As the handler of the only dog in the Customs Dog Unit in Tasmania, Steve Kelleher has some unique tales to tell, and they have been captured in his novel The Last Dog on the Island.
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Kelleher moved to Tasmania after a “failed career change” as a park ranger, returning to what he knew – dog handling.
He took up a position as the trainer and handler of Elise, the customs dog on the island state.
They were the dog detector resource for all federal and state law enforcement in the state, and this provided a plethora of experiences for Kelleher, who worked in airports, on ships, doing police raids and in prisons.
Adjusting to the way things were done in Tasmania took some time, and his perspective as a “mainlander” gave Kelleher a particular view on the quirks of the state that he describes as “charming, but strange”.
“Going out with the police there was a lot more low-key than going out with [Victoria Police]; VicPol almost every job they had guns drawn and everyone was cuffed and put down,” he said.
“[Tasmania Police] mostly … it was a doorknock, ‘Hi we’ve got a warrant’.”
Kelleher recalls a time when someone “in a bit of a paranoid state” thought the plainclothes policemen at his door were there to get him for a feud he was embroiled in, and grabbed one of the officers by the throat.
“I was waiting to be brought in and I said, ‘What happened there?’ and they said, ‘Oh, he made a bit of a mistake’,” Kelleher said.
“[The man] was having a cigarette and he made coffee and they were all standing outside having a laugh.
“I said, ‘If that was Victoria you would either call an ambulance or you'd get a body bag out.”
Kelleher was just one half of a two-species team, however, with Elise his four-footed canine colleague.
“The dog becomes more than a dog, it’s a workmate, all your focus is about the dog,” he said.
The dog becomes more than a dog, it's a workmate, all your focus is about the dog.
- Steve Kelleher
The communication and relationship between man and dog is vital to being able to complete their job efficiently and effectively, Kelleher said.
“It is a fundamental. First of all, it’s a relationship of trust,” Kelleher said.
“Part of it is building up that knowledge of the dog and the bond you have with it, the watchword for dog handling is ‘Trust your dog’, but to do that you have to have developed your knowledge and your relationship, and the dog has to develop that complete trust in you as a handler.
“If your heart isn't in it, if your enthusiasm’s not there the dog knows and therefore they will then not want to work for you.”
Elise required constant and ongoing training to ensure she was the best detector dog she could be.
“To the dog what we regard as work is a game, the whole thing has to be fun otherwise they won’t do it, they don't have a work ethic that puts up with doing something dull – they have to see that there’s going to be a reward in it,” Kelleher said.
Despite all the advancements of technology, Kelleher said detector dogs are more used than ever and he was perpetually amazed by how effective they are at doing their job.
“No one has invented a better device that is a target-seeking device,” he said.
“There is no machine where you can open a container, or open the door on a ship, or go into a house to do a search and say, ‘Find’ and they will take you to the source of what you are looking for - only a dog can do that.
“They're much easier to like than those [detector] machines as well.”
Working as a customs dog handler in Tasmania was unlike anywhere else, and The Last Dog on the Island is full of those familiar stories where one says, ‘That couldn’t happen anywhere else’.
Kelleher recalls one, a job he and Elise were called to.
“The police had a warrant to raid a farm and it was a normal farm, it was an orchard farm, and they [had] decided that cannabis was a much more lucrative sideline,” he said.
“It was a lovely, cheerful farmer bloke, he was a classic – you could have put him on an ad, and the police saying, ‘Hi we’re the police’ and him saying, ‘Yep’, looking at us all smiling.”
When asked if he had any drugs, the farmer replied “Oh yeah”, pointing out the 20 kilograms of cannabis.
“[I was] thinking, ‘Well this is different, I wouldn’t get this anywhere else’,” Kelleher said, adding that the farmer’s wife was, “more worried about ‘Oh my goodness, sorry the house is such a mess’ when we’ve rocked up to raid it, rather than ‘Wow there’s cops here with a warrant’.”
Kelleher said people are often concerned about what happens to detector dogs when they retire, but he said they are often adopted by their handlers.
When this happens, the detecting journey doesn’t end.
“The problem is of course, once a dog’s been trained to do something, to find a certain odour, they don’t switch that off,” Kelleher said.
“My mother had some interesting circumstances of walking down the street … and a retired detector dog Oscar suddenly bolting off from her and going and giving a response to a builder standing there.
“The guy’s saying, ‘Oh that dogs friendly Mrs’ and Mum saying, ‘Yep, he used to be a drug dog working at the airport’ and the guy going ‘Oh my god’ and bolting.”
There is a saying, “Never work with children or animals”. Well, for Kelleher this couldn’t be more wrong.
His novel provides a delightful insight into the world of working in a detector dog team, and all that entails.
