Short
Story
By Louise Fielding
It’s the big day! My first day with my human partner,
patrolling the airports huge rooms and corridors, after all the training and hard
work. For months I have been in training with other dogs to find and recognise
strange smells, bad things that my human partner dislikes. He is called Phil, a
very tall human compared to other men with short neat brown hair and beady
brown eyes he is tough and has a very deep rusty voice but very kind to me when
I do as I’m told. He wears a uniform today of black and white, probably to show
how important we are. This the beginning of my story and me, Milo the hero!
I and Phil have our first job of checking the baggage
through security. I am so excited I tug on my lead and foolishly forget my professionalism.
Phil begins to get agitated by my excited small barks and my fight against the
lead towards my first job of the day. I couldn’t believe I have such an
important role and responsibility.
I start to check the towering pile of big suitcases for the
scent of anything similar to the bad substances I was able to learn in
training. We spend what feels like hours on end searching through the never
ending piles of bags, my feet are aching, I want to sit down but I know I can’t
and I’m determined to do whatever it takes to be the best sniffer dog the world
has ever seen. After some time I suddenly started to smell something familiar
to a scent in my training. It was ever so slight but I followed my nose and
sure enough the smell started to fill my nose. I jump, bark and sprint to make
as much noise as possible to draw attention from Phil and the other security
men and women. The scent belongs to the substance the humans called cocaine.
I’ve done it!
I watch security officers grab the bag and take it away to
inspect it, again they take me over the rest of the baggage to check there is
no more suspicious cases but I surprisingly smell and found a suitcase and a
bag. Both were taken by the security and inspected it turns out that there was
bags of cocaine in the lining of the suitcases and hidden within the clothes
and children’s books.
Phil listens to a message through the black radio and I am
whisked away to a holding room where a man is sat on a chair and 2 police
officers and another man in a black suit, he looked powerful. The suited man
started asking the stranger sat on the chair questions, he looked very tired and
worn out. He has black shabby hair with old trainers and a dirty blue
tracksuit. He seems scared and cowards from me and the police. I wonder why he
seems so scared, is he scared of me or does the other humans intimidate him? Is
he hiding something? He speaks to the officers in a very hushed voice with
short responses. I thought people with drugs are supposed to be bad men but he
didn’t seem as I would of thought, I could sense the fear in him and he kept
looking at me as almost as if to plead with me not to go near him as I watched
his body language and assessed his behaviour.
After the some of the questions the stranger who was
suspected to be the carrier of the drugs was told to stand up and I was given
instruction from Phil to sniff him to see whether I could smell any trace of
any type of drugs especially cocaine. He flinched as I went near him, I smelt
traces of drugs, so I signalled the possession of drugs to phil. Next thing,
the police dragged the stranger out and I never saw that man again. The
stranger seemed so full with fear and guilt I felt sorry for him but a job is a
job and I had to do what I was told or else I would be back in training, this
is what I’ve been working so hard for.
Overall it was quite an eventful first day, quite tiring and
surprisingly a little hard to overcome the adrenaline I had and the feeling of
guilt towards that man who seemed so frightened. However I have received a lot
of praise for my service today at the airport, so I suppose I achieved my
dream. I’m a hero. Phil is proud of me and I’m really pleased that I have
proved to myself and others that I’m right for the job. Apparently the stranger
was from part of a gang and he had a considerable amount of drugs with him.
It’s a proud moment to know that I did the best job as possible.
I think it’s time for a sleep now but anxious to see what
tomorrow will bring.
