By Courtney Coukoulis
1 May 2018
Loyal K-9
The enormous German Shepherd’s deep bark echoes down the hallway.
WOOF WOOF WOOF
He has spotted a man in his territory.
WOOF WOOF
The dog, which has a thick black and brown coat, narrows his charcoal eyes. He flares his fangs. Saliva drips down from the snarl of his hungry mouth. He is out for blood.
WOOF WOOF WOOF
He anxiously attempts to break loose from the small hand that is struggling to hold him back. He is too powerful and snaps away. He charges at the man in full force.
WOOF WOOF WOOF
The man cannot escape. He frantically throws his left arm in front of his body, attempting to use it as a shield, and braces for impact. The beast lunges into the air with his mouth wide open, exposing all of his sharp teeth.
GRRRRRRRRRRR
The dog sinks his fangs into the man’s arm. His head violently rips back and forth as he shreds the arm to pieces.
“AHHHHHHH!” the man screams. “Stop! Stop! You’re killing me!”
It’s too late. Nothing can stop the vicious attack.
ARGGHHHHHHH
“Stop!” the man hollers. “MAVERICK. LET LOS.”
The dog freezes dead in his tracks and releases his grip on the man’s arm. The severed body part plummets to the floor.
“You killed me,” the man says. He reaches down to pick up his arm, which was really a hollow, fabric-covered bite sleeve. He pets Maverick. “That’s a good boy!” he beams.
Maverick happily sticks out his tongue and wags his tail at his owner. He did exactly what he was supposed to do.
The man who Maverick attacked was 46-year-old David Pellerin, the owner of Loyal K-9 which is a dog training business based in Moreno Valley, California. He and Maverick, his German Shepherd of seven years, were demonstrating how a dog can be trained with a bite sleeve to attack somebody. Pellerin purposely aggravates Maverick in order to hype him up for the attack. Once Maverick has bit into the arm, he may only release his grip at Pellerin’s discretion as he waits for the command “let los,” which is a way to say “let go” in German.
Pellerin trains dogs out of his home as he specializes in basic obedience, off-leash training, and advanced canine training. According to the Loyal K-9 website, Pellerin has experience with dogs that have issues such as “jumping up on people, hyper energy, separation anxiety, digging, chewing, destroying property, house training, aggression and a wide variety of other unwanted behaviors.” He typically travels a 100-mile radius to meet clients and train their dogs but has gone as far as the Arizona border to complete a job. His company motto: “Helping people to have a better relationship with their loyal K-9.”
Pellerin has an extensive background with all things canine, including working as a police dog trainer with 27 Police departments in Cherry Valley and a Civilian Explosives Detection Dog Handler in Iraq and Afghanistan, but becoming a trainer wasn’t always his plan.
Pellerin has coarse, dark hair that has slight hints of gray. He is tall and broad-shouldered with a confident voice that booms when he speaks. He can often be found wearing one of his business’ blue polo shirts with his first name stitched on the front, upper-left corner. His two-story home in Moreno Valley features a Loyal K-9 truck parked in its driveway with an image of a hero German Shepherd dog in front of the Twin Towers on its tailgate. Pellerin has a tile and hardwood floor layout designed to maintain the cleanliness of the dogs, an office with client names, leather leashes, and metal dog chains, and a flat, green backyard used for training. On the sides of his house, there are fenced dog kennels with protective awnings along with additional kennels found in his garage. The entire property is wired to a security system with video and audio so he can monitor all of its activity.
Pellerin once trained a beefy, tan Cane Corso called “Rev,” who was extremely aggressive and attacked Pellerin upon his initial arrival in the back of the Loyal K-9 truck.
“He was a jerk! As soon as I opened the crate he tried to piss on me. He was a mess.”
After secluding him on one side of the house, Pellerin fastened Rev to a leash and tried to make contact. Rev began snorting and stress farting when Pellerin neared him, and violently lunged at him several times. After an hour of Pellerin showing no fear to the animal, he was eventually able to pat Rev on the head and remove his leash. For the next few days, Rev was extremely disobedient and hostile, barking at anyone who neared him. There were a few occasions when Pellerin had to chase him around the backyard until he grew tired and went to his kennel. But after less than two weeks, Rev made a complete transformation and learned to obey all of Pellerin’s commands. He was taught to perform in dog competitions, where Pellerin would trot along the grass while Rev closely followed by his side. He also practiced “stacking,” which is the best position for a dog to stand in during competitions. For a giant Cane Corso like Rev, that position is legs out, neck fat tucked in, and tail up.
Pellerin has experience with training dogs with all types of issues. There was “Buddy,” the escape artist who jumped gates and dug up holes; “Skar,” a black Bullmastiff who was rescued from being abused in a drug-raided house in Highland; “Shiro,” a Siberian Husky who spazzed out and did alligator rolls every time he was on a leash; and countless others. Pellerin only takes six dogs a month and works out of his own backyard, dedicating the time to truly know and train each animal. Other big-time companies charge for basic obedience, but Pellerin feels as though it makes more sense to combine verbal commands, non-verbal commands, and body language all in a condensed three-week session instead of overcharging clients and spending additional time. Afterward, there is the option for additional, advanced off-leash training, handler protection, and odor recognition in areas like drugs, explosives, or even bed bugs.
Pellerin sets himself apart from other dog training competitors because he adds a human touch to his work. He features homemade before and after videos of the dogs and he’s trained along with quirky YouTube clips showcasing his methods so the clients know exactly what they are paying for. It doesn’t matter if a client is famous or where Pellerin has to go to train their dog, he ultimately just wants to help and provide a reputable service. Loyal K-9 has also earned over 55 five-star Yelp ratings which has helped his business skyrocket.
However, Pellerin was not always passionate about dogs. His family owned a few of them growing up like “Toto,” a Cairn Terrier identical to the one featured in Wizard of Oz; “Bubba,” a small mutt who broke out of the house and was never seen again; and “Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart,” a Wire Fox Terrier whose name was inspired by Pellerin’s father’s NYU degree in music. Amadeus once ate a pet parakeet.
But above everything else, Pellerin wanted to be a police officer, which was evident through his upbringing. He was born and raised in Hacienda Heights as the youngest of three in a French-Canadian household. His parents moved from New York to California to start a life together in 1952. His father, Thomas, was fairly strict, and a “man’s man.” He was strong and talked with his hands. When it was time to come home, Thomas would whistle and the whole neighborhood would be looking for the Pellerin kids to make sure they made it back on time. Pellerin’s mother, Joan, was more of a housewife, but she did have a full-time position at a grocery store. She was soft-spoken and supported her husband when he disciplined their children, even closing the windows so the neighbors couldn’t hear when the kids were in trouble with their father. Thomas and Joan were married for over 50 years until Thomas passed away at age 65. They always had a strong love connection, and their favorite romantic gesture towards one another often revolved around the number “3” -- which represented their three kids and the words “I love you.” They would sign each other’s birthday cards with the number three circled and hold up three fingers when they saw each other as ways to show their affection.
