Next, birthday. This year, I didn't really celebrate much of birthday. I didn't even like looking forward to it. So what I did is just have the cake that my dad bought with the voucher redeemed from starhub points during my nights out and go back to camp.
Lastly, hamsters. My hamsters gave birth to the second batch of babies today. This time it gave birth to three babies. Photos can be found in my photo albums...
Ah bing || Sunday, June 04, 2006