# The police dog that caught one of Australia's most wanted fugitives: David Raymond Pt. 1

An episode of [I Catch Killers with Gary Jubelin](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1506667049), 3 Oct 2026, 58 min.

Audio: https://p.podderapp.com/2544644999/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/2fb3740d-3436-44af-8cc0-a91900716aa5/5bc8c2ed-b718-4f44-beb3-ac2a005246cc/7cc1feb4-0015-4aa4-9453-b4d70068730b/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=786928c3-10c1-4cef-a7bf-ac2a005246d0

In this episode of I Catch Killers, Gary Jubelin sits down with retired Queensland police dog handler David Raymond, who spent 36 years in the job, 26 of them in the Dog Squad. Together with his dog Vader they apprehended over 160 fleeing offenders and Vader became known as David's "super dog." Together they tracked offenders across remote Queensland, completed 7-8km tracks, and saved lives, including finding a young woman in near a crocodile-inhabited river. David breaks down his most infamous catch: Graham Potter, a convicted murderer on the run for 12 years, found hiding behind plywood on a bunk bed in a squalid house in Ravenshoe. He also shares the stories behind his other dogs, plus what it really takes to train and trust a police dog over a 14-week course and a decade on the road. You can watch I Catch Killers on Youtube here. Follow I Catch Killers: Instagram: @icatchkillers Tiktok: @icatchkillerspodcast Facebook: @icatchkillers See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:01] Speaker 1: The public has had a long-held fascination with detectives. Detectives
[0:05] Speaker 1: see a side of life the average person is never
[0:08] Speaker 1: exposed to. I spent 34 years as a cop. For
[0:12] Speaker 1: 25 of those years, I was catching killers. That's what
[0:14] Speaker 1: I did for a living. I was a homicide detective.
[0:17] Speaker 1: I'm no longer just interviewing bad guys. Instead, I'm taking
[0:21] Speaker 1: the public into the world in which I operated. The
[0:24] Speaker 1: guests I talk to each week have amazing stories from
[0:26] Speaker 1: all sides of the law. The interviews are raw and honest,
[0:29] Speaker 1: just like the people I talk to. Some of the
[0:31] Speaker 1: content and language might be confronting. That's because no one
[0:34] Speaker 1: who comes into contact with crime is left unchanged. Join
[0:38] Speaker 1: me now as I take you into this world. Today
[0:47] Speaker 1: we're diving into the world of police dogs with former
[0:50] Speaker 1: Queensland Police Sergeant David Raymond. you're going to be blown
[0:54] Speaker 1: away by the frightening and sometimes funny adventures he and
[0:57] Speaker 1: his trusty off-siders got up to. You'll hear about Vader,
[1:01] Speaker 1: one of the most highly decorated police dogs in the country,
[1:05] Speaker 1: with a staggering number of arrests to his name. I
[1:08] Speaker 1: hope you enjoy this chat as much as I did.
[1:10] Speaker 1: You won't believe what this dog got up to. David Brayman,
[1:15] Speaker 1: welcome to I Catch Killers.
[1:16] Speaker 2: Yeah, thanks so much, Gary.
[1:18] Speaker 1: Well, it's good to have you on. And I am
[1:21] Speaker 1: very excited about the conversations we're going to have about
[1:24] Speaker 1: you and your adventures with your super dog, Vader. Looking
[1:28] Speaker 1: back at my policing career, I always thought that you
[1:31] Speaker 1: dog handlers were the guys who were at the front
[1:33] Speaker 1: end of where all the action was. When things were
[1:36] Speaker 1: going down, it was, let's get the dogs in. And
[1:40] Speaker 1: it's one thing to send your dog in, but invariably
[1:42] Speaker 1: they're on a leash attached to yourself and you find
[1:44] Speaker 1: yourself in the thick of it as well.
[1:47] Speaker 2: That's right. And that was very evident when you had
[1:48] Speaker 2: to jump about 20 fences and the dog just scaled
[1:51] Speaker 2: over the top of them. And of course, you had
[1:52] Speaker 2: to hold the dog back. And once he was over there,
[1:54] Speaker 2: you had to try and scramble yourself over. So that
[1:56] Speaker 2: was when it was really evident you're on the end
[1:57] Speaker 2: of a dog.
[1:58] Speaker 1: Yeah. Now, we're going to talk about a few dogs,
[2:01] Speaker 1: but we're going to concentrate on Vader, who managed to
[2:05] Speaker 1: have a book written about him, Vader, A Police Dog Story,
[2:08] Speaker 1: which is a cracker of a read. But before you
[2:11] Speaker 1: had Vader, you had another dog, Zed, that had some
[2:15] Speaker 1: good qualities, but didn't quite live up to the expectations
[2:18] Speaker 1: of a police dog. And I think that bore out
[2:21] Speaker 1: a when someone was attacking you and you're literally fighting
[2:24] Speaker 1: for your life after you've been hit across the head
[2:26] Speaker 1: with a lump of timber and poor old Zed thought
[2:29] Speaker 1: it was a game. Do you want to tell us
[2:30] Speaker 1: about that one? Exactly.
[2:32] Speaker 2: Well, Zed was my second dog. I had a dog
[2:34] Speaker 2: before that called Buddy, but I took Zed on after
[2:37] Speaker 2: that and Zed and I got called to a job
[2:39] Speaker 2: one day and it wouldn't be, if it wasn't so serious,
[2:43] Speaker 2: it'd probably be funny. But so Zed and I got
[2:46] Speaker 2: called to a job that was an offender had run
[2:50] Speaker 2: up the creek line of a suburban area in Cairns.
[2:54] Speaker 2: I got on a track. We followed it up. We
[2:55] Speaker 2: followed it for about a kilometre or so. And then
[2:57] Speaker 2: we came to this big steep and bank which is
[2:59] Speaker 2: about three metres either side. And we managed to scramble
[3:02] Speaker 2: up there. And once we got to the top there,
[3:03] Speaker 2: we saw this person come out from my trip about
[3:06] Speaker 2: 30 metres away. I did the usual thing which we
[3:09] Speaker 2: have to do. The commands is police with the police
[3:11] Speaker 2: dog stop or you'll get bitten. The usual type of stuff.
[3:13] Speaker 2: Get on the ground and He decided to take a
[3:15] Speaker 2: separate course of action and off he ran. So Zed
[3:18] Speaker 2: and I got back on the track. We jumped through
[3:19] Speaker 2: a few fences because there were yards on top of
[3:22] Speaker 2: this three-meter embankment. I jumped through a few fences. I
[3:28] Speaker 2: then saw the offender run around a fence line and
[3:30] Speaker 2: I decided it was time to send Zed in to
[3:33] Speaker 2: take him down. So I unhooked the line, keeping in
[3:36] Speaker 2: mind he was on line at this time. We were tracking.
[3:38] Speaker 2: He ran around this fence line. I saw the offender
[3:40] Speaker 2: run around the fence line. Zed followed. I followed that
[3:44] Speaker 2: a few minutes later. And just as I came around
[3:46] Speaker 2: the fence line, I got smacked in the head with
[3:48] Speaker 2: a big piece of a fence parting that cracked across
[3:50] Speaker 2: my face and smashed my nose, split my eye, did
[3:55] Speaker 2: a few serious injuries to me, knocked me to the ground,
[3:57] Speaker 2: but did knock me out luckily. But the funny thing
[4:00] Speaker 2: about it is when the stick shattered, my dog thought
[4:03] Speaker 2: he was in doggy heaven because he was running around
[4:04] Speaker 2: picking up the sticks and bringing them back to me
[4:06] Speaker 2: while I was lying on the ground, bleeding profusely with
[4:10] Speaker 2: an offender on top of me trying to wrestle me. So,
[4:13] Speaker 2: He thought it was a great time. It was not
[4:14] Speaker 2: a great time. Every time he'd come back, he thought
[4:17] Speaker 2: we were playing. He'd run, he'd do a little crouch,
[4:19] Speaker 2: like they do a little crouch down and run and
[4:22] Speaker 2: get another stick and bring it back to me. So
[4:24] Speaker 2: if I could have shot him, I probably reached down
[4:27] Speaker 2: and got me far on, but he knew what type
[4:28] Speaker 2: of shot I was. So he knew it was pretty safe.
[4:30] Speaker 2: So not the best shot in the world.
[4:33] Speaker 1: So I can imagine why you'd be a little bit
[4:36] Speaker 1: pissed off of your partner, Zed, on that one, why
[4:39] Speaker 1: you're literally fighting for your life. And- He's thinking there's
[4:43] Speaker 1: a game going on.
[4:45] Speaker 2: Yeah, it's funny, but even though he was, I was
[4:49] Speaker 2: disappointed in the role he played, or the role he
[4:52] Speaker 2: didn't play, I should say, is he, at the end
[4:56] Speaker 2: of it all, so how it ended up is I
[4:58] Speaker 2: rolled down this embankment with this offender. I managed to
[5:00] Speaker 2: get him in a headlock, and Zed followed us down,
[5:03] Speaker 2: of course, still playing, thinking we were playing, and I
[5:05] Speaker 2: managed to get the offender in a headlock. He was
[5:07] Speaker 2: facing towards me. I had him in a headlock this way,
[5:09] Speaker 2: or I don't know, what we call, well, we're not
[5:12] Speaker 2: allowed to call a choker hold because that's a bad thing,
[5:15] Speaker 2: you know, like I'm fighting for my life, so I'll
[5:16] Speaker 2: be called whatever I want. And I reached there and
[5:19] Speaker 2: got my capsicum spray and put it in front of
[5:21] Speaker 2: his face and I pulled the trigger and of course
[5:22] Speaker 2: he moved. So I copped the full brunt of the spray.
[5:26] Speaker 2: So I took him to the ground. Not only was
[5:28] Speaker 2: I bleeding, not only was I had a police dog
[5:31] Speaker 2: running around being stupid, but also had a face full
[5:34] Speaker 2: of capsicum spray now. But as luck would have it,
[5:36] Speaker 2: and the dog was obviously just playing a game, but
[5:38] Speaker 2: as luck would have it, One of those yards we
[5:41] Speaker 2: ran through was an off-duty police officer and he saw
[5:43] Speaker 2: it unfolding. So he ran down and saw me struggling
[5:48] Speaker 2: with this bloke and gave me a bit of a
[5:49] Speaker 2: hand and we managed to get him into custody. I
[5:53] Speaker 2: remember lying there at the end, covered in blood, covered
[5:55] Speaker 2: in capsicum spray and lying beside a naked man, not
[6:00] Speaker 2: wanting to, but the circumstances were not my greatest moment.
[6:04] Speaker 2: And Zed came over and gave me a big lick
[6:05] Speaker 2: on the face. He knew I was angry at him,
[6:07] Speaker 2: but he He tended to just, you know, knew the
[6:12] Speaker 2: feeling was there, but he's looking at me with sympathy saying,
[6:15] Speaker 2: what was I supposed to do, you know? So, yeah,
[6:17] Speaker 2: so that was, unfortunately, that was the end of Zed's
[6:19] Speaker 2: policing career. He came to live with us for the
[6:21] Speaker 2: next 10 years at home. So it was nice.
[6:24] Speaker 1: How did you break it to him that he's just
[6:26] Speaker 1: not measuring up?
