Kennel 9

The February intake at the Rokeby K9 Training Centre was eight dogs, five German Shepherds and three Belgian Malinois, brought down by police transport from the Tasmania Police K9 Breeding Centre at New Norfolk. Each had spent the previous year with a volunteer puppy-raising family and had passed every fortnightly assessment along the way. It was the third intake Claire Morgenstern had overseen since becoming Programme Director, and she met the transport at the intake bay herself.

Jargus-9B was the second dog unloaded. The transport manifest listed him by registration only. He answered to Jargus, the name the Corbett family of Granton had given him in his first week with them, and the handlers were using it before the paperwork caught up. He was assigned Kennel 9 in the main block.

Released into the assessment yard with the others, he took no part in the sniffing and posturing that followed. He walked the fence line once, then stood in the eastern corner with his back to the wire and watched the people rather than the dogs.

The intake battery ran through the late morning: response to name, recall under distraction, scent discrimination, and recovery from a sudden startle. Trainee Handler Jessica Pardoe ran each dog through it while Morgenstern and Sergeant Marcus O'Sullivan scored from the rail. O'Sullivan had been assigned as the cohort's primary instructor the week before.

Jargus found the target cloth faster than any other dog in the cohort. When the starter pistol was fired twenty metres behind him, he turned his head towards the sound, held it there briefly, and turned back. Three of the other dogs bolted.

He failed the engagement measures outright. He ignored Pardoe's recall twice, walked past her offered hand, and would not take a reward from her. Under the centre's standard scoring, his total placed him sixth of eight. O'Sullivan wrote "possible handler aversion" in the margin of his sheet, a note that ended more careers at Rokeby than any physical fault.

Morgenstern did not agree with the note. In her own intake record she wrote that the dog was not avoiding people, only declining to work for anyone he had not chosen. She judged him unsuitable for patrol rotation, where dogs moved between handlers, and recommended that he be considered for a specialist track instead. The centre had no such track for a dog of his profile. She proposed developing one.

At the afternoon allocation the other seven dogs were assigned to standard training groups. Jargus was held back pending a decision on his programme.

As the yard was cleared, Morgenstern walked out to collect the scoring sheets from the bench. Jargus left the corner, crossed the yard to her, and sat one metre to her left. No one had called him. She stood still until O'Sullivan came to take him back to Kennel 9, and he went without resistance.