MIRANDA  

Miranda is a female German Shepherd dog, AKC registered as Lady Miranda of Shiloh. A police officer working for the Village of Shiloh was moving to a small apartment and had no room for a dog.

I caught wind of this around the beginning of 1992. After my shift was over one evening, I drove my squad car to see Miranda. On first sight we took a liking to each other. A few days later, Miranda was relocated to our home in Lebanon. I walked her in the evenings on the Locust Hills golf course behind our backyard and into the woods beyond.

During long walks in the wooded area behind our home her training began. She had an extremely strong ball-drive. (She loves racquetballs or shaved tennis balls)

Miranda would chase the ball through anything, briars, mud, and into water. I always had a hard time removing the ball from her mouth; she enjoyed a good old game of tug-a-war. She loved running off-lease ahead of me in the woods. We often lost sight of each other in the dense foliage.

I would run the opposite direction and hide. It wouldn't take long for Miranda to follow my trail and locate me. She had a great nose for tracking, (the dogs ability to follow your path by the scent left on the ground) and air scenting, (the ability to smell air particles blown by the wind coming from a person).

Ever since our first daughter Michelle was born Miranda took up the job as "mother hen". When Michelle was old enough to walk they would play together for hours in the back yard. I would often come home to see Miranda covered in sand including her ears, (Michelle said it was a sand bath) or branches of leaves sticking out of her collar covering her head, (Michelle said it was how monsters look).

Miranda and Michelle were inseparable. During the summer of 1992, I applied to attend the St. Louis Police Canine School. I completed the paperwork and sent it in. After a few days I received a call at my police department form the St. Louis P.D.  They said I was accepted but could I find a male, as they didn't train female dogs. In fact only one female shepherd dog had went through the school and after graduation was de-commissioned.

After much begging on my part and Chief H. Wiseman (a former St. Louis officer) they agreed to train Miranda. The next 14 weeks of training were informative and difficult. They were difficult because I had to train all day 8:00am to 4:00pm with Miranda, still working my shifts at night which were 10 hours long, returning to the school by 8:00am the next day. Sleep was a premium that was taken everywhere possible. I would drive over after my shift and nap in the canine school parking lot. Many mornings a fellow dog handler would wake us up at the last moment before class.

Miranda did extremely well on the obstacle course and all searching aspects but was a little weak on the attack work and she hated gunfire. About half into our training came Miranda's first "real test". While returning to Lebanon from the school, I heard on our radio that the city was recalling the fire department to search for 2 lost children…

A new family was up town working refurbishing an apartment, and reported that their 2 small children had walked off.  A cell phone call received from a motorist on near by US hwy 50, observed 2 small children playing dangerously close to the water of Angies Silver Lake and appeared to be unsupervised.

The same description of the children from up town was given. A patrolman responded to the area and couldn't locate them. A resident in the area told the patrolman he last saw the little kids near the waters edge throwing rocks.  I raced to the scene as the fire department was preparing to search the lake. State Police K-9 was responding but was far away.

I took Miranda to the area and told her to track. She put her nose to the ground at the last known spot where the children were standing. She pulled me in a direction away from the water towards the near-by train tracks. Many on scene were skeptical of her abilities and if Miranda was in fact working at all. I was a bit worried myself, but followed my dog. She led me to the rocks along the RR tracks and headed towards O'fallon a town 7 miles or more away.

I followed the track for about 2 miles and had to stop due to a train passing by. Miranda picked up the track again just outside O'fallon towards a strip mall of buildings. I asked for a patrolman to check the strip mall area due to my dogs’ direction of travel. As we neared the area, the patrolman said he found the children a few hundred yards in front of us.

These children traveled about 10 miles, as did Miranda tracking them. The odd side of this was, our St. Louis canine training just begun that day on tracking. Miranda did a training track that morning for the first time and a actual track that evening in Lebanon. I was never so proud of my dog, if Miranda never did anything else in her life; she had proven her worth already.

On the 4th of December 1992, Miranda and I received our certificate and graduated the course. She was ready to hit the streets and fight crime. But after a few short months the city changed their minds and decided that they didn't need a patrol dog. I kept up her training and began adding narcotics detection to her abilities.

We received training from many outside agencies from Florida to Kentucky. Both state and local police agencies as well as the US Army. Miranda aged and it seemed that her life as a police dog was over, until the New York Trade Center incident on September 11th 2001.

Where Miranda distinguished herself beyond my expectations. Miranda now comes out to watch me train our new addition "Sasha" with a keen eye. She barks at times almost as if encouraging the young dog to perform better. For the most part Miranda enjoys the warm sunny days in the back yard of our home playing with my children, Michelle and Megan who she watches over still             as "the mother hen".  

IN MEMORIAM OF MIRANDA