Four-legged Detectives: Bringing K-9s to Life in Fiction
Terry Odell and Kathleen Donnelly

As you read this, I’m be in New Zealand. I’m delighted that Kathleen Donnelly agreed to cover for my post this week. I first met Kathleen years ago at a writer’s conference where she did a fascinating presentation on working dogs.

Kathleen, Gracie, Sparky, Boomer, and Willow

Thank you so much, Terry, for inviting me to guest post on the Kill zone! I’m excited to be here today to share information about one of my passions—working dogs. Whether you’re a reader, writer or both, I’m happy to share a behind the scenes look at how I developed my fictional K-9 Juniper, based on my real-life experiences.

Dogs are man’s best friend for many reasons, but their ability to help us solve mysteries by using their noses make them invaluable for law enforcement, military, private sector work and more. They also make great fictional characters. I’ve been lucky to have worked for a private company for the past 19 years called Sherlock Hounds Detection Canines. Our dogs are trained to find drugs, alcohol and gunpowder. The goal of our program is to help deter these items at schools. Over the years, my dogs continue to amaze me and it was this work that led to me adding a K-9 into my National Forest K-9 series.

I had many decisions to make when I decided to add in a K-9 character to my series. What breed should I use? Which agency would employ my main character? What language would my main character use to give her K-9 commands? I wanted the K-9 work in my books to be authentic and so before I even chose a breed, I had to decide on the agency. Why? Because each agency has different requirements, commands, and training styles.

Knowing the agency would determine all of that plus help me decide on the breed of dog. For example, my private company uses Labrador retrievers because we work in schools. We want a non-intimidating breed. However, a police department who’s tracking a suspect wanted for homicide needs an intimidating breed that will also be happy to apprehend (the polite way of saying bite) the bad guy. Dogs who are known for apprehension are usually shepherds. One other breed I’ve seen used more and more for this work is the Giant Black Schnauzer.

These two very different breeds below are both searching for narcotics. The Fox Terrier was one of our non-intimidating dogs while the shepherd was in training for law enforcement. Your character’s agency will make all the difference in the breed you choose.)

When I determined that my protagonist, Maya Thompson, would be a US Forest Service law enforcement officer, I knew she would have a Malinois. They are my favorite shepherd breed. They are also high-energy, intense, love their work (especially apprehension) and loyal to their handlers. I was asked once why I chose a female Malinois. My answer was simply for “Girl Power.” In real life, for most agencies, the sex of the dog doesn’t matter, only the characteristics needed to be a good working dog. Some of those characteristics include a high-retrieve drive, high prey drive, and extremely high energy.

Knowing the agency and breed allowed me to determine all the different jobs my one fictional dog would be able to do. As a law enforcement K-9, I knew she would be a dual-purpose dog. Dual-purpose means the dogs have more than one job. In this case, I knew that like other law enforcement K-9s my dog would find narcotics, track suspects, locate evidence and apprehend. I also researched how my dog would alert. There are two types of alerts—passive and active. Passive is when you see a dog sit or lie down to tell their handler they’ve found something. Passive alerts are becoming more common because there tends to be less destruction. Active alerts are when a dog scratches at an item they’ve found. The type of alert is very important when it comes to creating an authentic fictional dog. For example, for obvious reasons, a bomb dog will never do an active alert. I chose to have my dog do a passive alert. I was talking to one of our trainers and even took the alert a step further. When our trainer was a deputy, she taught her German Shepherd to sit when he found narcotics and down when he found evidence. I loved that and my fictional dog soon had the exact same alerts.

When I had these factors worked out, I also had to create a realistic handler. Once again, girl power. I knew I’d have a female protagonist and Maya came to life. I wanted Maya to already have training as a K-9 handler and there were a couple realistic ways to go about this—she could have a past in law enforcement or the military. I chose military for my character as that lent itself better to the storyline of my character having PTSD from losing her dog in Afghanistan. On a side spoiler note—no dogs will ever be killed in my books. This is just a part of my character’s backstory.

As I wrote my first book, CHASING JUSTICE, I enjoyed incorporating my fictional K-9 into solving the mystery. Juniper tracked, apprehended, cleared a cabin and found narcotics. Through some of these storylines, I enjoyed also dispelling some myths about working dogs. How many times have we seen in a movie where the bad guy gets away because he ran through water? Or the dog missed the narcotics because they were hidden in coffee? While in real life dogs can miss something or lose the scent of someone they’re tracking, these ways of deterring a dog are not real. Dogs can smell just fine through water and have even been known to find drowning victims. There’s nothing that will cover the scent of narcotics, bombs, or anything else a dog is trained to find.

One of my last decisions was what language to have Maya give Juniper commands. Many people think that K-9s are automatically trained in German or Dutch. For some dogs this is true. Our trainers would keep commands in a different language if the dog came with previous training in a different language. Otherwise, they train the dogs in English. This is because officers in a high stress situation (which is when a dog is being deployed) often forget the foreign language. It’s much easier to recall your native language. Officers have also found that when a suspect hears the command for the dog to go bite, the person is more inspired to give up and start complying with arrest. For those reasons, plus the ease of writing, I decided to have Maya give Juniper commands in English.

If you’re thinking of incorporating a K-9 into your writing, these are just a few of the things to think about as you research. I’ve enjoyed not only working with my dogs, but learning more about other K-9 jobs, handler qualifications and how other agencies train. Have you thought about a K-9 character? What would your K-9 character’s superpowers be? What else would you like to know about K-9s? I’ll be around all day to answer your questions and discuss further. Thanks again for having me as a guest on the blog!

P.S. Every month I write a story for my newsletter about my experiences as a K-9 handler. If you sign up for my newsletter, you’ll also receive my free eBook “Working Tails: The Stories Behind the K-9s.” You can sign up on my website.

I also wanted to let you know about a special pre-order campaign through my favorite indie bookstore for my latest book, KILLER SECRETS. If you order KILLER SECRETS or any of the other National Forest K-9 books through Old Firehouse books, you’ll receive a signed books and you’ll be entered in a drawing for a National Forest K-9 Gift box which includes a gift card to the bookstore (can be used for online orders), dog treats from a local biscuit bakery, and coffee. Go to Old Firehouse Books today to buy your copies and be entered in the drawing.

Thanks, Kathleen, for stepping up while I’m away. TKZers, I’ve read her award-winning Chasing Justice, and it’s obvious Kathleen knows her dogs!

How can he solve crimes if he’s not allowed to investigate?

Gordon Hepler, Mapleton’s Chief of Police, has his hands full. A murder, followed by several assaults. Are they related to the expansion of the community center? Or could it be the upcoming election? Gordon and mayor wannabe Nelson Manning have never seen eye to eye. Gordon’s frustrations build as the crimes cover numerous jurisdictions, effectively tying his hands.
Available now.

Terry Odell is an award-winning author of Mystery and Romantic Suspense, although she prefers to think of them all as “Mysteries with Relationships.”