Pellerin was a part of the Boy Scouts and obsessed over shows like Cops and the thought of fighting crime and helping people excited him. He eventually graduated from the Sheriff’s Explorer Program and decided that that was what he wanted to do for the rest of his life. By the time Pellerin graduated high school in 1990, his father told him that he had to either continue his education or get a job and pay rent. At that point, Pellerin was a cook for a rib joint called Tony Roma’s and felt that he was wasting his life away, smoking weed and lounging around with friends. He knew that he didn’t want to continue down this path, so at age 20 he looked into the military branches.
“I already had a dad that yelled at me so I didn’t want to be a Marine. Back then, the joke was ‘I don’t want to be out at sea for six months with a bunch of Navy guys’ ‘cause that indicated gay jokes... And I felt I was educated more than an Army person, so that left me with Air Force.”
Pellerin went into the military as a Law Enforcement Officer (LE). He spent one year at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas where he completed basic training and the police academy. While he was there, Pellerin learned to never volunteer for anything. If a Drill Sergeant asked, “Who wants to go to the beach?” and a soldier responded, “Hell yeah!” they were thrown into a giant sandpit with barbed wire and forced to low-crawl hundreds of yards with their M-16’s while live rounds are shot overhead. Once a Drill Sergeant asked if any soldiers wanted to be a K-9 handler, and Pellerin assumed it would be another trick if he volunteered for the position, but he realized the offer was valid and he soon took the steps to become a certified dog handler.
In 1993, Pellerin went to Fort Dix, New Jersey, and earned his beret, which signified that he had knowledge in areas like Air Base ground defense, special tactics, throwing hand grenades, as well as using special heavy weapons. Pellerin was now part of an elite group that was the air base’s front line of defense. He was then assigned his first duty station at Anderson Air Force Base, Guam, a tropical island that had a Navy base and an Air Force base. He loved it. He had his dog, a patrol car, and was able to go wherever he wanted. There was a private beach with a bar and all of the girls would go ‘goo goo gaga’ over his dog.
“They would come running up in bikinis and bending over and I would be like ‘Oh my god, this is the best job in the freaking world,’” he says, chuckling.
Pellerin continued to work there until November of 1995 when he was assigned to Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana. There he connected with an acquaintance’s sister, a Japanese-Irish woman named Colleen Byrnes who was from the area, and they ended up getting married. She had cervix cancer and her body consisted of too much scar tissue, so she was told by doctors that she could never get pregnant. However, on December 30th, 1996, Byrnes gave birth to their son, Quinn Kiyoshi Pellerin.
By 1997, Pellerin had completed two tours in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. In March of that same year, a promotion freeze on the military restricted Pellerin to become Staff Sergeant and he was forced to leave. He became extremely conflicted with no job, an infant child, and a wife who was beginning to annoy him.
“I didn’t know what I was going to do. I didn’t have money. I had a Japanese Akita and a pug for two dogs. [I had] a Ford Aerostar van, I couldn’t afford an automatic so it was a stick-shift. We packed it up and came to California, tried to make a life, just like my mom and dad did. And just like mom and dad, it flopped at the beginning.”
Brynes began partying and doing drugs in places like Santa Monica, which caused a strain on her relationship with Pellerin. He began to feel as though she was mooching off of her own parent’s financial success, and the pair were arguing nonstop. The marriage was over within two years, and Byrnes took Quinn back to Montana. Pellerin never saw her again, and it became a nasty fight for custody over their son. Pellerin was viewed as the “Disneyland Dad,” the deadbeat father who rarely saw his son and the times that he did, all he was good for was taking him on sightseeing trips and to amusement parks. Although when Pellerin did see Quinn, he would teach him things like how to change oil, mow the lawn, and change a tire -- but their relationship had little improvement over the years. Pellerin feels as though he never had the opportunity to truly be a father and was forced to move on when Quinn became an adult and no longer kept in contact.
After the promotion freeze in 1997, Pellerin realized that he actually despised being a police officer. It was “five minutes of a bar fight, having fun, kicking butt, taking names -- and then hours and hours of paperwork.” It was nothing like what he saw on TV. Since he could not be promoted he had to leave the military, but he realized that he loved working with canines.
Yet Pellerin could not get away from being a cop. In 2001, he worked for the Department of Defense Police at the March Air Force Base as an officer since it was all that he knew. He was transferred to the West Los Angeles VA Hospital, but still did not enjoy his job. After the Twin Towers fell on September 11th, 2001, Pellerin was later hired by the government as a Federal Air Marshal and was able to fly on airplanes undercover.
“What a great job. I sit on a plane all day. I get food. I get skymiles. I get hotel points. I get to travel. And I get a gun. It was awesome. It was just awesome. I got to travel the world for free.”
Pellerin attended the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (FLETC) in New Mexico and was able to fly for about two years. However, in 2003 former President George Bush decided to have a budget cut for Air Marshals and Pellerin was out of a job once again.
Later that year, Pellerin was at a loss for what to do until he was offered a position that he couldn’t refuse. He was hired in Iraq as a Explosive Detection Dog Handler (EDD) to find bombs in the coalition forces. It was a one-year civilian contract, and Pellerin was able to work and play with Navy Seals, Delta Force men, and other soldiers from elite units. He had his first civilian dog, “Rico,” accompany him on bomb searchers at the Baghdad International Airport (BIAP), but he wasn’t too concerned about threats since they were located so deep within the compound of other military checkpoints. He was having fun. On September 9th, 2005, Pellerin lost Rico due to an illness still unknown to this day.
Late 2005, Pellerin came back to the United States and began working for a dog training business that paid him significantly less than his previous position in Iraq. He worked among five other trainers and they would train around 65 dogs a day with what he considers to be “old school techniques.” Chihuahuas, Saint Bernards -- anything that came through the gates, Pellerin would train. However, he wished to add more training and teach other skills like explosive and narcotic findings. The company allowed him to do some of this work on the side but it never fully took off from lack of support.
Pellerin eventually found another job with Master K-9, a canine police training business based in Cherry Valley. The owner was a man in his 60s named Danny LaMaster, someone who Pellerin looked up to as the “Yoda of canine police training.” He drove a Porsche and a few Harley Davidsons, and Pellerin believes that he could have learned so much more from him before he passed away.
