Skip to content
Entertainment
Link copied to clipboard

A dog's day

Penn Vet trains working dogs in Grays Ferry - and Jesse P. is one of their stars.

C.F. SANCHEZ / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

JESSE P. runs up and down a musty hallway in an abandoned science lab in Grays Ferry, his paws sliding for traction as he changes directions, searching each room along the corridor for the scent.

He noses open a door that's slightly ajar, wedging his way into a vacant kitchen with "acid" printed on the cabinets. So far, so good. He's found the correct room.

After sniffing in every corner, the 15-month-old black Lab paws at a closet door and barks repeatedly. He thinks he's found the scent, but a handler leads him to another door a few yards away, and the hidden quarry - a trainer with a chew toy - emerges.

Being wrong is OK, for now. Jesse P. is a search-and-rescue dog in training at Penn Vet Working Dog Center. He's one of 18 dogs being schooled there for careers that range from disaster and police work to helping diabetics recognize and respond to impending blood-sugar crises.

Dogs begin their training at 8 weeks old and usually master their appointed specialties before their second birthday. Their classes run from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays.

Jesse isn't just any working dog in training. According to staffers, he's one of the center's most promising cadets. We followed him through a school day early this month to see some of what it takes to mold a puppy into a hero.

8 a.m., the commute. Jesse lives in Haddon Township, N.J., with foster parents MaryLou MacDermott and Maureen Meier. Like any youngster, he's a handful. He puts his paws up on the kitchen counter when his people turn their backs and spills as much water as he drinks.

But he's a trooper when it's time for work, gamely climbing into his car crate for the commute across the Walt Whitman Bridge.

9 a.m., training in direction and control. To navigate piles of rubble in a disaster zone, Jesse will need to obey commands from a distance. In a parking lot adjacent to the Working Dog Center, trainer Donna Magness stands centered in front of four plastic bins that are spaced like bases on a baseball diamond.

With a quick voice command - hup! - and by gesturing with her arm, she signals which box to go to, and Jesse sprints there, jumps on top and awaits the next order.

They keep this up for a half-hour, with short breaks of tennis ball playtime to reward Jesse between stops.

9:45 a.m., working the pile. Behind the center is a practice rubble pile littered with broken up concrete, wooden pallets, even a hollowed out car. Trainers hide in plastic barrels, and the dogs try to figure out where they are.

This is where Jesse shines. Even with nearly a dozen people watching, he's able to discern the particular scent of the hidden trainer. He climbs up and around the pile of debris, then stops and barks until the trainer emerges.

10:15 a.m., cool down. Magness takes Jesse to a plastic pool for a dip, where our hero-in-training pees in the water.

Penn's Working Dog Center opened on Sept. 11, 2012, on the 11th anniversary of the World Trade Center attacks. In commemoration, each of Penn's working dogs is named after a ground search-and-rescue dog who worked at ground zero - Jesse P. for the yellow Lab Jessie Picard.

11:15 a.m., fitness class. Like professional athletes, professional dogs also work with trainers to fine-tune physical attributes like balance and flexibility.

Jesse's morning workout, inside the Working Dog Center, includes stretching (by following a treat underneath a trainer's bent knee to stretch his hind legs), standing on wobbly pads and fitting awkwardly into cardboard boxes (to learn better body awareness).

Noon, agility training. For the day's agility class, Jesse traverses an uneven horizontal ladder. At first, the energetic youngster tries to sprint across. After three or four missteps, he makes it across at half speed. "You just had to take your time," Magness tells him.

Agility serves working dogs wherever they may be deployed. So far, the Penn Vet Working Dog Center has graduated five dogs to canine careers: one to the Penn campus police force, two to SEPTA, one to the New Jersey State Task Force (for urban search and rescue) and one - Jesse's former Haddon Township housemate, Morgan, who officially joined the workforce this Monday - to narcotic-detection duty with the New Jersey State Police.

The center functions partly as an incubator to test which training methods work best, said its director, Dr. Cindy Otto, a veterinarian.

12:15 p.m., lunch. At the Working Dog Center, lunch is served using a game the dogs seem to enjoy, with their food stashed in a hollowed out Kong toy. A hole dispenses kibble as Jesse kicks his Kong around his crate.

In the background, the sound of thunder plays loudly through speakers. None of the trainees is fazed by it. As future working dogs, they even learn to eat unflappably.

1:45 p.m., building search. The exercise in the abandoned lab space, under the direction of Bob Dougherty of the Cheltenham Police K-9 unit, is the last stretch of work for Jesse the day we visit. From now until after-school pickup time, he'll relax and take things easy.

6 p.m., pickup. MacDermott comes for Jesse at the end of her workday as a nurse practitioner at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. Back in South Jersey, he plays ball in the yard, chills on a couch or a bed and retires at 10:30 p.m. to sleep in his crate.

Fostering the 68-pound hero-in-training and his recent housemate Morgan has been a lesson in high-impact homemaking for MacDermott and Meier. "We could do ads for Dyson," MacDermott said. "And Windex."

But the payback is huge, she said. "We're proud. He's their star."