[6:28] Speaker 2: Straight back in the car, took him straight home, said,
[6:30] Speaker 2: get in the kennel there and off you go. I'm
[6:31] Speaker 2: out of here. I've got a new dog. And it's
[6:34] Speaker 2: funny with the police. You don't have time, even if
[6:37] Speaker 2: your dog dies, you don't have time to mourn or
[6:38] Speaker 2: anything like that. You know, your dog dies on a Friday. Monday,
[6:40] Speaker 2: you're down there getting another dog. So, yeah. But he
[6:44] Speaker 2: loved it with the kids. He had a great time
[6:45] Speaker 2: with the kids here for the next 10 years or so.
[6:48] Speaker 1: Out with the old, in with the new.
[6:50] Speaker 2: Exactly, yeah.
[6:51] Speaker 1: Well, yeah, and this is where policing gives you all
[6:55] Speaker 1: sorts of experiences. I've had the experience of wrestling with
[6:58] Speaker 1: a naked man, which is when the fight's on, you're
[7:00] Speaker 1: not too worried about what the person's wearing. I chased
[7:03] Speaker 1: him for about two kilometres before I caught him, but
[7:06] Speaker 1: eventually got him. And I was working at the time.
[7:09] Speaker 2: Okay.
[7:09] Speaker 1: Police dogs and personalities. I reflect on early days in
[7:14] Speaker 1: criminal investigation where there was a notorious pub that had
[7:18] Speaker 1: a lot of bikies there and we were going to
[7:19] Speaker 1: make an impact and go in there and we were
[7:21] Speaker 1: going in there with a police dog that could detect drugs.
[7:24] Speaker 1: different things. So we go into the public bar, make
[7:27] Speaker 1: a big entrance with the police dog that's looking tough
[7:30] Speaker 1: at this stage. And he's walking around the pool tables
[7:33] Speaker 1: and carrying on. Then someone decided to give him some bread.
[7:36] Speaker 1: And then all of a sudden, the police dog didn't
[7:39] Speaker 1: look that ferocious. He was just walking around to the bike.
[7:42] Speaker 1: He's looking for who else had some bread to feed him.
[7:44] Speaker 1: So Yeah, it doesn't always work out, does it?
[7:47] Speaker 2: The dog's name wasn't Red, was it, by any chance?
[7:51] Speaker 1: We might have got rid of him from New South
[7:53] Speaker 1: Wales to Queensland. But yeah, it's funny, the personalities of
[7:59] Speaker 1: the different dogs. But I suppose it's like working with cops,
[8:03] Speaker 1: even the ones with two legs. They've all got different
[8:06] Speaker 1: personalities and different qualities.
[8:08] Speaker 2: And it's amazing because I had the five dogs and
[8:10] Speaker 2: every single one had a different personality, different traits, everything
[8:13] Speaker 2: so different. And that was one of the hard parts
[8:15] Speaker 2: of being in the dog squad is you were just
[8:17] Speaker 2: so used to your dog, especially if you had him
[8:18] Speaker 2: for four or five years or six years, whatever it was.
[8:21] Speaker 2: And as soon as you go to a new dog,
[8:23] Speaker 2: he tracks differently, he does, he bites differently, he has
[8:27] Speaker 2: different affections towards people. And it's really difficult to hit
[8:30] Speaker 2: around that, you know, just go back to the old way.
[8:33] Speaker 2: I just want to go back to the old one.
[8:34] Speaker 2: You know what I mean? And that, that might be
[8:35] Speaker 2: something to do with age as well, you know? So yeah. Yeah.
[8:38] Speaker 1: And the dogs have reputations within the police force too,
[8:41] Speaker 1: don't they? Like everyone knows, oh, this dog, we want
[8:44] Speaker 1: this dog coming out because this dog knows how to
[8:46] Speaker 1: handle himself or, uh, yeah, it's, it's funny how the
[8:49] Speaker 1: reputations carry or don't get in front of this dog. You'll,
[8:52] Speaker 1: you'll get bitten yourself and all sorts of things.
[8:55] Speaker 2: Yeah, and there have been a few police officers bitten
[8:57] Speaker 2: over the years, of course, you know, and they tend
[8:59] Speaker 2: to stay away from the thing. I mean, there is
[9:01] Speaker 2: a saying going around that you don't know scared until
[9:04] Speaker 2: you walk past a police dog van and the dog
[9:06] Speaker 2: goes off. I had an old drunk who used to
[9:09] Speaker 2: come to me every single– I'd be sitting on the
[9:11] Speaker 2: side of the road with the police dog van and
[9:13] Speaker 2: this drunk would come past me and he'd look in
[9:15] Speaker 2: the window and he says, Hey, sir, give me a
[9:17] Speaker 2: lift down to the center for me. I said, yeah, mate,
[9:21] Speaker 2: hop in the back. And he'd go back and he'd
[9:22] Speaker 2: lift up the back and the dog would go off
[9:24] Speaker 2: his head. And he'd come back to me, look in
[9:26] Speaker 2: the side room and go, Sarge you got me again
[9:28] Speaker 2: Sarge you got me again you know so I got
[9:31] Speaker 2: him every week you know but but it was yeah
[9:33] Speaker 2: it used to go off his head so yeah.
[9:34] Speaker 1: I'm gonna get in hey uh what uh what drove
[9:37] Speaker 1: you to join in the police what was it something
[9:39] Speaker 1: you always had in mind.
[9:40] Speaker 2: Or ever since I was ever since I was a
[9:42] Speaker 2: little kid I wanted to I remember coming home mum
[9:45] Speaker 2: used to bring we used to get groceries back in
[9:47] Speaker 2: the day and cardboard boxes mum would bring the box
[9:49] Speaker 2: home and I'd ride on the side of that thing
[9:51] Speaker 2: a police and You know, we used to spell it differently, but,
[9:54] Speaker 2: you know, as a three- and four-year-old, I used to
[9:56] Speaker 2: put the big police on and push myself and imagine
[9:58] Speaker 2: I was a police officer. And I decided from then
[10:03] Speaker 2: that that's what I wanted to do. And I lived
[10:06] Speaker 2: out my dream basically going there. I was actually a
[10:09] Speaker 2: bookbinder by trade, believe it or not. So that was
[10:11] Speaker 2: my trade. I did an apprenticeship as a bookbinder.
[10:14] Speaker 1: That's an interesting trade to go from bookbinding to policing.
[10:17] Speaker 2: Very much so. In those days, it was like mum
[10:21] Speaker 2: and dad, you'd say to mum and dad, you didn't
[10:22] Speaker 2: want to go on to grade 12. And they would say, well,
[10:26] Speaker 2: go out and get an apprenticeship. And just went out
[10:27] Speaker 2: and got an apprenticeship. And I happened to do the
[10:28] Speaker 2: bookbinding apprenticeship.
[10:30] Speaker 1: How old were you when you joined the cops?
[10:32] Speaker 2: I was 23. And when I first went in there,
[10:36] Speaker 2: I was 18 or 19. And like yourself, I used
[10:39] Speaker 2: to do a lot, well, I still do a lot
[10:40] Speaker 2: of martial arts, but I And I was doing a
[10:42] Speaker 2: lot of fighting in the ring and stuff like that.
[10:44] Speaker 2: And I was 59 kilos and six foot tall. And
[10:47] Speaker 2: that's why I was winning all the time because I
[10:49] Speaker 2: was fighting with blokes half my height. So I'd get
[10:53] Speaker 2: the head kicks up there back in those days. But
[10:55] Speaker 2: I went into the police three times. I tried and
[10:57] Speaker 2: I got knocked back three times for size and weight,
[10:59] Speaker 2: believe it or not. I couldn't expand my chest to
[11:01] Speaker 2: 95 centimeters, which was one thing we had to do.
[11:05] Speaker 2: My height wasn't proportioned to my weight. And so I
[11:08] Speaker 2: just kept knocking back irrespective of the you know the
[11:11] Speaker 2: 20 years of martial arts behind the 15 years martial
[11:14] Speaker 2: arts behind me and stuff like that the size and
[11:17] Speaker 2: weight was such an important thing and uh and how
[11:20] Speaker 2: things have changed i mean could you imagine doing that these.
[11:22] Speaker 1: Days yeah no it definitely has changed but they didn't
[11:25] Speaker 1: quite understand being fit and lean didn't uh necessarily mean
[11:29] Speaker 1: you weren't uh weren't ready for the job so exactly
[11:32] Speaker 1: you uh you obviously uh got in um where the
[11:35] Speaker 1: where did you first start working.
[11:37] Speaker 2: I went through the prison system first, so I thought
[11:39] Speaker 2: if I can't get around through the size and weight thing,
[11:44] Speaker 2: eventually what they did was they had the Fitzgerald inquiry
[11:48] Speaker 2: up here, of course, and they decided they were going
[11:50] Speaker 2: to get rid of all the size and weight, male, female,
[11:54] Speaker 2: that type of stuff, and they were just going to
[11:56] Speaker 2: take basically the best applicant for the job, so it
[11:58] Speaker 2: didn't matter what size you were. But they also wanted education.
[12:01] Speaker 2: The thing is that what they did was they got
[12:04] Speaker 2: rid of the size and weight expectations first, and then
[12:08] Speaker 2: they went across and brought in the education. So I
[12:11] Speaker 2: slipped in between those because I had grade 10 education,
[12:13] Speaker 2: so there was no way in the world I was
[12:14] Speaker 2: going to get in.
[12:15] Speaker 1: Right.
[12:15] Speaker 2: So I managed to slip in then. And so in 1989, yeah,
[12:19] Speaker 2: I left Townsville to go to the Police Academy in Brisbane.
[12:24] Speaker 1: And how did you find your first couple of years
[12:26] Speaker 1: in policing? Did it feel like the right mix for
[12:27] Speaker 1: you in general duties?
[12:28] Speaker 2: I was a bit of a shock when I went
[12:31] Speaker 2: through the academy. I was not expecting so disciplinarian education.
[12:36] Speaker 2: You know, almost like you see it on the movies
[12:37] Speaker 2: where they shout in your face and stuff like that.
[12:39] Speaker 2: I don't know whether it's the same these days. I'm
[12:41] Speaker 2: not sure whether they're allowed to get away with it. But,
[12:43] Speaker 2: you know, it's like 6 o'clock, 6 a.m. room inspections
[12:47] Speaker 2: and you could never get anything right and stuff like that.
[12:51] Speaker 2: Is it bullying these days? I'll tell you what, maybe
[12:54] Speaker 2: you might like to call it bullying, but I'll tell
[12:55] Speaker 2: you what, it shaped me up. You know, it really
[12:58] Speaker 2: sorted me out. Every shirt was ironed and, you know,
[13:00] Speaker 2: everything was neat and tidy. Yeah. If you saw this room,
[13:04] Speaker 2: you'd see I'd lapse.
[13:06] Speaker 1: No, I know what you're saying. And the discipline that
[13:09] Speaker 1: they brought in in the academy, when I went through
[13:11] Speaker 1: the academy, it was very much like that. A lot
[13:14] Speaker 1: of discipline and room inspections, your shoes inspected, your ironing,
[13:20] Speaker 1: how you make your bed, all that. And it seemed
[13:23] Speaker 1: like a pain in the ass at the time. You
[13:25] Speaker 1: look back and it was a bit of fun. What
[13:28] Speaker 1: was the challenges early in your policing career when you're
[13:31] Speaker 1: out on the street? Did the type of training that
[13:34] Speaker 1: you got prepare you for it or was it a
[13:36] Speaker 1: matter of learning? You weren't learning your skills and trade
[13:39] Speaker 1: out in the real world.