“I loved [working there]. I got to do what I wanted to do with police officers. I got to help people. That’s all I ever wanted to do was help people, make a difference.”
On one occasion at Master K-9, the police officers were attempting to resolve an issue with a white German Shepherd named “Ranger” who would not release his grip from a bite suit when he was in attack mode. He was deemed practically untrainable and had a previous handler who confirmed 13 bites from his failed attempts. They decided to equip the dog with a pinch collar, a choke chain, and an electric shock collar in an attempt to rehabilitate the dog.
“Now he can’t open his jaw because the electricity is ‘grrrrrrrr’ and it’s pissing him off even more. So they keep trying this macho way of fixing this dog, kicking his ass. ‘Make you bow to me.’ Typical, heavy-badge cop stuff. That’s old school style.”
Pellerin sees this and was disgusted. He realized that this dog was dual-certified and had an additional speciality in sniffing out narcotics. He remembered that Ranger’s reward toy for finding those items was a squeaky tennis ball. Pellerin tells the police officers to take off all of the dog’s equipment and they run the scenario again.
WHAM!
Ranger charges at the man in the bite suit and power slams him into a corner, tearing him up. The officer in the suit is struggling, even falling over in attempt to keep his balance. Everyone is hyping Ranger up and screaming, “Yeah! Yeah! Get him! Kill that son of a bitch!” The decoy might as well have wrestled an alligator.
Pellerin soon steps in and yells, “RANGER. LET LOS.”
He then takes a squeaky ball, places it right next to the dog’s ear, and squeezes.
EEE-EEE
Ranger immediately spits out the role-playing bad guy and happily begins to play with the ball. All of the officers were stunned. They couldn’t believe it.
“Bullshit! That’s bullshit!” the Head Sergeant said. “I spent hundreds of dollars on all of this equipment, you’re telling me it’s going to be solved with a 10 cent fuckin’ ball?! Bullshit! Run it again!”
They run the scenario once more while the Head Sergeant picks up the cigar that fell from his mouth when his jaw dropped.
WHAM!
Ranger attacks the decoy once again with outrageous strength. Moments later, the sound of the squeaky ball can be heard and the same outcome is replicated.
“They didn’t like me after that… For a civilian to tell a cop what to do is unconstitutional. It doesn’t work. I hurt their pride I guess you could say. I built a better mousetrap, what’s the problem? That’s why I’m here. That’s why I’m your trainer.”
Afterwards, the officers began to verbally bash Pellerin as they viewed him as only a civilian despite his previous experience on the force. They would gossip and tell new officers to “watch out for David, he’s a dick.” Pellerin could never gain their respect. When the Master K-9 owner passed away, Pellerin was unable to be hired at a competitor’s dog training facility knowing he was a civilian with knowledge and updated training methods.
Pellerin was out of a job once again. He tried to convince other employees from Master K-9 to keep the business running or venture out and possibly start their own canine training company, but no one was on board. He didn’t know what to do, until he was offered another civilian contract in Afghanistan in 2010 where he would spend the next four and a half years as a Explosive Detection Dog Handler for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Forces. He wanted one last “hoo-rah” as he wasn’t too old nor physically incapable to work. He still had fight left in him. He thought it would be another party like some of his previous experiences, but he was dead wrong. He wished to have thoroughly read the contract before signing, because the occurrences that followed were unimaginable.
By this time Pellerin was unknowingly suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and even the pop of a 55-gallon drum heating up in the morning sun would send him plummeting to the floor, reaching for his weapon that was not there, as he believed the noise was a gunshot. It was not until Pellerin became partnered with “Sabot,” who was a veteran dog of many battles, where he found strength in many ways. Alike Pellerin, Sabot witnessed countless traumatizing events that left him aggressive and practically untrainable. Sabot was even considered to be euthanized due to his mental state and behaviors. However, when Pellerin saw him, he told the Kennel Master that he wanted to be his partner, and the Kennel Master’s response was “good luck.” Pellerin then entered Sabot’s kennel, sat in a foldable chair, and played music from his iPod while Sabot circled around him like a land shark, sizing him up. Pellerin continued to ignore him for 20 minutes, until Sabot finally nudged his arm for attention that later led to some petting, and he eventually bowed down to his new master. The pair were then certified together by the base commander and remained a team during Pellerin’s contract in Afghanistan and was flown out to his first Forward Observation Base (FOB) outside the safety of a base named Kandahar.
One morning in Afghanistan, Pellerin and his crew are out with Canadian forces to track down the Taliban near Forward Observation Base (FOB) Sperwhan Gar, who have reportedly been holding an entire village hostage. They cross the Dori River and enter the village to find the Taliban at prayer time in a mosque near the Pakistan border. They poke their heads over the wall and are able to size up the terrorist group, verifying that they had multiple AK-47s and other special weaponry. The Canadian forces opened fire. It was a gruesome, 13-hour gunfight.
Some of the Taliban got away and most didn’t. What little clean water creeks they had for growing grapes were now contaminated, and the marijuana and opium found in the fields were now stained red from all of the blood. The soldiers decided to split a few hundred Canadians on either side of the town to jointly combat the number of those in the Afghan National Guard (ANG) as they attempted to move out. Anything that came in between them and their exit, they were instructed to terminate.
Pellerin’s job is simple. He says with a little arrogance, “All I had to do is clear each door, cave, tunnel, or entryway of any explosive devices for the soldiers before kicking the doors in or going into a tunnel.”
He doesn’t know if a mat is really a pressure plate loaded with explosives, which are typically constructed of a metal spring with one wire on top and one wire on the bottom, all attached to a 9V battery or a car battery. If it is stepped on and those two wires connect, it will explode and kill anyone in its path. Pellerin also doesn’t know if a Taliban is waiting around the corner or behind a door, ready to jump out at any moment and easily shoot him in the chest. His uniform was nothing like what the rest of the military had: he had a t-shirt and a regular pair of pants -- any other protection after that was what he bought on his own. He does wear a tactical vest and a helmet, and is equipped with an AK-47, a 9mm Glock handgun strapped to his chest, keeping his hands free at all times, and his dog, Sabot, whose 30-foot leash is attached to a carabiner near his shoulder.
Pellerin is the first to approach an open doorway and tells Sabot: “Find it.” The dog starts to sniff the ground. Everyone behind them plugs their ears jokingly to help lighten the mood, but with every search there was always the question of “Is this the one? Is this the one that will let my family know I died a brave death?” Pellerin then scans the doorway, checking for any dangling wires or suspicious cords before proceeding.
