Maria Alomajan - Dogs in Action: Working Dogs and Their Stories

Dogs are the only species on this planet which lives and works with humans in such a deep, meaningful and all-encompassing way.

My first experience with a working dog was with a very handsome German shepherd named Kurt. Actually, Kurt was a failed police dog so wasnt really a working dog he wasnt up for the serious stuff, but he was our awesome family pet.

Although he didnt pass police academy, clearly Kurts tracking training had worked because he would either follow us to or find us at school (the only dog belonging to any of the hundreds of children at our primary school who did such a thing). I only wish at the time I had known what that meant, but instead I was always embarrassed to be called in by the principal again to take Kurt home at lunchtime. I can still see him waiting by the fence at the bottom of the sports field.

He was the focus of endless search and retrieve missions, as many an early morning would see pyjama-clad humans cycling the streets calling for the runaway dog who had escaped, seeking a bitch in heat. On one occasion he even crashed through a plate-glass window to embark on a procreation mission!

Kurt drank from the toilet bowl, found our missing cats, stole the neighbours Sunday roast, played with us, went jogging with Mum and never so much as curled a lip if we stepped on or fell all over him. The only thing we remember him being afraid of was big trucks he would freeze and cower if one went past.

Image B: Kurt, still handsome as an old boy.

Image C: Jet at the beach.

He had a habit of engulfing the entire head of one of our cats in his mouth and then releasing it, seriously covered in slobber. This was a slightly disturbing sight for us, yet obviously comfortable for the two of them, as the cat named Lucky never stopped approaching him and he never stopped doing it.

At one stage we had five German shepherds at home I think some of them may have been pups from his wayward travels...

Kurt was just always there. We never had any discussion about the fact he was just a dog. He wasnt any different, he was just one of us, and I am eternally grateful to my mum for making this the foundation for my relationship with animals.

So thats where my love of and keen interest in working dogs started. I loved the idea Kurt could have been a police dog, but also loved it that he came to live with us instead.

A few wonderful dogs later and my current boy Jet is very cool, extremely handsome and has an awesome work drive. We have tons of fun learning new stuff all the time. I had hoped he could be a working dog but hes too much of scaredy-cat to do the tough stuff, such as search and rescue, and turned out to be too much of a foodie to look for truffles. He has, however, to my surprise, excelled in front of the camera and starred in TV commercials and several photo shoots (not all my own). So thats not bad for a beaten-up, starving street puppy rescued from the wrong side of the tracks.

I love to watch dogs work. Seeing them in action, using their nose, their ears, their awesome brain working things through, figuring things out they are so clever, focused and driven. They read the world in a way we humans cant, communicating with us and training us in ways we still struggle with in return.

To anyone reading this book who may be in doubt, I can assure you these dogs love their jobs, they come alive when theyre working and clearly thrive and equally enjoy their downtime afterwards. As the expression goes, they work hard and play hard. Every single person I met or spoke to in researching this book reinforced to me that the work must always and forever be fun for the dogs. They also said theirs was the most handsome/beautiful and talented dog on the planet ... and each of them was right!