[13:40] Speaker 2: I came in, as I say, I came in just
[13:42] Speaker 2: after the Fitzgerald inquiry. So actually the recommendations hadn't been
[13:48] Speaker 2: sent out, but they hadn't actually been instigated, if that
[13:52] Speaker 2: makes sense. We had to sit through a two-day course
[13:54] Speaker 2: a couple of years into my service. So the feeling
[13:59] Speaker 2: towards police from the general public was terrible because we
[14:02] Speaker 2: didn't deal much with decent people. We mostly dealt with
[14:06] Speaker 2: the grubs of society. And so every time we pulled
[14:09] Speaker 2: someone up, it'd be, oh, another corrupt cop, you know,
[14:10] Speaker 2: that type of stuff. So that was really difficult.
[14:12] Speaker 1: Just to put that in the context, David, the Fitzgerald
[14:15] Speaker 1: inquiry was an inquiry in the Queensland police corruption and
[14:18] Speaker 1: exposed a lot of corruption. So we had, and I
[14:22] Speaker 1: think most states have had those inquiries that... And you
[14:27] Speaker 1: feel the resentment from the public after those inquiries when
[14:30] Speaker 1: the corruption has been exposed and the public, that's the
[14:35] Speaker 1: go-to position. Oh, you're a corrupt detective, you're a corrupt cop,
[14:38] Speaker 1: that type of thing. So I understand what you're talking
[14:40] Speaker 1: about there.
[14:41] Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely. And it was a shame. And we get
[14:46] Speaker 2: into trouble if we profile certain people, certain groups, whatever
[14:54] Speaker 2: it is, but Then everybody profiles the police as everyone's corrupt,
[14:59] Speaker 2: you know, which is far, far, far from the truth.
[15:01] Speaker 2: Most people I know, most of the coppers out there,
[15:03] Speaker 2: especially the young ones these days, are so well-educated and
[15:06] Speaker 2: their whole life, and they could be getting better money
[15:09] Speaker 2: out doing what they're doing, their degrees, but they're in
[15:12] Speaker 2: there because they want to help people. They want to
[15:13] Speaker 2: make a difference. And that's where the problem is. You know,
[15:16] Speaker 2: the public don't understand that we are, one, we're just people.
[15:21] Speaker 2: And I do hate that term because everybody says, oh,
[15:23] Speaker 2: it shows they're human. Well, of course we're bloody human,
[15:25] Speaker 2: you know. Um, it's, uh, it's just that we want
[15:27] Speaker 2: to go. And, and when I'd come home from, from
[15:30] Speaker 2: a shift, I'd just switch off. I wouldn't be a
[15:31] Speaker 2: policeman anymore. And I'd often get people saying, uh, they'd
[15:34] Speaker 2: complain to me and say, oh, bloody coppers, you know, blah, blah, blah.
[15:38] Speaker 2: And I'd say, hey, to my mate, I'd say, hey,
[15:39] Speaker 2: I'm a copper. He'd say, no, no, no, you're Dave.
[15:41] Speaker 2: And I'd go, well, I'm still a copper. You know,
[15:44] Speaker 2: they can't, you know, it's just, it's a, it's a
[15:47] Speaker 2: funny situation. But, um, so in answer to your question, um, Yes,
[15:51] Speaker 2: I did find it a little bit difficult. I was
[15:54] Speaker 2: very young as well. So I was only 23 and
[15:56] Speaker 2: I looked 18, maybe if that. So it was really
[16:00] Speaker 2: difficult going to domestic situations. I remember my first job though.
[16:03] Speaker 2: My first job was like a poster to Cairns. My
[16:06] Speaker 2: first job was to stand on the corner of one
[16:08] Speaker 2: of the streets in one of the city streets in
[16:10] Speaker 2: Cairns and write tickets out to people on the don't
[16:12] Speaker 2: walk sign. So here I was writing. I made the
[16:14] Speaker 2: newspaper there and I thought I was proud as anything.
[16:17] Speaker 2: And I still got the newspaper clipping, but it's right
[16:20] Speaker 2: at the back of the book now. don't bring that
[16:22] Speaker 2: anymore but this is what the sergeant he looked at
[16:24] Speaker 2: me he said get out there write some tickets yeah
[16:25] Speaker 2: right oh i'm off my way so um so i
[16:27] Speaker 2: apologize to those people out there who might have got
[16:29] Speaker 2: a ticket from me 38 years.
[16:31] Speaker 1: Ago incredible investigative work there david how you spotted that
[16:35] Speaker 1: that's that's something you should be very very proud of
[16:38] Speaker 1: very proud of my first arrest was failed to pay
[16:41] Speaker 1: on the train and uh that was i i arrested
[16:45] Speaker 1: this uh i arrested this bloke i was so naive
[16:48] Speaker 1: and it's in the first couple of weeks and uh
[16:51] Speaker 1: He jumped the barrier of the railway station and I
[16:54] Speaker 1: arrested him. And I didn't know you could actually or
[16:57] Speaker 1: you should have perhaps given him a summons, just a
[17:00] Speaker 1: ticket to a fine.
[17:02] Speaker 2: Been there, done that. Been there, done that, yeah.
[17:04] Speaker 1: But I arrested him and I brought him back to
[17:06] Speaker 1: the police station and I didn't know he was a
[17:08] Speaker 1: bad local crook in the area. All the old cops
[17:11] Speaker 1: thought I was playing hardball, but look, this Jubilant, he's
[17:15] Speaker 1: arrested this bloke just for evade fare. He's playing hardball
[17:19] Speaker 1: with this. I had no idea. I had no idea.
[17:22] Speaker 1: I just stuffed up, but it played out that people
[17:24] Speaker 1: thought I was being a hard-ass cop. I was just
[17:27] Speaker 1: a stupid cop that didn't know what the powers were.
[17:31] Speaker 1: Other work that you did before you steered, because how
[17:33] Speaker 1: long did you spend in the cops all up?
[17:35] Speaker 2: 36 years, so 89 through to 36 and a half.
[17:40] Speaker 1: And 26 of those were in the dog squad?
[17:42] Speaker 2: 26 were in the dog squad, that's right, yeah. So
[17:46] Speaker 2: I did general duties policing. I dabbled a little bit
[17:50] Speaker 2: in plainclothes, you know, a few months here, a few
[17:52] Speaker 2: months there. Went out to all the, as you know,
[17:55] Speaker 2: the missions, the communities up north, did a fair little
[17:59] Speaker 2: bit of work up there at times. I remember the
[18:01] Speaker 2: day I got sworn in, the day I got through
[18:03] Speaker 2: my first year constable thing which we didn't have back
[18:06] Speaker 2: then once you once you got through your training i
[18:08] Speaker 2: flew up to lockhart river which is a community up
[18:12] Speaker 2: north indigenous community and i was going up there leaving
[18:15] Speaker 2: there was a sergeant and a senior constable there at
[18:17] Speaker 2: that time i was a chronic constable back then and
[18:20] Speaker 2: i remember the plane landing and the sergeant walking out
[18:22] Speaker 2: to me throwing me the keys to the um to
[18:24] Speaker 2: the troop carrier and said there's the keys to the
[18:25] Speaker 2: station he says i've got two weeks out i went
[18:28] Speaker 2: what and he goes yeah yeah you'll be right i.
[18:31] Speaker 1: Had no idea that that's your handover Yeah, yeah.
[18:34] Speaker 2: That was my, and I'm going, what? And I had
[18:36] Speaker 2: never been to a community like this in my life.
[18:38] Speaker 2: I remember the first night lying under the bed with
[18:41] Speaker 2: people knocking on my door going, hey, Sarge, hey, Sarge.
[18:44] Speaker 2: And I was just absolutely shitting myself.
[18:45] Speaker 1: Had no idea.
[18:46] Speaker 2: No idea what I was doing. But eventually I became
[18:49] Speaker 2: really friends with the community, started playing rugby league with
[18:52] Speaker 2: them up there and stuff like that. So, yeah, it
[18:54] Speaker 2: turned out really well in the end.
[18:55] Speaker 1: I think that's so important, policing in Indigenous communities. And
[19:00] Speaker 1: certainly in Queensland and far north Queensland, there's some very
[19:03] Speaker 1: remote communities. But socialising with the community, letting the community
[19:08] Speaker 1: members know that you're human, getting to understand their ways,
[19:13] Speaker 1: it's crucial, isn't it?
[19:15] Speaker 2: Oh, absolutely. I often look at the riots that they
[19:17] Speaker 2: had in Cronulla and places like that, and I go, yep, okay,
[19:21] Speaker 2: they made the news. But some of those places up there,
[19:25] Speaker 2: It's that every week. And it's almost like out of sight,
[19:28] Speaker 2: out of mind. You know, they just worry it's there,
[19:33] Speaker 2: it'll throw money at it and just let it sort
[19:34] Speaker 2: itself out. Whereas it's not that easy.
[19:38] Speaker 1: It's a complex situation. But that would have been a
[19:40] Speaker 1: good experience for you, working within communities like that. That
[19:45] Speaker 1: would have changed your view and outlook on life a
[19:47] Speaker 1: little bit, I would imagine. Absolutely.
[19:49] Speaker 2: Absolutely. It's like just getting on the trail bike and
[19:52] Speaker 2: riding up the beaches and sharing things like turtle and
[19:55] Speaker 2: dugong with the locals. It was just those little things.
[20:00] Speaker 2: Because once you got to know them and they started
[20:02] Speaker 2: to trust you a little bit, it was a different life.
[20:04] Speaker 2: It was very, very good. The most important thing up
[20:07] Speaker 2: there is you use those community police that are able
[20:09] Speaker 2: to go around and they know everybody and they take
[20:12] Speaker 2: a bit of a risk to being community police because
[20:15] Speaker 2: the feeling towards police is very negative anyway. And then
[20:19] Speaker 2: you've got these people who are helping out.
[20:21] Speaker 1: I spent a lot of time working in different communities
[20:23] Speaker 1: and understanding, okay, well, what works in the city is
[20:26] Speaker 1: not going to work here. And once you change your thinking,
[20:29] Speaker 1: you can make some progress. For sure, yeah. Those type
[20:34] Speaker 1: of experiences, you wouldn't pass them up. And what steered
[20:38] Speaker 1: you to police dogs? What was your passion for that work?
[20:41] Speaker 2: Well, I was, as I say, did 10 years general duties.
[20:44] Speaker 2: I was also part-time what they call CERTI, or prior
[20:48] Speaker 2: to CERTI was Tactical Response Group. killed someone or injured someone,
[20:53] Speaker 2: then we went to SWAS and then they changed it all.
