Photo By Airman 1st Class Asha Wiltshire | U.S. Air Force Tech. Sgt. Cullen Thomas, 325th Security Forces Squadron military...... read more read more
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TYNDALL AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. – The 325th Security Forces Squadron recently welcomed its newest asset to the team, Military Working Dog IInez. IInez’s arrival marks Tyndall’s first K-9 addition in over a year, a notable step in enhancing Tyndall’s security and mission readiness.
As a K-9 bred by the Department of Defense’s “puppy program” at Joint Base San Antonio Lackland, IInez brings her own unique set of skills and experiences to Tyndall, poised to become a fully operational military working dog within the 325th SFS.
“Her name is spelled with a double first letter, I-I-N-E-Z, which is important because it [indicates] that she is a puppy program dog,” explained Tech. Sgt. Cullen Thomas, 325th SFS military working dog trainer. “It’s exciting when we get a puppy program dog because we know exactly where they came from, we know what their foundations are and the training that they have, so we expect a little more out of them.”
With IInez’s arrival to Tyndall, the 325th SFS K-9 unit now has six K-9s, which brings the unit back to 100 percent allocation following the retirement of MWD Sonne. IInez is one of only two puppy program dogs currently at the unit, with the other one being MWD MMcenroe, who is the oldest K-9 currently with the 325th SFS.
When a new K-9 arrives at Tyndall, the goal for the 325th SFS is to constantly psychologically challenge them. According to Thomas, the key is to expose the K-9 assets to as many new environments as possible, so that once they are officially operational, they will be able to protect and serve Tyndall without being distracted by new environments, ultimately enabling them to complete any tasks such as narcotics or explosives detection.
“Once she is validated and certified, we’ll be able to push her out with a handler, which means we’ll have more dogs working the road, helping produce a safer environment all around Tyndall whether that be at the Commercial gate, construction sites or somewhere else,” said Thomas. “The more assets we have the more we’re going to be able to push them out to provide safety and security to everyone on Tyndall.”
Once IInez becomes fully validated and certified, she will also be capable of traveling anywhere in the world to support the DoD, whether that be a deployment overseas or to support the United States Secret Service.
Thomas stated, although the K-9 handlers play the main role in training these assets, every agency within the installation plays an important role in helping the K-9 train to their full potential. Therefore, making it vital for the handlers to build connections across Team Tyndall because the K-9 unit relies on them to help expose the dogs to a variety of environments and scenarios.
“The people of Tyndall have been phenomenal so far with their support of us using their facilities to help train the K-9s,” said Thomas. “So, fostering these great relationships will ultimately help us build phenomenal K-9 assets that will help us carry out Tyndall’s mission to project unrivaled combat air power.”
| Date Taken: | 12.11.2024 |
| Date Posted: | 12.11.2024 11:06 |
| Story ID: | 487188 |
| Location: | TYNDALL AIR FORCE BASE, FLORIDA, US |
| Web Views: | 37 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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