“Clear!” he yells.
The soldiers effectively shift through the mud-made village this way, until Sabot suddenly decides to take Pellerin for a tumble down a hill to a creek to cool off. He falls into the water and gets completely soaked. The rest of the men laugh, which helped break some of the stress that they were under. Pellerin scrambles to his feet and sits on a tree trunk, cussing out his dog with every bad word he knows while he wrings out his wet socks. At the same time, the soldiers are notified that a fellow Canadian soldier was shot on the other side of the perimeter. They are instructed to create a wedge through the middle of the large opium field to get the wounded soldier quickly out of the area, instead of wasting time and transporting him by stretcher all the way around the perimeter that they already cleared. The Canadian Captain believed that the soldier would bleed out by then. The Captain is near Pellerin, some soldiers, a Sergeant, and an Afghani translator who has a “squack box,” which is a receiver that can pick up on frequencies and conversations that the Taliban may be having on talking devices. The soldiers begin to plan the rescue and evacuation back to the landing zone (LZ) of the injured soldier: he is to be placed on a Black Hawk helicopter and transported back to the main base, Kandahar, for better medical treatment.
The Captain says into the radio, “I think we can open up this wedge a little further to extract to the LZ faster.”
The rest of the men standby as the Captain crouches down to pull a map out of his cargo pocket. His knee lands on a pressure plate. The ground erupts into a violent explosion, ripping through everyone in its path.
“It rocked me so hard. Green, fresh, beautiful leaves falling off the trees from the blast so hard. I got shit all over me -- I don’t even know what it is -- I could feel it pelting me. I assumed it was graveled dirt. Nope. It’s body parts and chunks of bone. ‘I don’t know what the fuck to do’ is my first thought.” Then Pellerin’s training kicked into action.
Pellerin throws his boots back on, takes Sabot, and straps him off onto a tree. He sees a body on the ground through a gray cloud of dirt and smoke and grabs it. It’s the translator. Pellerin drags him out by his LBE, the load-bearing equipment that consists of suspenders and a belt. The translator’s face is mangled like dog meat, bloodied, and unrecognizable. One of his eyes is dangling out of its socket. Pellerin pulls him through the dirt and passes by the Captain who is missing the lower half of his body. The Captain keeps repeating, “I just fucked up! I just fucked up! I just fucked up!” Pellerin assisted the Canadian Corpsman, administering first-aid to the translator by pouring saline solution over his dangling eye as he holds it in his hand.
Those words “I just fucked up” would be forever ingrained in Pellerin’s memory and still haunts his dreams at night today.
That is only a glimpse at some of the horrors that Pellerin has seen during his four and a half years. He says on average they lost three soldiers a month, just on one base. He has to live with nightmares and regret from these experiences, especially when the question comes up, “Well, why didn’t your dog find that Improvised Explosive Device (IED)?” He doesn’t know how to answer. He was behind the group and was never called to the front to clear the opium field. But what would be his excuse for not stepping in and stopping the group from proceeding? That he was preoccupied with... wringing out his wet socks? Civilians don’t tell captains what to do. He didn’t want to be treated with disrespect again, like he was during his days training police officers as a civilian. It’s a regret and a struggle that Pellerin has to live with for the rest of his life. When he’s on the street and sees normal people living their normal lives and he hears them say, “I just fucked up,” he freezes in his tracks and remembers that fateful day and thinks, “Buddy, you have no idea.” Even today, the buzz of bees reminds him of bullets flying past him.
Pellerin cannot pinpoint exactly when he first developed PTSD, but he never got the help for it until recent years. Upon his return from Afghanistan, he didn’t think anything was wrong with him. He later recognized that he couldn’t function normally but thought he would be able to wait it out and things would get better. Oftentimes he would find himself in denial, like an alcoholic, “Nah, nothing’s wrong with me,” he would say. Sometimes he would feel fine. Yet he couldn’t drive down the freeway without frustration. He couldn’t watch a war movie. He had a short fuse. He’d start crying for no reason. Panic attacks and anxiety out of nowhere. He would sit in his living room chair and stare off into a corner, thinking about those days, and his finger would be continually flexing as if he were pulling the trigger. His girlfriend of 11 years, Cathy, would have to snap him out of these trances, even though he was wide awake. One time Cathy had called the police because Pellerin was screaming and shoved her on the floor before returning to his third year in Afghanistan. She was in fear for her life and could see he was getting worse.
“I’m not right. I knew I wasn’t. And I couldn’t do a fucking thing about it.”
Pellerin now goes to weekly meetings for PTSD and is given medication from the Department of Veteran Affairs, which he says does absolutely nothing for him. He has to drink alcohol -- usually several Bud Lites or shots of Whiskey -- just to be able to go to sleep at night. But he feels a lot better now. He still has a short fuse and gets angry when he needs to, but his entire focus shifted toward his Loyal K-9 business after 2010 as he saw it as an exit strategy from the military lifestyle once and for all, but he chuckles, holding back tears and sniffling, and says, “Hell yeah! I would fucking do it again today.”
Sometimes when he was in these civilian contracts, he would work for three months and then have a month off to spend at home. He realized that he was making too much money from these contracts and was about to get screwed over in taxes, which is when he originally created Loyal K-9 and had it running when he was overseas. Soon he was able to have several tax write-offs. Because his business was running from home, electricity, water, and anything used out of necessity became a tax write-off. His dog, “Maverick,” was a demonstration dog, so his food and medications were covered as well. In 2013, during Pellerin’s final year in contracting, he began to travel to other NATO forces’ canine kennels and learn different dog training techniques in order to create the most efficient structure. By 2014, Pellerin was at work full-time at Loyal K-9, fully-loaded, “locked, cocked, and ready to rock” with canine knowledge from around the world, and his business gained serious traction. He dropped thousands of dollars on new floors, kennels, concrete, awnings, and security systems. He trained Cathy to be a dog trainer and hired help for keeping up with the kennels, walking the dogs, and general cleaning.
Pellerin is excited for the recognition of his canine business and hopes to one day get a list of all his military dogs’ names with the years they died tattooed on the side of his ribcage. He jokingly says, “I’d rather get shot than have a needle ink me a million times.” He still thinks about his fuzzy partners today and knows they are in a better place, and someday he will be able to join them to play ball one more time.
Now Pellerin sips on his Bud Lite while Maverick joyfully plays with the bite sleeve. He looks down at his best friend and chuckles, reminiscing about where he’s been and thinking about where he’ll go. His future is to get into bed bug dog detection and let the business run itself while he goes fishing in his RV with Maverick.
“Oh yeah,” he says, chuckling, “Cathy can come as well.”