[20:56] Speaker 2: And then we went to, they decided they're going to
[20:57] Speaker 2: bring in a full-time unit. Well, in fact, it was
[21:00] Speaker 2: seven full-time members and 14 part-time members. I was part of,
[21:06] Speaker 2: as I say, so SWAS, I just went to the
[21:08] Speaker 2: three-day course, which is probably one of the hardest things
[21:10] Speaker 2: in my life. And I've got respect for the police,
[21:14] Speaker 2: those tactical officers, the courses they go through, just incredible
[21:18] Speaker 2: to get them there. And I don't think you can
[21:20] Speaker 2: really explain to anybody unless they've been through it. And
[21:23] Speaker 2: so I was doing that for a little bit. And
[21:25] Speaker 2: then they managed to get rid of the part-time members
[21:30] Speaker 2: and they asked myself and quite a few others to
[21:33] Speaker 2: go to full-time. I had my eyes set on the
[21:38] Speaker 2: dog squad and I basically said, no, I stayed in
[21:40] Speaker 2: general duties until a spot came up in the dog squad.
[21:42] Speaker 1: Okay. Your dogs, let's compare. You've had five dogs in
[21:47] Speaker 1: your service. Just compare the difference between, say, Zed, And
[21:52] Speaker 1: our hero for this podcast, Vader, who is outstanding work
[21:57] Speaker 1: with Vader, describe the type of dogs they were and
[22:01] Speaker 1: the type of different personalities because you worked with both
[22:03] Speaker 1: of them. How would you break it down?
[22:06] Speaker 2: Probably the most important changes was when I first joined
[22:09] Speaker 2: the dog squad in 1999, they said, here's your new uniform,
[22:13] Speaker 2: here's your new belt, go and find yourself a dog.
[22:16] Speaker 2: So we would go to the community radio, we would
[22:18] Speaker 2: advertise on TV, they'd put a photo of me in
[22:20] Speaker 2: the paper and say, The new dog hand is looking
[22:23] Speaker 2: for a dog. And from there, people would write in
[22:28] Speaker 2: or send us messages. No mobile phones back then. So
[22:33] Speaker 2: they'd ring the police station. We've got a dog here
[22:35] Speaker 2: that keeps digging holes, keeps jumping fences, and that's the
[22:38] Speaker 2: type of dog we want. So we'd go around and
[22:39] Speaker 2: have a look at him and say, yep, we'll take this,
[22:40] Speaker 2: and then we'll take it down to train. Whereas nowadays,
[22:43] Speaker 2: of course, I've got the breeding program, and the QPS
[22:48] Speaker 2: did fantastic. We might have been close on the first
[22:51] Speaker 2: breeding program, I think, for the police to have. And
[22:53] Speaker 2: they were just, they did a great job. And now
[22:56] Speaker 2: the dogs they're churning out are so good. So when
[22:59] Speaker 2: I first went down, I had to start right from scratch.
[23:02] Speaker 2: I had this two-year-old dog. I remember my first dog
[23:04] Speaker 2: was Buddy. It was handed over by a couple of
[23:06] Speaker 2: people from Brisbane who were a professional couple. And he
[23:10] Speaker 2: was a big, massive dog.
[23:12] Speaker 1: What breed?
[23:13] Speaker 2: German Shepherd.
[23:14] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[23:14] Speaker 2: You tried to get German Shepherds because they were the
[23:16] Speaker 2: proven ones. Malinois weren't heard of back then. Yeah. Uh,
[23:19] Speaker 2: that's the new, that's the new, uh, new trend until
[23:23] Speaker 2: something else comes along like a dash hand or something,
[23:24] Speaker 2: but we'll worry about that when it happens. But, uh,
[23:27] Speaker 2: so yeah, so I, uh, every dog I got here
[23:30] Speaker 2: actually failed. I can't remember the name of the dog
[23:33] Speaker 2: I had here, but then I eventually went down and
[23:35] Speaker 2: Brisbane had sourced Buddy for me and I walked in
[23:38] Speaker 2: and there was this massive big 45 kilo dog and
[23:40] Speaker 2: he was, he was just a massive big spatch. But
[23:43] Speaker 2: he was so, such picturesque, if that's the word, that
[23:47] Speaker 2: the QPS took him on as one of their, A media,
[23:51] Speaker 2: media junkies. And of course, that's where I came in.
[23:53] Speaker 2: I mean, he was a good looking dog. And you
[23:55] Speaker 2: had the opposite here.
[24:00] Speaker 1: He just had the looks. The looks carried him through.
[24:04] Speaker 2: One day we were doing an interview with Channel 7
[24:06] Speaker 2: because we were trying to recruit dogs for the police
[24:08] Speaker 2: dog squad. And we were sitting across from a reporter.
[24:12] Speaker 2: And the bloke with the boom mic leaned across and
[24:15] Speaker 2: put the boom mic in between myself and the reporter. Now,
[24:18] Speaker 2: I don't know about you, but one of those boom
[24:20] Speaker 2: might look very much like one of those arms that
[24:22] Speaker 2: we use for bite training. And the dog leapt and
[24:24] Speaker 2: took out that boom like it smashed to the ground
[24:27] Speaker 2: and everybody just ran and scattered. They were just a wild,
[24:30] Speaker 2: wild west, these dogs.
[24:32] Speaker 1: What sort of training is done with the dogs?
[24:35] Speaker 2: It's a 14-week course and that was my first course.
[24:39] Speaker 2: And we would obviously say obedience is the main thing
[24:41] Speaker 2: and that's the groundwork for any dog. I train dogs
[24:43] Speaker 2: now for a couple of government organisations and And I
[24:47] Speaker 2: also train dogs privately, but the grounding for everything that
[24:51] Speaker 2: we want to do is obedience. So once we've got
[24:53] Speaker 2: the dog nice and obedient, then we can start doing
[24:55] Speaker 2: other stuff. And obviously there's things like our main one
[24:58] Speaker 2: was tracking. So that's tracking offenders, which was, and that
[25:02] Speaker 2: is a very long, slow process. And it's quite, if
[25:05] Speaker 2: you don't do the basics on that, you can mess
[25:07] Speaker 2: the dog up and you're not going to catch anybody.
[25:10] Speaker 2: But again, the QPS have got their, they've got everything
[25:12] Speaker 2: into gear down there and everything works really well. So Tracking,
[25:15] Speaker 2: there was obviously the bite work, which was synonymous with
[25:17] Speaker 2: police work. People put the arm on and stuff like that.
[25:19] Speaker 2: And I think my first dog, Buddy, would have 100 bites.
[25:23] Speaker 2: It was just massive. It's just like anybody we found
[25:27] Speaker 2: was bitten, but because they weren't as well trained, they
[25:31] Speaker 2: didn't come off and stuff like that. Yeah. And compared
[25:35] Speaker 2: to my last dog, Jet, I think I had one bite.
[25:37] Speaker 1: Just to clarify, the type of dogs you were getting
[25:40] Speaker 1: were general purpose dogs. They weren't specifically bought in to
[25:44] Speaker 1: search for drugs or this.
[25:46] Speaker 2: No, that's right.
[25:47] Speaker 1: A situation that happened and an offender had to camp
[25:49] Speaker 1: and you were the people that we called to locate
[25:53] Speaker 1: the offender.
[25:54] Speaker 2: That's right. Because back in 99, that's all we had
[25:56] Speaker 2: was GP dogs. The GP dogs were also trained on
[25:59] Speaker 2: cannabis detection, believe it or not. That's something that's gone
[26:03] Speaker 2: by the wayside now because it's not seen as such
[26:07] Speaker 2: a bad thing. And we would cross-train them for cannabis detection.
[26:13] Speaker 2: So we'd have the tracking, the bite work. They do
[26:16] Speaker 2: article searches now. What an article search is, the dog
[26:19] Speaker 2: would go into an area, a grassed area or something,
[26:22] Speaker 2: maybe a park or something, and would locate something that
[26:25] Speaker 2: was recently discarded, human scent. So it be able to
[26:29] Speaker 2: send the dog in there and bring it back. It
[26:30] Speaker 2: was handy if you lost your keys in the park,
[26:32] Speaker 2: you'd send the dog in and pick it up and
[26:33] Speaker 2: bring it back out, stuff like that. And we would
[26:37] Speaker 2: also do building searches. So that would mean that if somebody,
[26:42] Speaker 2: there's a recent break and enter, or we had a
[26:43] Speaker 2: suspicion somebody's in there, we'd send the dog in, he'd
[26:46] Speaker 2: do a search and he'd locate that person. Now I've
[26:49] Speaker 2: located people in floorboards underneath the floor, timber floors. I've
[26:53] Speaker 2: located a few in the ceiling. I've also located one
[26:56] Speaker 2: person who was tucked himself inside one of those fold-out
[27:00] Speaker 2: sofa beds. He's taken the mattress out and hidden in there.
[27:04] Speaker 2: So just amazing. They just sit there and they bark
[27:06] Speaker 2: and then we get the opportunity to go in and
[27:07] Speaker 2: get them.
[27:08] Speaker 1: What's the science behind their skills in tracking? Like if
[27:12] Speaker 1: you've got an incident that's occurred, let's say in a
[27:15] Speaker 1: park and the offenders run off from an assault and
[27:18] Speaker 1: you guys roll in, what's the science and what's the
[27:22] Speaker 1: skills that the dog possess that they can pick up
[27:24] Speaker 1: a scent and follow it?
[27:26] Speaker 2: It's all play-driven. So the dog knows at the end
[27:29] Speaker 2: of his track, he's going to get a reward. And
[27:31] Speaker 2: we start off doing a track that's, you know, 10
[27:34] Speaker 2: metres long. And at the end of that, there may
[27:36] Speaker 2: be food or there may be a toy, depending on
[27:38] Speaker 2: the dog. And slowly, slowly, slowly, over three and a
[27:41] Speaker 2: half months, we stretch that out to be, you know,
[27:43] Speaker 2: two and three kilometres away. And the science behind it
[27:48] Speaker 2: is basically the dog enjoys what it's doing. It wants
[27:50] Speaker 2: to play the game. It wants to get a toy
[27:52] Speaker 2: at the end. Whether that is food at the end
[27:54] Speaker 2: or whether that's a bite at the end, They don't
[27:56] Speaker 2: know because these dogs love biting, obviously. They love the sleeve.
[28:00] Speaker 2: And so that's basically the science behind it. It's not
[28:03] Speaker 2: exact science because the handler has a lot to do
[28:05] Speaker 2: with it to be able to read his dog. That's very,
[28:08] Speaker 2: very important that the dog can, the handler can, because
[28:11] Speaker 2: what you don't want to do, a dog, especially if
[28:13] Speaker 2: it's going quick and up here in North Queensland and
[28:15] Speaker 2: I suppose the rest of Queen, most of the state,
[28:18] Speaker 2: we track very quickly. So we'll be tracking at a full,
[28:21] Speaker 2: almost a full sprint, the dog will run off. But
[28:23] Speaker 2: with that, because we don't have the, police and the
[28:28] Speaker 2: rest of the staff, the resources around to put a
[28:30] Speaker 2: cordon in place. So we need to try and catch
[28:32] Speaker 2: the person. We do put cordon, we try to get
[28:34] Speaker 2: them to go to ground, but we need to try
[28:36] Speaker 2: and catch up to them. So that's why we track
[28:38] Speaker 2: so fast.
[28:39] Speaker 1: Are the dogs picking up the scent off the ground
[28:41] Speaker 1: or in the air or what trail are they following?
