The Commander Had a Problem

How a conversation over chai helped solve a kennel wide medical mystery.

Winter 2012

Getting deployed and missing the holidays is rough. You miss those special times with your family while they’re back home making memories together. One thing that helped me stomach being gone was knowing I was doing work that helped people.

During my 2012–2013 deployment to an undisclosed location in the Middle East, I had the opportunity to work with the K9 section of a foreign military. It was the largest kennel in their military. Not only did they support active operations, they also trained all of their future K9 handlers. I was sent to help wherever they would allow and to strengthen the relationship between our two countries.

Like any new assignment, I spent my first few days getting the lay of the land. Every morning started with sitting together, drinking chai, talking about our families and our cultures. Eventually we’d start talking about dogs and whatever challenges they were facing. Sometimes those conversations lasted half an hour. Other times they went on much longer. I enjoyed every minute of it.

By the end of that first week, we’d already built a good working relationship. That’s when the commander brought up a problem that had been bothering him.

After we’d finished talking about family one morning over chai, he told me fifteen of his thirty military working dogs had developed serious skin problems. They were constantly scratching themselves and looked miserable. He explained they kept the kennel runs spotless, fed the dogs quality food, exercised and trained them every day, and genuinely loved their dogs.

He couldn’t figure out why half his kennel was having these health issues.

After we finished our tea, the commander took me on a tour of the kennel.

He showed me the offices, the training areas, and eventually the kennel runs. As we walked, he pointed out the dogs that were having the skin problems. Most of the irritation was underneath the dogs, around their stomachs, armpits, and groin areas. They were constantly scratching and looked miserable.

I had a lot of questions.

The first one was about the cleaning products they used in the kennel. The commander showed me the sanitizer they used every day. I wrote down the ingredients and later sent them to my veterinarian back in the States to make sure it contained everything it needed. It checked out.

Next, I asked how often they groomed their dogs.

“Before every shift,” he said.

Then he asked,

“Do you want to watch?”

“Absolutely.”

I watched several handlers groom their dogs. Everything looked good to me.

Then I asked if I could watch them clean the kennel runs.

“This is your home,” the commander said. “Please do what you think you need to.”

Around lunchtime I watched two handlers clean the kennel. They sprayed the runs, scrubbed the areas that needed scrubbing, filled the water buckets, and moved from run to run with a routine they’d obviously done many times before.

The kennel itself impressed me.

Out of hundreds of kennels I’d been in over my career, this was the nicest. The runs were huge. Every dog had its own bed. The walls and floors were porcelain, the drainage system had automatic flushers built in, and everything was exceptionally well thought out.

But while I was watching them clean, two things caught my attention.

The first was simple.

After spraying the runs, nobody used a squeegee to push the water toward the drains. The floors stayed wet much longer than they needed to. I suggested they start using squeegees. The commander agreed, and they bought them.

The second thing wasn’t nearly as obvious.

It wasn’t the porcelain. It was the grout between the tiles.

I’d been involved in kennel design before, and I knew how important non-porous flooring was. If concrete grout had been used, it could trap moisture and bacteria where normal cleaning couldn’t reach. That could create a breeding ground for pathogens.

I asked the commander what kind of grout had been used when the kennel was built.

He didn’t know.

But I was beginning to wonder if we might be on to something.

A short time later the commander came back with an answer.

The grout was concrete.

Concrete grout is porous. If moisture and bacteria get down into it, normal cleaning can’t always reach it. I started wondering if that could be contributing to the skin problems we were seeing.

I told the commander I thought it would be worth looking into applying a 100% solids epoxy coating over the kennel floors. If we could seal the grout, we’d eliminate all those tiny porous areas where bacteria could hide.

At the same time, we still had another problem.

We needed to figure out exactly what was causing the skin condition.

I asked about their veterinarian.

They told me there really wasn’t one assigned to them. There was a veterinarian about an hour away who mainly treated racing camels, and they weren’t even sure if they could get hold of him.

That didn’t bother me.

Over the years I’d built a pretty good network of veterinarians back in the States and during previous deployments. I called my veterinarian, explained everything I’d seen, and he put me in contact with a military veterinarian a few countries away.

While we were working through that, the commander located a contractor who specialized in flooring. After looking over the kennel, he confirmed he could apply the epoxy coating. That was one piece of the puzzle we could move forward with while we waited on the medical side.

A few days later the military veterinarian arrived.

We brought each of the affected dogs in one at a time so he could examine them. He collected samples from each dog and told us he’d take them back to his office to examine them.

Now we waited.

A few days later we had our answer.

The dogs had superficial bacterial folliculitis.

Now we knew what we were dealing with.

With a diagnosis in hand, we finally had a treatment plan.

The military veterinarian prescribed an antibacterial shampoo along with a spray to apply to the affected areas. We started bathing each of the affected dogs three times a week and used the spray between baths as directed.

At the same time, work on the kennel floors began. The contractor applied the epoxy coating throughout the kennel runs, sealing the concrete grout. While the flooring work was underway, the commander and I rewrote their kennel care procedures. Once the floors were finished, we trained every handler on the new cleaning routine. The biggest change was simple. After spraying the runs, they now used squeegees to remove as much standing water as possible.

About a week into treatment, we started seeing a big difference.

Fourteen of the fifteen dogs stopped scratching, their skin began healing, and they were noticeably more comfortable. Watching those dogs stop scratching and get back to being healthy was good to see.

Only one dog wasn’t improving. His name was Zaza.

Zaza was a cocker spaniel used for explosive detection. He was friendly, full of energy, and his tail never seemed to stop wagging.

While the other fourteen dogs were steadily recovering, his skin condition wasn’t changing.

The commander told me they’d already tried changing the dogs’ food before I arrived. They’d switched the dogs to a lamb-based diet, but it hadn’t made a difference.

That got me thinking.

What if Zaza had two separate problems?

Maybe we’d successfully treated the bacterial infection, but he also had a food allergy. If that was the case, maybe lamb just wasn’t the answer.

Years earlier I’d worked with a dog back in the States that had done very well after being switched to a duck-based food because of a food allergy.

The problem was finding it. They couldn’t get the food we were looking for locally, so I suggested we try reaching the veterinarian who primarily treated racing camels one more time. We hadn’t been able to reach him before, but I figured it was worth another shot. Maybe he could help.

This time we got hold of him, and he was able to special order the duck-based prescription food. I suggested we give it a try with Zaza. After about four weeks on the new food, we finally started noticing a difference. His skin looked healthier, and he wasn’t scratching nearly as much.

By about eight weeks, he was back to normal.

Looking back, I don’t think there was one thing that solved the problem. It took a lot of people working together. The commander was willing to make changes, the handlers embraced the new procedures, veterinarians shared their knowledge, a flooring contractor corrected the grout issue, and together we got every one of those dogs healthy again.

Missing the holidays with my family was never easy. I hated being away from them. But deployments like this reminded me why I was there. I had the opportunity to work alongside a great group of handlers, learn more about their culture, build friendships I’ll never forget, and help thirty military working dogs get back to doing their job.

Looking back, that deployment is still one of my favorites.