1 May 2018
Loyal K-9
The enormous German Shepherd’s deep bark echoes down the hallway.
WOOF WOOF WOOF
He has spotted a man in his territory.
WOOF WOOF
The dog, which has a thick black and brown coat, narrows his charcoal eyes. He flares his fangs. Saliva drips down from the snarl of his hungry mouth. He is out for blood.
WOOF WOOF WOOF
He anxiously attempts to break loose from the small hand that is struggling to hold him back. He is too powerful and snaps away. He charges at the man in full force.
WOOF WOOF WOOF
The man cannot escape. He frantically throws his left arm in front of his body, attempting to use it as a shield, and braces for impact. The beast lunges into the air with his mouth wide open, exposing all of his sharp teeth.
GRRRRRRRRRRR
The dog sinks his fangs into the man’s arm. His head violently rips back and forth as he shreds the arm to pieces.
“AHHHHHHH!” the man screams. “Stop! Stop! You’re killing me!”
It’s too late. Nothing can stop the vicious attack.
ARGGHHHHHHH
“Stop!” the man hollers. “MAVERICK. LET LOS.”
The dog freezes dead in his tracks and releases his grip on the man’s arm. The severed body part plummets to the floor.
“You killed me,” the man says. He reaches down to pick up his arm, which was really a hollow, fabric-covered bite sleeve. He pets Maverick. “That’s a good boy!” he beams.
Maverick happily sticks out his tongue and wags his tail at his owner. He did exactly what he was supposed to do.
The man who Maverick attacked was 46-year-old David Pellerin, the owner of Loyal K-9 which is a dog training business based in Moreno Valley, California. He and Maverick, his German Shepherd of seven years, were demonstrating how a dog can be trained with a bite sleeve to attack somebody. Pellerin purposely aggravates Maverick in order to hype him up for the attack. Once Maverick has bit into the arm, he may only release his grip at Pellerin’s discretion as he waits for the command “let los,” which is a way to say “let go” in German.
Pellerin trains dogs out of his home as he specializes in basic obedience, off-leash training, and advanced canine training. According to the Loyal K-9 website, Pellerin has experience with dogs that have issues such as “jumping up on people, hyper energy, separation anxiety, digging, chewing, destroying property, house training, aggression and a wide variety of other unwanted behaviors.” He typically travels a 100-mile radius to meet clients and train their dogs but has gone as far as the Arizona border to complete a job. His company motto: “Helping people to have a better relationship with their loyal K-9.”
Pellerin has an extensive background with all things canine, including working as a police dog trainer with 27 Police departments in Cherry Valley and a Civilian Explosives Detection Dog Handler in Iraq and Afghanistan, but becoming a trainer wasn’t always his plan.
Pellerin has coarse, dark hair that has slight hints of gray. He is tall and broad-shouldered with a confident voice that booms when he speaks. He can often be found wearing one of his business’ blue polo shirts with his first name stitched on the front, upper-left corner. His two-story home in Moreno Valley features a Loyal K-9 truck parked in its driveway with an image of a hero German Shepherd dog in front of the Twin Towers on its tailgate. Pellerin has a tile and hardwood floor layout designed to maintain the cleanliness of the dogs, an office with client names, leather leashes, and metal dog chains, and a flat, green backyard used for training. On the sides of his house, there are fenced dog kennels with protective awnings along with additional kennels found in his garage. The entire property is wired to a security system with video and audio so he can monitor all of its activity.
Pellerin once trained a beefy, tan Cane Corso called “Rev,” who was extremely aggressive and attacked Pellerin upon his initial arrival in the back of the Loyal K-9 truck.
“He was a jerk! As soon as I opened the crate he tried to piss on me. He was a mess.”
After secluding him on one side of the house, Pellerin fastened Rev to a leash and tried to make contact. Rev began snorting and stress farting when Pellerin neared him, and violently lunged at him several times. After an hour of Pellerin showing no fear to the animal, he was eventually able to pat Rev on the head and remove his leash. For the next few days, Rev was extremely disobedient and hostile, barking at anyone who neared him. There were a few occasions when Pellerin had to chase him around the backyard until he grew tired and went to his kennel. But after less than two weeks, Rev made a complete transformation and learned to obey all of Pellerin’s commands. He was taught to perform in dog competitions, where Pellerin would trot along the grass while Rev closely followed by his side. He also practiced “stacking,” which is the best position for a dog to stand in during competitions. For a giant Cane Corso like Rev, that position is legs out, neck fat tucked in, and tail up.
Pellerin has experience with training dogs with all types of issues. There was “Buddy,” the escape artist who jumped gates and dug up holes; “Skar,” a black Bullmastiff who was rescued from being abused in a drug-raided house in Highland; “Shiro,” a Siberian Husky who spazzed out and did alligator rolls every time he was on a leash; and countless others. Pellerin only takes six dogs a month and works out of his own backyard, dedicating the time to truly know and train each animal. Other big-time companies charge for basic obedience, but Pellerin feels as though it makes more sense to combine verbal commands, non-verbal commands, and body language all in a condensed three-week session instead of overcharging clients and spending additional time. Afterward, there is the option for additional, advanced off-leash training, handler protection, and odor recognition in areas like drugs, explosives, or even bed bugs.
Pellerin sets himself apart from other dog training competitors because he adds a human touch to his work. He features homemade before and after videos of the dogs and he’s trained along with quirky YouTube clips showcasing his methods so the clients know exactly what they are paying for. It doesn’t matter if a client is famous or where Pellerin has to go to train their dog, he ultimately just wants to help and provide a reputable service. Loyal K-9 has also earned over 55 five-star Yelp ratings which has helped his business skyrocket.
However, Pellerin was not always passionate about dogs. His family owned a few of them growing up like “Toto,” a Cairn Terrier identical to the one featured in Wizard of Oz; “Bubba,” a small mutt who broke out of the house and was never seen again; and “Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart,” a Wire Fox Terrier whose name was inspired by Pellerin’s father’s NYU degree in music. Amadeus once ate a pet parakeet.
But above everything else, Pellerin wanted to be a police officer, which was evident through his upbringing. He was born and raised in Hacienda Heights as the youngest of three in a French-Canadian household. His parents moved from New York to California to start a life together in 1952. His father, Thomas, was fairly strict, and a “man’s man.” He was strong and talked with his hands. When it was time to come home, Thomas would whistle and the whole neighborhood would be looking for the Pellerin kids to make sure they made it back on time. Pellerin’s mother, Joan, was more of a housewife, but she did have a full-time position at a grocery store. She was soft-spoken and supported her husband when he disciplined their children, even closing the windows so the neighbors couldn’t hear when the kids were in trouble with their father. Thomas and Joan were married for over 50 years until Thomas passed away at age 65. They always had a strong love connection, and their favorite romantic gesture towards one another often revolved around the number “3” -- which represented their three kids and the words “I love you.” They would sign each other’s birthday cards with the number three circled and hold up three fingers when they saw each other as ways to show their affection.