[28:44] Speaker 2: Yeah, they'll pick up the scent off the ground most
[28:48] Speaker 2: of the time. As you get closer to the offender,
[28:51] Speaker 2: if they're hiding, then you'll pick up the wind scenting
[28:55] Speaker 2: or the scent in the air. And you'll see the dog,
[28:57] Speaker 2: its ears will go up, its tail will go up,
[28:59] Speaker 2: and you'll be pulling the dog back and going, hey,
[29:01] Speaker 2: pull back here. And quite often, because we track so fast,
[29:03] Speaker 2: we may go past where the offender's hiding. And when
[29:06] Speaker 2: the dog stops, you go, okay, he's probably right beside me.
[29:09] Speaker 2: So you pull the dog back quickly and send them in.
[29:11] Speaker 1: And as a trainer, you can start to read the
[29:14] Speaker 1: signs with the ears going up or the tail up
[29:17] Speaker 1: or down or?
[29:18] Speaker 2: Absolutely. And a lot of times it's in the dark
[29:21] Speaker 2: as well. So you don't know, you can't see the dog,
[29:24] Speaker 2: but you can feel totally on that line what the
[29:27] Speaker 2: dog's doing. So if the dog starts pulling really hard,
[29:29] Speaker 2: you know, okay, I've got him here. And that's when
[29:31] Speaker 2: you can put your torch on because you do tend
[29:33] Speaker 2: to run along without your light on for obvious reasons.
[29:36] Speaker 2: You don't want to get shot. I did a job
[29:38] Speaker 2: once where the witnesses, said a male person wanted to
[29:41] Speaker 2: hurt himself. I brought the dog out. The witnesses said
[29:46] Speaker 2: he turned right out of this house. The dog wanted
[29:48] Speaker 2: to go left. And I went, what do I do?
[29:51] Speaker 2: And I decided I was going to go left and
[29:53] Speaker 2: just follow the dog and not worry about what they said.
[29:56] Speaker 2: I followed this dog. And I followed the dog probably
[29:58] Speaker 2: about 500 meters. pitch black, went into this park, pitch
[30:01] Speaker 2: black dark, and the dog just went off his head.
[30:04] Speaker 2: So I knew straight away that somebody was here. I
[30:05] Speaker 2: shone the light, and he was actually hanging from one
[30:09] Speaker 2: of the swings. And I managed to tie the dog
[30:11] Speaker 2: up there, and we actually.
[30:12] Speaker 1: Brought him back. That had actually run off to hang himself,
[30:16] Speaker 1: take his life.
[30:17] Speaker 2: Yep, yep, wanted to self-harm, and we managed to find
[30:19] Speaker 2: him and bring him back, which was, you know, so.
[30:22] Speaker 1: You say that as a matter of fact, but that's,
[30:24] Speaker 1: you know, the old heart would be pumping in situations
[30:28] Speaker 1: like that. You don't know what you're running into. Invariably,
[30:31] Speaker 1: it's someone you're chasing. And then in the dark, you're
[30:34] Speaker 1: on your own, it's you and your dog, and you
[30:36] Speaker 1: shine a torch, and there's someone hanging from a pole.
[30:39] Speaker 2: When you're in that uniform... or when you're at work mode,
[30:42] Speaker 2: it's a little bit different. You know, like they say,
[30:45] Speaker 2: we go to jobs and they say, oh, there's a
[30:47] Speaker 2: bloke run off with a gun in there into the
[30:49] Speaker 2: cane paddock or a knife, whatever. You're going to go
[30:51] Speaker 2: in and you go, yeah, yeah, no worries at all.
[30:53] Speaker 2: Off you go. You don't even think about it, which
[30:55] Speaker 2: is just a strange thing. Whereas if I was in
[30:57] Speaker 2: plain clothes or somebody told me, go into that cane
[30:59] Speaker 2: paddock now, I don't think I'd do it. I'd be
[31:01] Speaker 2: worried about snakes. I'd be worried about the bloke with
[31:03] Speaker 2: the gun. I'd be worried about all that type of stuff.
[31:05] Speaker 2: Whereas back in there, you're just 10 foot tall and bulletproof.
[31:08] Speaker 2: It's just strange, strange feeling.
[31:10] Speaker 1: I think I understand that, like working with tactical police,
[31:13] Speaker 1: when you're going into an arrest an armed offender, you're
[31:16] Speaker 1: all kitted up. You're in that role. You're in that mode,
[31:19] Speaker 1: and you're not really thinking about it the way that
[31:22] Speaker 1: you would if you stepped away from the job that
[31:24] Speaker 1: you're doing.
[31:25] Speaker 2: Yeah, and I'm not sure whether it's complacency. Complacency has
[31:27] Speaker 2: a place, but I think it's just, all right, this
[31:31] Speaker 2: is my job. This is my job. People need protecting,
[31:34] Speaker 2: and off you go and do those things. Many times
[31:36] Speaker 2: I've looked at the dogs. And I thought, not sure
[31:38] Speaker 2: whether this is right. And I'd side-eye him and he'd
[31:42] Speaker 2: look back at me and go, well, you're not going
[31:44] Speaker 2: in there, mate. I'm not going in there as well.
[31:45] Speaker 2: But we managed to.
[31:47] Speaker 1: Well, we'll just go back and tell him we lost them. Yeah.
[31:51] Speaker 2: Yeah, got on a bike. Got on a bike with
[31:53] Speaker 2: a bit of cane padding.
[31:55] Speaker 1: Yeah, it's interesting, isn't it? But exciting. The adrenaline kicks
[31:58] Speaker 1: in too. And it's the thrill of the chase. I
[32:01] Speaker 1: think there's something about the work that the dog squad
[32:05] Speaker 1: guys do and, you know, stories from your career, that
[32:09] Speaker 1: it really is boiling down to what policing should be,
[32:11] Speaker 1: the good guys chasing the bad guys. And it really
[32:15] Speaker 1: comes down to that, doesn't it?
[32:16] Speaker 2: And the good guys winning.
[32:18] Speaker 1: Now, with Vader, what type of dog was Vader?
[32:21] Speaker 2: Vader was a German Shepherd as well, yeah.
[32:23] Speaker 1: How old was he when you– I think it would
[32:26] Speaker 1: have been about three years of age.
[32:28] Speaker 2: What happened was one of the– the handler who had
[32:30] Speaker 2: him prior to that, He decided to go on to
[32:34] Speaker 2: get out of the dog squad and try and get
[32:35] Speaker 2: promoted because the dog squad is a position where once
[32:39] Speaker 2: you enter, you want to stay there. You don't want
[32:42] Speaker 2: to move on. Such a good job because you're autonomous.
[32:47] Speaker 2: The bosses leave you alone. They don't know what you do.
[32:49] Speaker 2: All they see is the results that come through, which
[32:52] Speaker 2: is great. You work by yourself with your dog. You
[32:55] Speaker 2: don't have to deal with sitting next to someone who
[32:58] Speaker 2: Maybe you don't get along with, and not that I
[33:00] Speaker 2: had any drama with anybody, but I don't want to
[33:02] Speaker 2: make conversation with somebody for eight hours. You know, it's
[33:05] Speaker 2: all nice weather, you know, that type of stuff.
[33:07] Speaker 1: That's a side of policing people don't understand because invariably
[33:10] Speaker 1: you're getting mixed up and you're put in a car
[33:12] Speaker 1: with someone you mightn't have met and you're stuck there
[33:15] Speaker 1: for eight hours and you've got to make small talk.
[33:17] Speaker 1: It's like going on a long holiday every shift and
[33:21] Speaker 1: you've got to make small talk. Some people like to
[33:23] Speaker 1: talk constantly. Others just sit there. I can understand the
[33:27] Speaker 1: piece sometimes. that you would get just sitting there with
[33:29] Speaker 1: a dog in.
[33:29] Speaker 2: The back of the car. Yeah, yeah. And, you know,
[33:31] Speaker 2: that job, as you talk about, you're sitting next to someone,
[33:34] Speaker 2: you mightn't even like them, you know. But I'll tell
[33:36] Speaker 2: you one thing is that if you got into trouble,
[33:38] Speaker 2: they're the ones that are going to back you every
[33:39] Speaker 2: single time. You know, they're the ones who race and
[33:41] Speaker 2: they don't care who you are. They just see that
[33:43] Speaker 2: blue uniform and they're going to run in and help you.
[33:45] Speaker 2: So that's the most important thing about that.
[33:48] Speaker 1: Now, just before we move on to Vader, one thing
[33:50] Speaker 1: I wanted to ask you, talk about the sleeve and
[33:53] Speaker 1: the bites. How are police dogs trained? It's not like
[33:56] Speaker 1: to go for the throat. What are they trained to
[33:59] Speaker 1: do to bring a fender down?
[34:00] Speaker 2: Again, that's the toy. So they're trained on the toy.
[34:03] Speaker 2: So we just wrestle with it with the toy first up,
[34:05] Speaker 2: get a really good mouth bite, and slowly that toy
[34:08] Speaker 2: becomes the arm. And the arm and then the bite suit.
[34:12] Speaker 2: But they're not actually trained to bite onto the arm.
[34:14] Speaker 2: They're trained to bite the first part of the body
[34:17] Speaker 2: that presents itself. Nine times out of ten, that's the arm.
[34:20] Speaker 2: But it will take the leg. I had one bloke
[34:22] Speaker 2: who was bitten on the head, but And the dogs
[34:24] Speaker 2: are designed to bite and hold. So they hold, they
[34:27] Speaker 2: don't let go. So nobody comes out with chew marks
[34:30] Speaker 2: all over them. The dog will just hold on to
[34:31] Speaker 2: them nice and tight. And I had one offender from
[34:35] Speaker 2: an unlawful use of a motor vehicle. Dog burst into
[34:39] Speaker 2: the bush with his evader and got him on top
[34:41] Speaker 2: of the head because he had his head sticking out
[34:44] Speaker 2: and the dog got hold of his head and couldn't
[34:45] Speaker 2: get a grip. So he put about 30 scratch marks
[34:48] Speaker 2: on his head and then finally got hold of the shoulder.
[34:50] Speaker 2: So that's what they do. They want to get on
[34:52] Speaker 2: and grip on nice and tight.
[34:54] Speaker 1: And trained to hang on until you guys get there.
[34:56] Speaker 2: That's right, yeah, yeah. And that could be 100 metres away. Or,
[35:01] Speaker 2: you know, we even teach the dogs to run in.
[35:05] Speaker 2: For instance, you might have an offender that's lying on
[35:07] Speaker 2: the ground next to a gun. He may be dead.
[35:09] Speaker 2: He may not be. He may be foxing. So we
[35:11] Speaker 2: don't know. So we can send the dog in to bite.
[35:13] Speaker 2: And with that line, we can drag the person away
[35:15] Speaker 2: from the firearm. And, you know, so we're all in safe.
[35:18] Speaker 2: Then we can move forward. So they're just brilliant. The
[35:22] Speaker 2: tools are just amazing.
[35:24] Speaker 1: You talk, and just so people all understand all the
[35:26] Speaker 1: dynamics of it, the line that you talk about, that's
[35:29] Speaker 1: a rope or something that connects a dog to the handler.
[35:33] Speaker 1: And how long is that?
