By: Ali Elizabeth Turner
For thousands of years, dogs have “served” in the military in all manner of positions: as couriers, scouts, bomb detectors, and more recently, as highly trained support animals. Within that category of service, there has been to date only one deaf dog that has been prepared for deployment, and his name is Axel. Axel is the project of Sgt. Mollie Karazim, who is part of the ministry team in the Michigan National Guard, and she is also Axel’s trainer and handler.
Axel is deaf, and yet Axel knows close to 50 hand signal commands. Because he feels things so strongly, such as fireworks, vibrations, and other sensations, the set of skills that he has developed to compensate for his inability to hear almost makes it seem to his “peeps” that he has a superpower. Axel just “knows” when a soldier is going through something, and will walk right up, put his head on their leg if they are seated, and simply stay there until the exchange of affection between himself and the soldier does its work. He is trained to handle riding in a Humvee and an airplane, can handle being around explosions, and fulfilled his first formal training as a therapy dog.
Axel was a rescue, and Mollie got him as a puppy. He is now three, and while it took an extra year to give him the training, he is now “up to speed” and prepared for deployment.
Mollie’s unit is getting ready to deploy sometime in the next year, and she is so glad that Axel is going to be able to go with them. She said:
“When you’re deployed,” she continued, “everything that you have, that sense of home, is taken away from you. This is why I wanted him to start working with us a year before we left so that he was integrated into the unit — that he knew this was his new normal, these were his people, and this was his job, and that people also had the opportunity to get to know him, so that when we do deploy, and we’re downrange, that he is that piece of home for people.”
Axel doesn’t just lay around and munch on the canine version of MREs. (meals ready to eat) He runs along with soldiers when they doing their PT or are rucking, and the soldiers claim that his presence causes them to run faster.
“Axel is not a tactical asset; he is a force multiplier by means of mental health and soldier readiness,” said Sgt. Karazim. “He helps soldiers who are fighting wars sometimes silent and in their own heads by offering comfort to them. By being that icebreaker that allows the unit ministry team to be introduced and help. Dogs are absolutely incredible blessings and I’m so grateful to share him, and it makes me so proud to watch him work and put smiles on people’s faces.”
I have no idea if Axel will become a sergeant in his own right. It has happened before, and I can tell you from experience “in the Great Sandbox” that K-9s and their human counterparts both deserve our respect. Well done, Sgt. Karazim and may Axel prove to be a force multiplier on every front on which he serves.
By: Ali Elizabeth Turner