Pellerin was a part of the Boy Scouts and obsessed over shows like Cops and the thought of fighting crime and helping people excited him. He eventually graduated from the Sheriff’s Explorer Program and decided that that was what he wanted to do for the rest of his life. By the time Pellerin graduated high school in 1990, his father told him that he had to either continue his education or get a job and pay rent. At that point, Pellerin was a cook for a rib joint called Tony Roma’s and felt that he was wasting his life away, smoking weed and lounging around with friends. He knew that he didn’t want to continue down this path, so at age 20 he looked into the military branches.
“I already had a dad that yelled at me so I didn’t want to be a Marine. Back then, the joke was ‘I don’t want to be out at sea for six months with a bunch of Navy guys’ ‘cause that indicated gay jokes... And I felt I was educated more than an Army person, so that left me with Air Force.”
Pellerin went into the military as a Law Enforcement Officer (LE). He spent one year at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas where he completed basic training and the police academy. While he was there, Pellerin learned to never volunteer for anything. If a Drill Sergeant asked, “Who wants to go to the beach?” and a soldier responded, “Hell yeah!” they were thrown into a giant sandpit with barbed wire and forced to low-crawl hundreds of yards with their M-16’s while live rounds are shot overhead. Once a Drill Sergeant asked if any soldiers wanted to be a K-9 handler, and Pellerin assumed it would be another trick if he volunteered for the position, but he realized the offer was valid and he soon took the steps to become a certified dog handler.
In 1993, Pellerin went to Fort Dix, New Jersey, and earned his beret, which signified that he had knowledge in areas like Air Base ground defense, special tactics, throwing hand grenades, as well as using special heavy weapons. Pellerin was now part of an elite group that was the air base’s front line of defense. He was then assigned his first duty station at Anderson Air Force Base, Guam, a tropical island that had a Navy base and an Air Force base. He loved it. He had his dog, a patrol car, and was able to go wherever he wanted. There was a private beach with a bar and all of the girls would go ‘goo goo gaga’ over his dog.
“They would come running up in bikinis and bending over and I would be like ‘Oh my god, this is the best job in the freaking world,’” he says, chuckling.
Pellerin continued to work there until November of 1995 when he was assigned to Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana. There he connected with an acquaintance’s sister, a Japanese-Irish woman named Colleen Byrnes who was from the area, and they ended up getting married. She had cervix cancer and her body consisted of too much scar tissue, so she was told by doctors that she could never get pregnant. However, on December 30th, 1996, Byrnes gave birth to their son, Quinn Kiyoshi Pellerin.
By 1997, Pellerin had completed two tours in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. In March of that same year, a promotion freeze on the military restricted Pellerin to become Staff Sergeant and he was forced to leave. He became extremely conflicted with no job, an infant child, and a wife who was beginning to annoy him.
“I didn’t know what I was going to do. I didn’t have money. I had a Japanese Akita and a pug for two dogs. [I had] a Ford Aerostar van, I couldn’t afford an automatic so it was a stick-shift. We packed it up and came to California, tried to make a life, just like my mom and dad did. And just like mom and dad, it flopped at the beginning.”
Brynes began partying and doing drugs in places like Santa Monica, which caused a strain on her relationship with Pellerin. He began to feel as though she was mooching off of her own parent’s financial success, and the pair were arguing nonstop. The marriage was over within two years, and Byrnes took Quinn back to Montana. Pellerin never saw her again, and it became a nasty fight for custody over their son. Pellerin was viewed as the “Disneyland Dad,” the deadbeat father who rarely saw his son and the times that he did, all he was good for was taking him on sightseeing trips and to amusement parks. Although when Pellerin did see Quinn, he would teach him things like how to change oil, mow the lawn, and change a tire -- but their relationship had little improvement over the years. Pellerin feels as though he never had the opportunity to truly be a father and was forced to move on when Quinn became an adult and no longer kept in contact.
After the promotion freeze in 1997, Pellerin realized that he actually despised being a police officer. It was “five minutes of a bar fight, having fun, kicking butt, taking names -- and then hours and hours of paperwork.” It was nothing like what he saw on TV. Since he could not be promoted he had to leave the military, but he realized that he loved working with canines.
Yet Pellerin could not get away from being a cop. In 2001, he worked for the Department of Defense Police at the March Air Force Base as an officer since it was all that he knew. He was transferred to the West Los Angeles VA Hospital, but still did not enjoy his job. After the Twin Towers fell on September 11th, 2001, Pellerin was later hired by the government as a Federal Air Marshal and was able to fly on airplanes undercover.
“What a great job. I sit on a plane all day. I get food. I get skymiles. I get hotel points. I get to travel. And I get a gun. It was awesome. It was just awesome. I got to travel the world for free.”
Pellerin attended the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (FLETC) in New Mexico and was able to fly for about two years. However, in 2003 former President George Bush decided to have a budget cut for Air Marshals and Pellerin was out of a job once again.
Later that year, Pellerin was at a loss for what to do until he was offered a position that he couldn’t refuse. He was hired in Iraq as a Explosive Detection Dog Handler (EDD) to find bombs in the coalition forces. It was a one-year civilian contract, and Pellerin was able to work and play with Navy Seals, Delta Force men, and other soldiers from elite units. He had his first civilian dog, “Rico,” accompany him on bomb searchers at the Baghdad International Airport (BIAP), but he wasn’t too concerned about threats since they were located so deep within the compound of other military checkpoints. He was having fun. On September 9th, 2005, Pellerin lost Rico due to an illness still unknown to this day.
Late 2005, Pellerin came back to the United States and began working for a dog training business that paid him significantly less than his previous position in Iraq. He worked among five other trainers and they would train around 65 dogs a day with what he considers to be “old school techniques.” Chihuahuas, Saint Bernards -- anything that came through the gates, Pellerin would train. However, he wished to add more training and teach other skills like explosive and narcotic findings. The company allowed him to do some of this work on the side but it never fully took off from lack of support.
Pellerin eventually found another job with Master K-9, a canine police training business based in Cherry Valley. The owner was a man in his 60s named Danny LaMaster, someone who Pellerin looked up to as the “Yoda of canine police training.” He drove a Porsche and a few Harley Davidsons, and Pellerin believes that he could have learned so much more from him before he passed away.