[35:34] Speaker 2: That's a tracking line. So that's usually about five, 10
[35:37] Speaker 2: metres long. And the dog's never let off that unless
[35:40] Speaker 2: there's a defender that's running away and we've got eyes
[35:43] Speaker 2: on them because that dog may take anybody, but very
[35:46] Speaker 2: rarely do we let it go. So every time that
[35:48] Speaker 2: dog does its tracking, we're on the end of that
[35:51] Speaker 2: line following. And so, as I mentioned before, so we
[35:54] Speaker 2: go over fences. If the dog goes over fences, we're
[35:57] Speaker 2: just following straight after. The dog may indicate up on
[36:00] Speaker 2: a roof. We'll put the dog up on the roof
[36:01] Speaker 2: and we'll follow up there. We'll keep it on the
[36:03] Speaker 2: line everywhere we go.
[36:05] Speaker 1: I've worked with some great partners, but even great partners
[36:08] Speaker 1: have certain failings. And your partner, Vader... had an unnatural
[36:14] Speaker 1: interest in small animals or wild animals. Oh, yeah. Tell
[36:18] Speaker 1: us about the first time you were with Vader and
[36:21] Speaker 1: what happened when you took him out for a bit
[36:23] Speaker 1: of a get-to-know-each-other trip.
[36:25] Speaker 2: Yeah, so I turned up at the police academy, of course,
[36:28] Speaker 2: to pick up my new dog, which was Vader. The
[36:33] Speaker 2: instructor just said, oh, go down to Kennel 5, whatever
[36:36] Speaker 2: it is, and go and get your dog and take
[36:37] Speaker 2: him out, get used to him, which I did. So
[36:38] Speaker 2: I wanted out there and I grabbed... hold of uh
[36:41] Speaker 2: vader put him in the back and of course we
[36:43] Speaker 2: went down to the uh a little place called wake
[36:46] Speaker 2: hole where we do a lot of our training i
[36:50] Speaker 2: decided i was going to get the ball out and
[36:51] Speaker 2: throw up for vader because i knew his ball driven
[36:52] Speaker 2: he loved his toy and i opened up the cage
[36:56] Speaker 2: ready to throw the toy and just as i did
[36:57] Speaker 2: that a kangaroo runs past and of course the dog
[37:01] Speaker 2: decides the kangaroo and decides He's mine. I said, no.
[37:04] Speaker 2: Of course, the dog off goes. We're at a cricket pitch,
[37:07] Speaker 2: so there's a white picket fence either side, and the
[37:08] Speaker 2: kangaroo jumps up first, white picket fence, and followed by
[37:11] Speaker 2: the dog and followed by me about a minute later.
[37:14] Speaker 2: Called out, Vader, no. But Vader had no loyalty to me,
[37:16] Speaker 2: so he was not going to stop for me. He's
[37:18] Speaker 2: going to look back as if to say, oh, you know,
[37:20] Speaker 2: bugger you, mate. I'm out of here. You know, I
[37:22] Speaker 2: want him. And I saw them disappear into the bush.
[37:25] Speaker 2: And I go, oh, God. So I went over there
[37:28] Speaker 2: and walked up and down, calling Vader, Vader, Vader for
[37:30] Speaker 2: the next 15 minutes. And I drove the car around
[37:32] Speaker 2: just to double check to make sure that he wasn't,
[37:34] Speaker 2: you know, he could hear the car and come out.
[37:36] Speaker 2: And I ended up going, I've just got to tell
[37:39] Speaker 2: the bosses that I lost my dog in 15 minutes.
[37:41] Speaker 2: I've had this dog half an hour. And I thought,
[37:44] Speaker 2: you know, there's going to be 30, 40 coppers walking
[37:46] Speaker 2: through the bush. And because, of course, the media gets
[37:48] Speaker 2: hold of it. We're in strife. So... I decided I'd ring.
[37:51] Speaker 2: We had mobile phones back then, so I just started
[37:53] Speaker 2: dialing the phone. And just then, as I did, out
[37:56] Speaker 2: comes Vader out of the bush, and he gave me
[37:58] Speaker 2: that look as if to say, mate, I missed him
[38:00] Speaker 2: this time, but I'll get him next time for you.
[38:02] Speaker 2: I didn't say a word to him. He was over
[38:03] Speaker 2: on the back. I said, get in there, mate. Off
[38:05] Speaker 2: he did. And didn't speak to him for another couple
[38:07] Speaker 2: of days, but we got over that.
[38:10] Speaker 1: I would imagine that relationship that you got with your dog,
[38:13] Speaker 1: like you had to take to the dog, but the
[38:15] Speaker 1: dog would have to take to you too because the
[38:17] Speaker 1: dogs have got their own personalities and some people they
[38:20] Speaker 1: just don't like. You'd have to click, I would imagine.
[38:23] Speaker 2: It's funny why the best police dogs I had were
[38:25] Speaker 2: the ones who were not so people orientated. They were,
[38:29] Speaker 2: you know, Vader, for instance, lived to work. He didn't
[38:33] Speaker 2: get on with the family. He got along with them,
[38:34] Speaker 2: but he just like, oh, okay, well, give me a pat,
[38:37] Speaker 2: but when are we going to work? That type of stuff.
[38:39] Speaker 2: Whereas the dogs like Zed were more people-orientated and they're going, oh,
[38:43] Speaker 2: we're going to work. Okay, I'll jump in, whatever. Whatever
[38:46] Speaker 2: I'll do. I'm happy just to do anything. So that
[38:51] Speaker 2: was a little difference there.
[38:52] Speaker 1: I like it. So Vader was just a committed cop
[38:55] Speaker 1: that stuffed the personal and private life. I'm all about work.
[39:00] Speaker 2: Exactly, yeah.
[39:00] Speaker 1: That's what drove him. I think you had, when Zed
[39:06] Speaker 1: failed through the recruitment with his lack of aggression and
[39:10] Speaker 1: you took him home as a family pet, was he
[39:12] Speaker 1: allowed to, because you allocated dog with you as well,
[39:17] Speaker 1: did him and Vader socialize?
[39:19] Speaker 2: They didn't. A bit of a funny story, but every
[39:23] Speaker 2: time I'd come home, so Zed started to live inside
[39:26] Speaker 2: with the kids and the wife and kids.
[39:28] Speaker 1: I knew he was soft.
[39:29] Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. He was never.
[39:31] Speaker 1: Going to make it.
[39:31] Speaker 2: He was getting in there during the day, I think,
[39:33] Speaker 2: when I was out. Other places, the kids were letting
[39:36] Speaker 2: him in when he was working. And I think, anyway,
[39:39] Speaker 2: I'm not going to lay blame. And I remember coming
[39:42] Speaker 2: home one day and the dog was lying on the floor,
[39:47] Speaker 2: the tiled floor, and it looked at me like, his
[39:50] Speaker 2: eyes just lifted up and goes, if I just lay
[39:52] Speaker 2: here long enough, maybe he won't notice. You know, I
[39:55] Speaker 2: thought I saw it straight away, of course. But I
[39:57] Speaker 2: used to come home with Vader and the dog van
[40:01] Speaker 2: has two kennels in it at the back. So you
[40:03] Speaker 2: can take two dogs out if you need to. And
[40:05] Speaker 2: every time I get home at night, I used to
[40:08] Speaker 2: put Zed in, Vader was in one side coming home
[40:10] Speaker 2: from work and put Zed in the other side. And
[40:13] Speaker 2: of course I'd have a fight with one another, one
[40:16] Speaker 2: a blue and carry on. And And I'd get their
[40:18] Speaker 2: food ready and then I'd let them out of the
[40:20] Speaker 2: kennel and off they'd go and eat their food separately.
[40:22] Speaker 2: And one night I got home, did the same thing,
[40:24] Speaker 2: opened up the back, in you get Zed, you know.
[40:27] Speaker 2: And then I come back and I went to the
[40:29] Speaker 2: kennel and I opened the back of the kennel up
[40:31] Speaker 2: after I'd fed them and nobody jumped out. I opened
[40:34] Speaker 2: up the other one and both dogs jumped out of
[40:35] Speaker 2: the same kennel. So they'd been– but it's like– and
[40:39] Speaker 2: we get those as offenders, you know. They'll stand at
[40:41] Speaker 2: the front of the car and they'll say, yeah, I'll
[40:42] Speaker 2: fight you, I'll fight you. And they stand off. As
[40:45] Speaker 2: soon as the coppers turn up, they start getting into
[40:47] Speaker 2: it because they know they've got a backup, you know,
[40:50] Speaker 2: whereas I used to sit there and watch them go, oh,
[40:52] Speaker 2: you just want to fight? Off you go. And that
[40:54] Speaker 2: was the same with these two dogs. Like when there
[40:56] Speaker 2: are two kennels and there's a big thing episode, they'll
[40:58] Speaker 2: be going, I'll fight you, I'll fight you, I'll have you,
[41:00] Speaker 2: I'll have you. And then when you put them together,
[41:01] Speaker 2: they look at one another and go, oh, I don't really,
[41:03] Speaker 2: you know, I just want to be friends. So in
[41:05] Speaker 2: answering your question, do they get on? They did if
[41:08] Speaker 2: they had to, if they had to. They had no choice.
[41:12] Speaker 1: Vader's career, you had him for five years. It was
[41:16] Speaker 1: quite extraordinary. And I was just picking up on some
[41:18] Speaker 1: of the things that he did. And in part two,
[41:21] Speaker 1: we're going to break down some of those excellent adventures
[41:24] Speaker 1: you and Vader went on that all sorts of things happened.
[41:28] Speaker 1: But with Vader, was it in 160 something fleeing offenders
[41:34] Speaker 1: he apprehended?
[41:35] Speaker 2: Well, over 160, I think. But that just doesn't include offenders.
[41:39] Speaker 2: I think that includes Well, it does include people that
[41:42] Speaker 2: the dogs have saved lives, people who run off to
[41:46] Speaker 2: hurt themselves, people who are missing, all that type of stuff.
[41:50] Speaker 2: So it's a story people don't really focus on. I
[41:53] Speaker 2: focus a lot on it because it's fine to go
[41:55] Speaker 2: and catch a criminal, but when you save a life,
[41:58] Speaker 2: it's more important. I mean, it feels good when you
[42:01] Speaker 2: track somebody who's belted an 80-year-old woman and stole a handbag.
[42:04] Speaker 2: That feels great. but it probably feels better when you
[42:07] Speaker 2: can bring mum home to a hubby and two kids
[42:10] Speaker 2: or whatever, or a man home to his family as well.
[42:14] Speaker 2: That's just the best feeling.
[42:16] Speaker 1: In the world. Tell us one where he's found a
[42:18] Speaker 1: missing person or saved a life or whatever. Have you
[42:21] Speaker 1: got any examples there?
[42:22] Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I placed up between Port Douglas and Cairns.
[42:26] Speaker 2: There was a young lady there who had decided she'd
[42:30] Speaker 2: had enough of a partnership breakdown. She had two young
[42:34] Speaker 2: children two young little boys and she took a whole
[42:38] Speaker 2: heap of tablets and we've located her vehicle on the
[42:41] Speaker 2: side of a river with bushland there um i'd just
[42:46] Speaker 2: been to a shooting believe it or not i've just
[42:47] Speaker 2: been to where where somebody got shot and managed to
[42:50] Speaker 2: tackle a bloke but then it's like it it is
[42:54] Speaker 2: another thing that people don't understand is i'm sitting on
[42:56] Speaker 2: top of this bloke and they're The radio's going off. Oh, 7.50,
[42:59] Speaker 2: you're there? Yeah, 7.50, received. They said, oh, we've got
[43:01] Speaker 2: a job for you. Here I'm sitting on a bloke
[43:03] Speaker 2: who's just been, who's just had a tackle with a firearm.
