TYNDALL AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. — Tyndall Air Force Base has worked tirelessly for the past 15 months to rebuild the base since the damage and destruction caused by a Category 5 hurricane in 2018. One of the biggest challenges Airmen and civilian employees face is getting back to a new normal. The 325th Security Forces Squadron’s military working dog unit is no different.
The United States Air Force directs that each base should have six dogs on the clock to be able to successfully complete the mission. Tyndall has just recently fulfilled that directive, overcoming manning shortages and long-distance care obstacles for the animals.
“These dogs are just like regular Airmen,” said Staff Sgt. Jason Vogt, 325th SFS MWD handler. “They work day to day, driving as hard as they can to complete the mission to best of their abilities.”
Vogt is the handler for a dog named Sunny. Vogt and Sunny spend their working hours together and each day is different depending on the needs of the mission, the animal, the installation and the handler.
“On a regular day we start out with some cardio work,” said Vogt. “Drills to the dog is (like) fetch. To us, it’s burning a little bit of his energy and getting some exercise in. Then we’ll usually roll into some kind of patrol training, work on bite work, or personnel detection. Then we’ll go into patrol utilization, so we’ll basically bounce around the base from spot to spot, organization to organization.”