“I loved [working there]. I got to do what I wanted to do with police officers. I got to help people. That’s all I ever wanted to do was help people, make a difference.”
On one occasion at Master K-9, the police officers were attempting to resolve an issue with a white German Shepherd named “Ranger” who would not release his grip from a bite suit when he was in attack mode. He was deemed practically untrainable and had a previous handler who confirmed 13 bites from his failed attempts. They decided to equip the dog with a pinch collar, a choke chain, and an electric shock collar in an attempt to rehabilitate the dog.
“Now he can’t open his jaw because the electricity is ‘grrrrrrrr’ and it’s pissing him off even more. So they keep trying this macho way of fixing this dog, kicking his ass. ‘Make you bow to me.’ Typical, heavy-badge cop stuff. That’s old school style.”
Pellerin sees this and was disgusted. He realized that this dog was dual-certified and had an additional speciality in sniffing out narcotics. He remembered that Ranger’s reward toy for finding those items was a squeaky tennis ball. Pellerin tells the police officers to take off all of the dog’s equipment and they run the scenario again.
WHAM!
Ranger charges at the man in the bite suit and power slams him into a corner, tearing him up. The officer in the suit is struggling, even falling over in attempt to keep his balance. Everyone is hyping Ranger up and screaming, “Yeah! Yeah! Get him! Kill that son of a bitch!” The decoy might as well have wrestled an alligator.
Pellerin soon steps in and yells, “RANGER. LET LOS.”
He then takes a squeaky ball, places it right next to the dog’s ear, and squeezes.
EEE-EEE
Ranger immediately spits out the role-playing bad guy and happily begins to play with the ball. All of the officers were stunned. They couldn’t believe it.
“Bullshit! That’s bullshit!” the Head Sergeant said. “I spent hundreds of dollars on all of this equipment, you’re telling me it’s going to be solved with a 10 cent fuckin’ ball?! Bullshit! Run it again!”
They run the scenario once more while the Head Sergeant picks up the cigar that fell from his mouth when his jaw dropped.
WHAM!
Ranger attacks the decoy once again with outrageous strength. Moments later, the sound of the squeaky ball can be heard and the same outcome is replicated.
“They didn’t like me after that… For a civilian to tell a cop what to do is unconstitutional. It doesn’t work. I hurt their pride I guess you could say. I built a better mousetrap, what’s the problem? That’s why I’m here. That’s why I’m your trainer.”
Afterwards, the officers began to verbally bash Pellerin as they viewed him as only a civilian despite his previous experience on the force. They would gossip and tell new officers to “watch out for David, he’s a dick.” Pellerin could never gain their respect. When the Master K-9 owner passed away, Pellerin was unable to be hired at a competitor’s dog training facility knowing he was a civilian with knowledge and updated training methods.
Pellerin was out of a job once again. He tried to convince other employees from Master K-9 to keep the business running or venture out and possibly start their own canine training company, but no one was on board. He didn’t know what to do, until he was offered another civilian contract in Afghanistan in 2010 where he would spend the next four and a half years as a Explosive Detection Dog Handler for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Forces. He wanted one last “hoo-rah” as he wasn’t too old nor physically incapable to work. He still had fight left in him. He thought it would be another party like some of his previous experiences, but he was dead wrong. He wished to have thoroughly read the contract before signing, because the occurrences that followed were unimaginable.
By this time Pellerin was unknowingly suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and even the pop of a 55-gallon drum heating up in the morning sun would send him plummeting to the floor, reaching for his weapon that was not there, as he believed the noise was a gunshot. It was not until Pellerin became partnered with “Sabot,” who was a veteran dog of many battles, where he found strength in many ways. Alike Pellerin, Sabot witnessed countless traumatizing events that left him aggressive and practically untrainable. Sabot was even considered to be euthanized due to his mental state and behaviors. However, when Pellerin saw him, he told the Kennel Master that he wanted to be his partner, and the Kennel Master’s response was “good luck.” Pellerin then entered Sabot’s kennel, sat in a foldable chair, and played music from his iPod while Sabot circled around him like a land shark, sizing him up. Pellerin continued to ignore him for 20 minutes, until Sabot finally nudged his arm for attention that later led to some petting, and he eventually bowed down to his new master. The pair were then certified together by the base commander and remained a team during Pellerin’s contract in Afghanistan and was flown out to his first Forward Observation Base (FOB) outside the safety of a base named Kandahar.
One morning in Afghanistan, Pellerin and his crew are out with Canadian forces to track down the Taliban near Forward Observation Base (FOB) Sperwhan Gar, who have reportedly been holding an entire village hostage. They cross the Dori River and enter the village to find the Taliban at prayer time in a mosque near the Pakistan border. They poke their heads over the wall and are able to size up the terrorist group, verifying that they had multiple AK-47s and other special weaponry. The Canadian forces opened fire. It was a gruesome, 13-hour gunfight.
Some of the Taliban got away and most didn’t. What little clean water creeks they had for growing grapes were now contaminated, and the marijuana and opium found in the fields were now stained red from all of the blood. The soldiers decided to split a few hundred Canadians on either side of the town to jointly combat the number of those in the Afghan National Guard (ANG) as they attempted to move out. Anything that came in between them and their exit, they were instructed to terminate.
Pellerin’s job is simple. He says with a little arrogance, “All I had to do is clear each door, cave, tunnel, or entryway of any explosive devices for the soldiers before kicking the doors in or going into a tunnel.”
He doesn’t know if a mat is really a pressure plate loaded with explosives, which are typically constructed of a metal spring with one wire on top and one wire on the bottom, all attached to a 9V battery or a car battery. If it is stepped on and those two wires connect, it will explode and kill anyone in its path. Pellerin also doesn’t know if a Taliban is waiting around the corner or behind a door, ready to jump out at any moment and easily shoot him in the chest. His uniform was nothing like what the rest of the military had: he had a t-shirt and a regular pair of pants -- any other protection after that was what he bought on his own. He does wear a tactical vest and a helmet, and is equipped with an AK-47, a 9mm Glock handgun strapped to his chest, keeping his hands free at all times, and his dog, Sabot, whose 30-foot leash is attached to a carabiner near his shoulder.
Pellerin is the first to approach an open doorway and tells Sabot: “Find it.” The dog starts to sniff the ground. Everyone behind them plugs their ears jokingly to help lighten the mood, but with every search there was always the question of “Is this the one? Is this the one that will let my family know I died a brave death?” Pellerin then scans the doorway, checking for any dangling wires or suspicious cords before proceeding.
“Clear!” he yells.