[43:06] Speaker 2: And then all of a sudden they go on. There's
[43:07] Speaker 2: no debrief. It's just, can you get up there quickly?
[43:09] Speaker 2: You know, we've got this female. And off you just
[43:11] Speaker 2: jump in the car. You don't even think twice about it.
[43:13] Speaker 2: Off you go. So I digress a little bit. But
[43:17] Speaker 2: I turned up there and we've located the vehicle. It
[43:20] Speaker 2: was two hours old by this stage at least, probably
[43:22] Speaker 2: two and a half hours old. And so the tracking
[43:24] Speaker 2: really has gone out of that opportunity. So it's more
[43:27] Speaker 2: wind scenting. So we put the dog in there to
[43:29] Speaker 2: search and pick up the wind scent. I took the
[43:32] Speaker 2: dog in here. And keeping in mind that Zed doesn't
[43:35] Speaker 2: like those small animals, we kept going across to this area.
[43:39] Speaker 2: I'd searched for probably half an hour or so. And
[43:42] Speaker 2: the dog kept going to this one spot. When I
[43:44] Speaker 2: shined the torch on, I saw this crocodile, this massive
[43:47] Speaker 2: big crocodile there. And I thought, oh, here he goes again. mate,
[43:50] Speaker 2: that's yours if you want it, but I'd prefer you
[43:52] Speaker 2: not to. You're not going to win that one, win
[43:54] Speaker 2: that battle. But he kept going back there. I kept
[43:56] Speaker 2: taking him away and searching, searching, searching. Eventually, he went
[43:59] Speaker 2: over there and I decided I was going to go
[44:01] Speaker 2: over there and we located this young lady underneath a
[44:05] Speaker 2: log on the other side, probably close to, well, it
[44:08] Speaker 2: was close, near the crocodile. And yeah, yeah. So not
[44:14] Speaker 2: only had we just got her in time because we
[44:16] Speaker 2: got a phone call a couple of days later after
[44:18] Speaker 2: we got her out of the bush to say if
[44:20] Speaker 2: she had another half an hour, she would have been dead.
[44:22] Speaker 1: With the drugs. From the drugs.
[44:25] Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.
[44:25] Speaker 1: And the crocodiles. The area that you're working, Cairns, were
[44:29] Speaker 1: you based in Cairns?
[44:30] Speaker 2: I was, yeah. That's right. All my time I spent
[44:32] Speaker 2: in Cairns.
[44:33] Speaker 1: Cairns is lovely, but it's an area that you can't swim,
[44:36] Speaker 1: you can't go here, there's snakes, there's this, and like
[44:39] Speaker 1: running through cane fields, in waterways, all that.
[44:44] Speaker 2: That's the difference between Queensland coppers and East of Wales coppers,
[44:46] Speaker 2: you're soft, you're soft.
[44:48] Speaker 1: We're just not.
[44:49] Speaker 2: In rugby league as well.
[44:50] Speaker 1: Anyway, we'll cross that part later. We're just not stupid.
[44:54] Speaker 1: Beautiful beaches, you just can't swim in them. If the
[44:57] Speaker 1: crocodiles don't get you, what is it, the jellyfish will
[45:00] Speaker 1: get you or different things.
[45:03] Speaker 2: Another story, I was chasing a bloke one day with
[45:06] Speaker 2: a firearm. He'd let off a couple of shots. I mean, people,
[45:09] Speaker 2: we talk about this type of stuff as if it's
[45:11] Speaker 2: just another job, and it is. Who would think that
[45:14] Speaker 2: somebody let off a shot in the middle of Cairns?
[45:15] Speaker 2: But he did. He fired off a couple of shots,
[45:17] Speaker 2: and it was a knock. Not a job that's coming through,
[45:21] Speaker 2: but it happened. You know, you got the shot. So
[45:23] Speaker 2: off I went into the bush chasing this bloke with
[45:25] Speaker 2: the dog, obviously. I think I had Axel at this stage,
[45:28] Speaker 2: which was my second last dog. And Axel was going
[45:31] Speaker 2: through the bush. And as I've come past this creek bed,
[45:35] Speaker 2: a snake's come out. The snake's come out between myself
[45:39] Speaker 2: and the dog. And when you pull on that line,
[45:43] Speaker 2: the dog stops and comes back to you. Basically, oh,
[45:45] Speaker 2: I must have lost track. So... When I seen the snake,
[45:48] Speaker 2: I stopped all of a sudden because I shit myself
[45:49] Speaker 2: because I don't like snakes. And the dog's gone, oh,
[45:53] Speaker 2: he wants me to come back. And I've gone, no, no, no,
[45:55] Speaker 2: I'm saying stay, stay, stay. But the dog started coming
[45:58] Speaker 2: back to me. So I ran towards the snake and
[45:59] Speaker 2: it bit me on the bloody chin. It's a red-bellied black,
[46:03] Speaker 2: so pretty dangerous snake. It wasn't like a little one.
[46:06] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[46:06] Speaker 2: But I always learned that if you, the myth, you
[46:10] Speaker 2: listen to stuff, they say that if you wear long pants,
[46:14] Speaker 2: the snake's not going to get through the cloth. So
[46:17] Speaker 2: I just walked out with the dog. I just contacted comms.
[46:20] Speaker 2: I said, bit my snake. I'm on my way back
[46:22] Speaker 2: to the location. And what I should have done is
[46:24] Speaker 2: lay down and strap myself up with a bandage. Where
[46:26] Speaker 2: I was getting the bandage from, I don't know. But anyway,
[46:29] Speaker 2: so I went back. And when the ambulance came to look,
[46:30] Speaker 2: I had two fang marks in the shin. So it
[46:32] Speaker 2: actually got me. And they didn't put any venom into me. Luckily,
[46:37] Speaker 2: I did spend time at the hospital. Yeah, lots of
[46:39] Speaker 2: snakes and spiders up here.
[46:40] Speaker 1: Yeah, and running around, you set a cracking pace. You
[46:44] Speaker 1: mentioned earlier on that you're running as quick as you
[46:48] Speaker 1: can with the dog. So if the dog's taking off,
[46:50] Speaker 1: you're not trying to hold him back. So almost to
[46:53] Speaker 1: the full sprint.
[46:54] Speaker 2: Oh, for sure. Exactly, yeah, that's what you're doing. You're
[46:57] Speaker 2: trying to catch them. And I always used to like
[47:00] Speaker 2: the offenders because I knew as soon as they turned
[47:03] Speaker 2: back and looked back at you, you knew you had them.
[47:06] Speaker 2: because you knew they were tired. That's when you knew.
[47:08] Speaker 2: Did you learn.
[47:09] Speaker 1: That from your martial arts, someone that's looking up at
[47:12] Speaker 1: the clock, how long has this round got to go,
[47:14] Speaker 1: or stuff like that?
[47:15] Speaker 2: That was usually me looking at the clock. If I
[47:19] Speaker 2: wasn't on the floor knocked out, one of the two.
[47:22] Speaker 1: Yeah. But, well, look, the experience. And did you find
[47:25] Speaker 1: the dogs and yourself with working with the dogs, as
[47:30] Speaker 1: the experience got better, the dog became more productive and
[47:34] Speaker 1: probably the way you handled him, you became more lethal combination?
[47:41] Speaker 2: I always think that it takes a long time. Even
[47:43] Speaker 2: though you do that course, you come off course, it
[47:44] Speaker 2: does take another six, eight months before you really understand
[47:48] Speaker 2: the dog. And I had that drama with it. And
[47:50] Speaker 2: probably even worse is when you change, I think I
[47:53] Speaker 2: mentioned this before, when you change from one dog to another,
[47:55] Speaker 2: you just want it to be like the old times
[47:57] Speaker 2: and sometimes it just isn't. So Vader was a classic
[48:02] Speaker 2: example of that. For the first three months, and I
[48:04] Speaker 2: was used to catching a lot of people with my
[48:05] Speaker 2: old dogs, even catching sticks in the face with Zed,
[48:10] Speaker 2: I really struggled with Vader because he tracked totally different.
[48:14] Speaker 2: And I really struggled with him and It was only
[48:16] Speaker 2: when I gave him to another handler, a bloke who
[48:19] Speaker 2: was training with us, and I said, mate, you've got
[48:21] Speaker 2: no preconceived ideas of this dog. I just want you
[48:23] Speaker 2: to run a track with him. So I had a
[48:25] Speaker 2: person run off, and I got the dog. I got
[48:27] Speaker 2: him to handle the dog, and he just followed this track,
[48:30] Speaker 2: and I just watched the dog, and the dog was
[48:32] Speaker 2: going so fast. I went, oh, wow, I didn't see this,
[48:34] Speaker 2: whereas Zed was very methodical and quite slow when he
[48:37] Speaker 2: was tracking. He was always accurate, but the problem is
[48:39] Speaker 2: the offenders were getting away. This dog wouldn't let them
[48:42] Speaker 2: get away.
[48:43] Speaker 1: So it sounds like he was driven very much by
[48:46] Speaker 1: the thrill of the chase.
[48:47] Speaker 2: Exactly, yeah. And we talk about that, that some dogs
[48:51] Speaker 2: just want to work. He just wanted to work. He
[48:52] Speaker 2: just wanted to hop in that police car. Every time
[48:54] Speaker 2: that police car came past, he wanted to jump in
[48:56] Speaker 2: and off to go to work.
[48:57] Speaker 1: The shifts, how long could you work them for? How
[48:59] Speaker 1: long could you have them out on a job?
[49:02] Speaker 2: Well, come sieges, we would have them out six, seven
[49:07] Speaker 2: hours sometimes. Basically static. Um, some tracks, I mean, I
[49:11] Speaker 2: had tracks that were one of one track was just massive.
[49:14] Speaker 2: It was, it was long. It was seven or eight
[49:16] Speaker 2: kilometers and you know, over five, six hours or something
[49:19] Speaker 2: like that. But, um, and we would, uh, a couple
[49:24] Speaker 2: of times when you'd see an offender and that he'd
[49:28] Speaker 2: escape into a vehicle and then you'd see him again.
[49:30] Speaker 2: So he'd be constantly just turning up, you know, just
[49:33] Speaker 2: one step behind all the time. Eventually we got our man,
[49:36] Speaker 2: you know, and every time, every time that happens and
[49:39] Speaker 2: there's any baddies listening, it We're eventually going to get–
[49:41] Speaker 2: eventually we'll get there. You always mess up. You can't
[49:45] Speaker 2: help yourself. And eventually we're going to get hold of you.
[49:50] Speaker 1: I like your attitude. You're still speaking to the bad
[49:52] Speaker 1: guys down the camera now.
[49:53] Speaker 2: I like it. Exactly.
[49:55] Speaker 1: We're coming for you.
[49:56] Speaker 2: Exactly. It's like you can keep going. And this is
[50:01] Speaker 2: probably a good story to tell. And there was a
[50:05] Speaker 2: bloke by the name of Graeme Potter. He committed a
[50:09] Speaker 2: murder in New South Wales.
[50:12] Speaker 1: That was Kim Barry, I think it was.
