NBVC kennel is region's best 2 years in a row

Photo by Andrea Howry / Lighthouse

Named Top Dog because of the gains he has made in the past year was Alf, shown here with his handler, MA3 Irvin Moment. Alf and Moment became partners 10 months ago. "Now he knows what it's like to have someone care for him, and he responds to that," Moment explained.

For the second year in a row, Naval Base Ventura County has won the Kennel of the Year Award for the Southwest Region.

“Two years in a row is so very hard to do. I have never seen it done in my eight years as a handler,” said Master-at-Arms 2nd Class Adam Leeds, Fleet Marine Forces/Air Warfare, who serves with Eric, a Belgian Malinois. “We credit it to training and hard work.”

Eric and another of the kennel’s bomb-sniffing dogs, Scout, scored 100 percent in their drills. Alf, one of the base’s drug-detecting dogs, scored 96 percent.

But it was Alf who proved to be the top dog, literally.

The Top Dog award is given to the animal that is most improved from the previous year. Last year, Alf had, to put it nicely, “very minimal certification,” said his handler, Master-at-Arms 3rd Class Irvin Moment. A year later, not only did the German shepherd score 96 percent in drug detecting, he also scored at the second-highest level possible in patrol, or finding and apprehending a suspect.

“We’ve built a bond,” explained Moment, who became Alf’s handler about 10 months ago. “I’ve used positive reinforcement and made training fun for him. Me and Alf, we’ve come a long way.”

The NBVC kennel, which is supervised by Master-at-Arms 1st Class John Caral, Fleet Marine Forces, has six dogs, making it the smallest in the region. Two, Buddy and Gina, are on medical waivers and are approaching retirement, and a third, Rocko, understands only German commands. That left Alf, Eric and Scout, a German shepherd whose handler is Master-at-Arms 1st Class Blake Soller, to represent the base in the Aug. 9-13 certification drills.

Sixty dogs from throughout the region take part in the certification process. They are commanded to search warehouses and scout fields for fleeing suspects and to conduct vehicle sweeps. They also have to run an obstacle course.

One of the exercises in patrol and detection involves a traffic stop in which a perpetrator flees the car and runs into the woods.

“Can the dogs be controlled in a stressful environment like this? That’s what everyone looks at,” Leeds explained.

The dogs also have to find three people hiding in a building.

All the NBVC dogs did well in the patrol and detection category. A dog is ranked at one of five levels — 3, 5, 7, 9 and 12, with 12 being the best. Scout went from last year’s ranking of 3 to a 7, and both Eric and Alf went from a 3 to a 9.

Kennel rankings were based on more than the dogs’ performance; other factors included training methods, proper administration and paperwork, and condition and safety of the kennels and the equipment in them. NBVC was judged on the current kennel, even though a new one is scheduled to be completed later this month.

Judges also look at the health of the dogs and make sure their vet records are in order.

“A dog requires maintenance, just like a jet,” Moment said. “A trained dog can be worth $60,000.”

But to all three handlers, the dogs are worth much more than that.

“Training a dog is like having kids,” Moment says. “They require motivation and patience — a lot of patience. If you’ve got a bad attitude, the dog will pick up on those emotions and act out that way. You’ve got to have a can-do attitude every day.”

Leeds and Soller are 24-hour-a-day trainers. When they leave the base, they go home to their own dogs: Leeds has a German shepherd and Soller has a Border collie.

“I’ll come to work, and Eric can smell my dog, then I go home and my dog can smell Eric,” Leeds says. “They’ve never met face-to-face, but believe me, they know of each other.”

And Moment? He takes a second, then fesses up: He has a cat.

“My wife loves cats,” he explained.