The soldiers effectively shift through the mud-made village this way, until Sabot suddenly decides to take Pellerin for a tumble down a hill to a creek to cool off. He falls into the water and gets completely soaked. The rest of the men laugh, which helped break some of the stress that they were under. Pellerin scrambles to his feet and sits on a tree trunk, cussing out his dog with every bad word he knows while he wrings out his wet socks. At the same time, the soldiers are notified that a fellow Canadian soldier was shot on the other side of the perimeter. They are instructed to create a wedge through the middle of the large opium field to get the wounded soldier quickly out of the area, instead of wasting time and transporting him by stretcher all the way around the perimeter that they already cleared. The Canadian Captain believed that the soldier would bleed out by then. The Captain is near Pellerin, some soldiers, a Sergeant, and an Afghani translator who has a “squack box,” which is a receiver that can pick up on frequencies and conversations that the Taliban may be having on talking devices. The soldiers begin to plan the rescue and evacuation back to the landing zone (LZ) of the injured soldier: he is to be placed on a Black Hawk helicopter and transported back to the main base, Kandahar, for better medical treatment.
The Captain says into the radio, “I think we can open up this wedge a little further to extract to the LZ faster.”
The rest of the men standby as the Captain crouches down to pull a map out of his cargo pocket. His knee lands on a pressure plate. The ground erupts into a violent explosion, ripping through everyone in its path.
“It rocked me so hard. Green, fresh, beautiful leaves falling off the trees from the blast so hard. I got shit all over me -- I don’t even know what it is -- I could feel it pelting me. I assumed it was graveled dirt. Nope. It’s body parts and chunks of bone. ‘I don’t know what the fuck to do’ is my first thought.” Then Pellerin’s training kicked into action.
Pellerin throws his boots back on, takes Sabot, and straps him off onto a tree. He sees a body on the ground through a gray cloud of dirt and smoke and grabs it. It’s the translator. Pellerin drags him out by his LBE, the load-bearing equipment that consists of suspenders and a belt. The translator’s face is mangled like dog meat, bloodied, and unrecognizable. One of his eyes is dangling out of its socket. Pellerin pulls him through the dirt and passes by the Captain who is missing the lower half of his body. The Captain keeps repeating, “I just fucked up! I just fucked up! I just fucked up!” Pellerin assisted the Canadian Corpsman, administering first-aid to the translator by pouring saline solution over his dangling eye as he holds it in his hand.
Those words “I just fucked up” would be forever ingrained in Pellerin’s memory and still haunts his dreams at night today.
That is only a glimpse at some of the horrors that Pellerin has seen during his four and a half years. He says on average they lost three soldiers a month, just on one base. He has to live with nightmares and regret from these experiences, especially when the question comes up, “Well, why didn’t your dog find that Improvised Explosive Device (IED)?” He doesn’t know how to answer. He was behind the group and was never called to the front to clear the opium field. But what would be his excuse for not stepping in and stopping the group from proceeding? That he was preoccupied with... wringing out his wet socks? Civilians don’t tell captains what to do. He didn’t want to be treated with disrespect again, like he was during his days training police officers as a civilian. It’s a regret and a struggle that Pellerin has to live with for the rest of his life. When he’s on the street and sees normal people living their normal lives and he hears them say, “I just fucked up,” he freezes in his tracks and remembers that fateful day and thinks, “Buddy, you have no idea.” Even today, the buzz of bees reminds him of bullets flying past him.
Pellerin cannot pinpoint exactly when he first developed PTSD, but he never got the help for it until recent years. Upon his return from Afghanistan, he didn’t think anything was wrong with him. He later recognized that he couldn’t function normally but thought he would be able to wait it out and things would get better. Oftentimes he would find himself in denial, like an alcoholic, “Nah, nothing’s wrong with me,” he would say. Sometimes he would feel fine. Yet he couldn’t drive down the freeway without frustration. He couldn’t watch a war movie. He had a short fuse. He’d start crying for no reason. Panic attacks and anxiety out of nowhere. He would sit in his living room chair and stare off into a corner, thinking about those days, and his finger would be continually flexing as if he were pulling the trigger. His girlfriend of 11 years, Cathy, would have to snap him out of these trances, even though he was wide awake. One time Cathy had called the police because Pellerin was screaming and shoved her on the floor before returning to his third year in Afghanistan. She was in fear for her life and could see he was getting worse.
“I’m not right. I knew I wasn’t. And I couldn’t do a fucking thing about it.”
Pellerin now goes to weekly meetings for PTSD and is given medication from the Department of Veteran Affairs, which he says does absolutely nothing for him. He has to drink alcohol -- usually several Bud Lites or shots of Whiskey -- just to be able to go to sleep at night. But he feels a lot better now. He still has a short fuse and gets angry when he needs to, but his entire focus shifted toward his Loyal K-9 business after 2010 as he saw it as an exit strategy from the military lifestyle once and for all, but he chuckles, holding back tears and sniffling, and says, “Hell yeah! I would fucking do it again today.”
Sometimes when he was in these civilian contracts, he would work for three months and then have a month off to spend at home. He realized that he was making too much money from these contracts and was about to get screwed over in taxes, which is when he originally created Loyal K-9 and had it running when he was overseas. Soon he was able to have several tax write-offs. Because his business was running from home, electricity, water, and anything used out of necessity became a tax write-off. His dog, “Maverick,” was a demonstration dog, so his food and medications were covered as well. In 2013, during Pellerin’s final year in contracting, he began to travel to other NATO forces’ canine kennels and learn different dog training techniques in order to create the most efficient structure. By 2014, Pellerin was at work full-time at Loyal K-9, fully-loaded, “locked, cocked, and ready to rock” with canine knowledge from around the world, and his business gained serious traction. He dropped thousands of dollars on new floors, kennels, concrete, awnings, and security systems. He trained Cathy to be a dog trainer and hired help for keeping up with the kennels, walking the dogs, and general cleaning.
Pellerin is excited for the recognition of his canine business and hopes to one day get a list of all his military dogs’ names with the years they died tattooed on the side of his ribcage. He jokingly says, “I’d rather get shot than have a needle ink me a million times.” He still thinks about his fuzzy partners today and knows they are in a better place, and someday he will be able to join them to play ball one more time.
Now Pellerin sips on his Bud Lite while Maverick joyfully plays with the bite sleeve. He looks down at his best friend and chuckles, reminiscing about where he’s been and thinking about where he’ll go. His future is to get into bed bug dog detection and let the business run itself while he goes fishing in his RV with Maverick.
“Oh yeah,” he says, chuckling, “Cathy can come as well.”
