Pets & Animals

No Sissy Names Allowed At K-9 Training School

ST. PAUL (AP) ― Taz. Nitro. Chaos. The names of three new graduates of your local law enforcement training facility.
  
Granted, they're unshaven, with long hair, bad breath and sharp teeth. And their "handlers" have handles like Ryan, Jeremy and John.
  
But the canine companions, all of whom graduated Thursday from St. Paul's canine training facility, have their names yelled at them a bit more often than their human counterparts.
  
And some of them (the humans -- though perhaps the dogs, too) think there's an image to be maintained that runs counter to fetching, prancing and tail-wagging.
  
"You can't have 'Daisy' or anything like that for a police dog," said officer Mark Ficcadenti, head trainer. "You have to screen 'em."
  
There was that one dog imported from Eastern Europe, with the name "Bimbo," for instance.
  
"We couldn't have that," Ficcadenti said.
  
"Typically, you'll hear names kind of associated with law enforcement, kind of masculine names," said Sgt. Paul Dunnom, who heads St. Paul's police K-9 unit.
  
Ficcadenti used to name all the dogs himself, but it got tiresome. Finally, he let officers do it -- with a few ground rules.
  
"I told them, 'No offense, but you will not name your dog King, Duke, Max, or Buddy.' One time there were four Kings, three Maxes, four Buddies ..."
  
Chase was original at first, but got to be old hat.
  
One Web site on the delicate intricacies of dog naming -- alldognames.com -- has an entire section on how to go about naming a law enforcement denizen with four legs and fangs. "Most police dog names are geared toward sounding rough and tumble so that criminals are intimidated just by the sound of their names," it theorizes.
  
A few examples: Hulk, Hercules, Rocky, Conan and Chewy. For a female dog, Xena made the top of the list... though all dogs that go through the St. Paul facility are male. The females tend to return to their trainers too much while on a chase, Ficcadenti said.
  
In contrast, the Web site has a few suggestions for Shih Tzus, a more ... doted-upon kind of canine: Lionel, Brittany, Calliope and Betenoire (French, of course, for black beast).
  
A reporter asked Sgt. Dunnom if, in his experience, he'd ever heard the words, "Get 'em, Betenoire!" while in hot pursuit of a suspect.
  
"No, I have never heard that. Typically, we try to tell 'em to keep it simple, short, so that they won't be confused with anything else."
  
Some of the police dogs, however, still had innocuous names like "Doc" and "Ben." An attempt to belie their killer instincts? "It's short for Benton County," said handler, deputy Brad Kadlec, of Benton County. "He's more even-keeled, which is nice. We can do demonstrations in schools."
  
"Some of the guys, the towns where they come from, they have the school kids do a contest," Dunnom added.
  
Upper Sioux Community officer Jeremy Blackwelder went through just such a contest. The community named his dog Wahumpi, meaning "soup."
  
But in private, the officer calls the dog "Nitro."
  
"I used to watch 'American Gladiator.' That's where that came from," Blackwelder said.
  
During a demonstration Thursday of all the skills the police dogs had picked up, the canine Chaos sat, ears perked, at a starting line.
  
"Watch this," Ficcadenti told the audience. Seconds later, an officer -- posing as an "agitator" -- fled down the field. Chaos clamped on an arm, dragging the agitator to a halt.
  
"Tasty," Ficcadenti said afterward.
  
Still, what drew the largest gasp from onlookers was not running, jumping or biting -- but the fact the dogs, after a few yelled commands, let go and sat obediently at their trainers' feet. Eventually.
  
The full list of this week's canine graduates are: Wahumpi/Nitro (Upper Sioux police); Kaiser (Polk County sheriff); Smokey (Osceola police); Vader (Washburn County sheriff); Taz (Dakota County sheriff); Chaos (Minnesota Department of Corrections, Faribault); Gunner (Blaine police); Titan (Meeker County sheriff); Jango (Fairmont police); Booker (Eden Prairie police); Ben (Benton County sheriff); and Doc (St. Croix County sheriff).

By TAD VEZNER
St. Paul Pioneer Press

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