BALTIMORE (WMAR) — There’s a lot that goes into Fleet Week to make the event successful, including the security detail.
The Navy has brought in their specially-trained military working dogs to help secure areas by sniffing out explosives and narcotics.
One of the teams is Joseph Bender and black lab Rugby.
“They kind of match the dog with the handler to see which personalities would go together so me and Rugby have very similar personalities. We are both goobers,” said Bender.
Based in southern Maryland, they go through daily training to search for dangers, but they’ve never had an assignment off base… until now.
They are working on Baltimore’s waterfronts, coordinating with local police departments conducting sweeps of the area to keep people safe.
“Being able to come to Baltimore, walk around in the city and introduce him to a new environment is actually really good for training because you never know when you’re gonna go somewhere new so it’s really exciting. It’s nice to see people interested in him because just walking around, there are a lot of people who come up and ask questions,” said Bender.
Bender always wanted to be a military working dog handler and he hopes kids will see them out this weekend and get inspired too.
“I’m kinda just here to promote the Navy and the military working dog program, introduce people and get people interested. Seeing somebody that was maybe like me as a kid, seeing canine units on the road or watching movies, get them interested so we can get more people into the Navy,” said Bender.
if you see them, they are happy to stop for an obedience demo but unfortunately you can’t pet Rugby because he’s hard at work.