[50:16] Speaker 2: Kim Barry, that's correct. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[50:18] Speaker 1: Beheaded her.
[50:19] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[50:19] Speaker 1: That was a horrible crime. Yeah, 81, I think it was.
[50:23] Speaker 1: I worked with one of the detectives that led the investigation.
[50:27] Speaker 1: I think Jeff McDowell worked on it. And I remember
[50:31] Speaker 1: him telling me about it. It was a horrendous crime.
[50:34] Speaker 1: I'm not sure if she was 19 or around that age,
[50:36] Speaker 1: but beheaded her and dumped the body in the bush
[50:41] Speaker 1: down near Wollongong.
[50:42] Speaker 2: That's right, yeah. Quite a gruesome murder. And he did
[50:46] Speaker 2: his life sentence, so he did his life sentence, but
[50:48] Speaker 2: then he got tied up with organised crime and he
[50:52] Speaker 2: was tied up with some drug running, allegedly. I don't
[50:57] Speaker 2: know whether it's gone to court yet, but, you know,
[50:58] Speaker 2: he was on the run for 12 years before he
[51:01] Speaker 2: got caught. So, you know, you just– and that was
[51:04] Speaker 2: by myself. I found him. But, you know, it just
[51:07] Speaker 2: goes to show that even after 12 years, it may
[51:09] Speaker 2: be five minutes, it may be 12 years later, it
[51:11] Speaker 2: may be 10 years later. We don't know. But, you know,
[51:13] Speaker 2: eventually it's coming around. Yeah.
[51:15] Speaker 1: How did you catch him? What was the circumstances?
[51:19] Speaker 2: Working one night– and we have the tactical crime squad
[51:22] Speaker 2: here who are– They do all those mostly. They're not
[51:27] Speaker 2: the tactical unit as such, like CERT's our tactical unit,
[51:30] Speaker 2: but tactical reconnaissance squad do all the fairly high-risk jobs
[51:32] Speaker 2: that probably aren't qualified for CERT. But I was sitting
[51:37] Speaker 2: there at my son's place actually having something to eat,
[51:39] Speaker 2: and the phone rang, and they said, we're chasing this
[51:41] Speaker 2: bloke up at Ravensoak, a small community outside of Cairns.
[51:45] Speaker 2: And I said, yeah, no worries at all. And they
[51:47] Speaker 2: gave me his name, and I looked him up, and
[51:48] Speaker 2: I went, oh, this is pretty serious, right? They just
[51:51] Speaker 2: wanted a couple of detectives. They had uniformed staff because
[51:55] Speaker 2: I said, I rang the boss. I said, I don't
[51:56] Speaker 2: think we should be doing this. I think this is
[51:58] Speaker 2: definitely a search job or at the very least tackle
[52:00] Speaker 2: a crime squad. And he said, yeah, that's fine, but
[52:03] Speaker 2: they're not working. And I said, okay, no worries at all.
[52:06] Speaker 2: I said, well, I'll go and do it with them
[52:09] Speaker 2: because I didn't want to leave them in the lurch.
[52:11] Speaker 2: So we turned up there and they said, oh, chances
[52:14] Speaker 2: are he's not because he had mastered disguise. He'd been
[52:18] Speaker 2: chased a few times before and got away. So anyway,
[52:22] Speaker 2: so I decided I'd go up there. And when we
[52:26] Speaker 2: went into the house, it was a bit of a squalor.
[52:28] Speaker 2: There was a lot of rubbish and that around there.
[52:30] Speaker 2: And I really couldn't put the dog, didn't take the
[52:31] Speaker 2: dog to the front of the stairs. And the dog
[52:33] Speaker 2: indicated somebody's in there. Because when I arrived there, there
[52:36] Speaker 2: was a lady came down the stairs and she said,
[52:38] Speaker 2: I asked her, she said, nobody here. But proper for
[52:41] Speaker 2: 30 years, you know, you know, you go, oh yeah, well, you,
[52:44] Speaker 2: you bullshit me lady, you know, I can just tell. And, um,
[52:48] Speaker 2: so I said, well, there's everybody else in there because
[52:49] Speaker 2: the dog's going to bite them if they're in there.
[52:51] Speaker 2: And she said, no, no, no one's in there. So
[52:53] Speaker 2: I took the dog to the top of the stairs
[52:54] Speaker 2: and the dog barked a couple of times. And so
[52:56] Speaker 2: I knew there was somebody in there. And so I,
[53:00] Speaker 2: but I couldn't, when I went in there, there was
[53:01] Speaker 2: not a squatter and there were a lot of little
[53:02] Speaker 2: animals in there, believe it or not, remember, keeping in
[53:04] Speaker 2: mind that we had little dogs and cats and stuff
[53:06] Speaker 2: like that just in this house. It was disgusting. So
[53:09] Speaker 2: I decided to take the dog back. and just do
[53:11] Speaker 2: a hand search. And eventually we'd search the house, but
[53:16] Speaker 2: I hadn't searched every room. And being a dog handler,
[53:20] Speaker 2: you're searching, you find people in sofa beds, people in ceilings,
[53:24] Speaker 2: people under this. I just know, you know, you've got
[53:27] Speaker 2: to do a really good search. So I stayed there.
[53:30] Speaker 2: The detectives went back. and probably have coffee and do
[53:34] Speaker 2: whatever they do because they're not what the detectives like.
[53:35] Speaker 2: But anyway, we'll worry about that.
[53:36] Speaker 1: Typing up their statement, preparing for court, working hard, trying
[53:40] Speaker 1: to solve their next case.
[53:42] Speaker 2: You say banana, I say banana or something. So I
[53:47] Speaker 2: stayed back with one of the detectives and I searched
[53:49] Speaker 2: the house. And I eventually came into one of the
[53:52] Speaker 2: back rooms there that had been searched before. And I
[53:55] Speaker 2: saw this piece on top of the bed, bunk bed
[53:58] Speaker 2: beside me was this piece of plywood And I saw
[54:00] Speaker 2: the plywood move and I went, so I took a
[54:02] Speaker 2: step back because this bloke had been done for murder
[54:05] Speaker 2: before and I didn't want to take too many chances.
[54:07] Speaker 2: So I stepped back and I basically called him out
[54:10] Speaker 2: and out he came. And he was a bit half
[54:12] Speaker 2: smart at first, but then he was, you know, he'd
[54:15] Speaker 2: come around a little bit and gave me false names
[54:17] Speaker 2: and that. But I wasn't sure whether to be scared
[54:19] Speaker 2: of this murderer in front of me because the detective
[54:23] Speaker 2: came in behind me with his gun drawn. And so
[54:26] Speaker 2: I don't know which one to be more scared of,
[54:28] Speaker 2: you know, whether I was going to get shot in
[54:29] Speaker 2: the back or whether I was going to get murdered
[54:30] Speaker 2: from the front. But yeah, so.
[54:33] Speaker 1: Chaos that can happen. Well, that's a good arrest. Like,
[54:36] Speaker 1: He said he did his life sentence and people would
[54:38] Speaker 1: be confused. How do you get out and be on
[54:41] Speaker 1: the run again? But he did his life sentence and
[54:43] Speaker 1: then went down to Melbourne, got tied up with some
[54:46] Speaker 1: stuff there. And I think that's what he was on
[54:48] Speaker 1: the run for. But well, you know, a rest like that,
[54:52] Speaker 1: it always, you go home after a day like that
[54:55] Speaker 1: or a night like that. And it gives you a
[54:56] Speaker 1: bit of satisfaction, doesn't it? Taking someone like that off
[54:59] Speaker 1: the streets.
[55:00] Speaker 2: Absolutely. And it made the media, it was massive in
[55:04] Speaker 2: the whole of Australia. And even overseas, look at the
[55:06] Speaker 2: BBC had a story on it. Like, it was just fantastic.
[55:09] Speaker 2: But they didn't show me or they just, you could
[55:10] Speaker 2: hear my voice a mile away. And, you know, it does,
[55:13] Speaker 2: it's such a good feeling. And, you know, it's, yeah.
[55:17] Speaker 1: David, I think you've got to acknowledge the detectives have
[55:19] Speaker 1: got to take the credit for the arrest, not you guys,
[55:22] Speaker 1: the dog squad guys at arrest.
[55:24] Speaker 2: Gary, you've just gone quiet there. Can you go again? Yeah.
[55:27] Speaker 2: Just can't hear you.
[55:30] Speaker 1: No, it's a crazy world. Now, we'll take a break now.
[55:35] Speaker 1: When we get back, we're going to break down some
[55:36] Speaker 1: of the adventures you and Vader have had, which I
[55:40] Speaker 1: think is, for one person's career, is quite extraordinary, the
[55:44] Speaker 1: amount of arrests. But that is the nature of dog work,
[55:47] Speaker 1: isn't it? Like as a dog handler. And just so
[55:51] Speaker 1: people listening get a sense of it. So You turn
[55:54] Speaker 1: up this chaos of the crime scene or an incident's
[55:56] Speaker 1: happened and we can't find who's there. Invariably, the dog
[56:01] Speaker 1: handler's called there with their dog to help us track
[56:04] Speaker 1: down the offender. And that's why you get yourself into
[56:06] Speaker 1: so much trouble because you're at the thick of it.
[56:08] Speaker 2: But often the stats that come through and they say
[56:11] Speaker 2: that people will see three or four critical incidents in
[56:16] Speaker 2: their lives as a normal person, whereas police see two
[56:19] Speaker 2: or 300 in a year or something similar to that.
[56:21] Speaker 2: I don't know the exact figures, but And that's the
[56:24] Speaker 2: average police officer. And I'm thinking, well, being a dog handler,
[56:28] Speaker 2: I mean, you're well above average. You must be seeing
[56:30] Speaker 2: 400 or 500 a year because you've got these, obviously,
[56:34] Speaker 2: the people and not degrading their position of sitting behind
[56:39] Speaker 2: a desk. But if they're including those in a normal
[56:41] Speaker 2: police officer, then, hey, you know, like we're seeing a
[56:44] Speaker 2: hell of a lot, seeing a hell of a lot.
[56:45] Speaker 1: More than them. And if you've been a frontline police officer,
[56:49] Speaker 1: you've been involved in chases. And I know when you're
[56:51] Speaker 1: doing chases, especially at night, jumping fences, running around corners,
[56:56] Speaker 1: taking leaps over areas you probably shouldn't or you wouldn't
[56:59] Speaker 1: dare if you weren't chasing someone, you take risks. So
[57:02] Speaker 1: I would imagine you've collected your fair share of injuries
[57:05] Speaker 1: as well.
[57:06] Speaker 2: Well, it's funny, Gary. We were looking at it the
[57:07] Speaker 2: other day, my wife and I, 41 times, 41 times
[57:10] Speaker 2: I've been to emergency over my career. with anything from
[57:14] Speaker 2: snake bites to fractured, obviously fractured nose, cuts and scratches, yeah,
[57:21] Speaker 2: 41 times. So I think work cover, we're very happy
[57:23] Speaker 2: to see the back of me.
[57:26] Speaker 1: Stop your whinging. It just shows how soft you Queensland
[57:29] Speaker 1: police are. Well, how about we take a break and
[57:34] Speaker 1: when we get back, we'll dive into those adventures. Yeah, great.
[57:37] Speaker 2: Let's do it. Okay. Cheers. Cheers. Thank you.

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