Werewolf Quotes

“A dog’s greatest gift to us is love that does not diminish. We rarely deserve it. Brag also taught me that the thoughts of dogs, and indeed all animals, are complicated and profound. Humans need not look for animal intelligence, we need to stop overlooking it.”
― David Alton Hedges, Werewolf: The True Story of an Extraordinary Police Dog

“The bold, black masked pup goes to a surgeon in Santa Barara with two young daughters. The surgeon’s wife, Jill, takes one look at the pup’s confident gait and names him “Brag.” He’s a handsome fellow with over-sized paws and a serious disposition. The official name for his coloring is sable, which means he has as much black on him as he does brown. Brag grows deeply attached to his new family, never straying far from the little girls and always with one eye on Jill, whom he adores.

Before Brag is a year old, Jill’s husband – an amateur pilot – hops in his plain and flies to Bakersfield for business. On his way home later that night, with two friends seated behind him, he miscalculates his position and flies into a mountain north of Santa Barbara. The plan disintegrates on impact. No one survives”
― David Alton Hedges, Werewolf: The True Story of an Extraordinary Police Dog

“He is tough as galvanized nails, this dog. I suddenly realize that’s the problem: he’s tougher than I am. All those years on patrol, on SWAT, sweating in that tactical gear, all of it nowhere near the level of discomfort this animal can and will endure to do what he wants to do. Brag isn’t the one who needs to toughen up, it’s me.”
― David Alton Hedges, Werewolf: The True Story of an Extraordinary Police Dog

“But all of that is mostly invisible to me, an enchanting landscape painted on a see-through curtain in front of a stage where scenes of unspeakable horror play out. I can go for weeks without even seeing the beach, kept busy by emergency calls: fights, stabbings, shootings, burglaries, robberies, rapes, drunks, domestics, suicides. I spend more time in run-down housing projects and trailer parks than I do admiring sunsets. But they don’t pay me to enjoy the view”
― David Alton Hedges, Werewolf: The True Story of an Extraordinary Police Dog

“Fifty-five, K9-1 station EOW.”

End of Watch, I put the mic down.

“K9-1 station,” the dispatcher replies. “Thank you, Brag.”
― David Alton Hedges, Werewolf: The True Story of an Extraordinary Police Dog

“There’s something else I have to face, that I’ve been denying for a long time: Brag has a sense of humor. He is the fearsome Werewolf, the hater of people on skateboards, people wearing hoodies, people who make eye contact, people who approach his K-9 car, people who walk funny, people who holler at him, and anyone else who is more than twelve years old and doesn’t wear a police uniform. But despite all his deadly seriousness he bit that pillow because he thought it would be funny. And it was.”
― David Alton Hedges, Werewolf: The True Story of an Extraordinary Police Dog

“As I start up the steep hillside, I hear a man screaming. It’s Reck, shrieking in the darkness somewhere. Brag has him.

“GOOD BOY!” I shout, scrambling up the dusty trail on all fours. But there’s no need to go any farther because Brag is bringing Reck to me.

They appear in a surreal cloud of flash-light-beam illuminating dust. Brag is dragging the man by his lower leg, thrashing his head like a shark, digging his paws into the dusty earth.”
― David Alton Hedges, Werewolf: The True Story of an Extraordinary Police Dog

“In the ten-year period of 2004 to 2014, at least 101 police K-9’s died in the line of duty. Two were killed by other animals, two were killed by assault, two were drowned, one died of exposure to toxins, seven died in falls, six in auto accidents, five died due to duty-related illnesses or injury, fourteen were struck and killed by vehicles, sixteen died from heat exhaustion, three were stabbed to death, six were killed by intentional vehicular assaults, three died in training accidents, and thirty-four were killed by gunfire.”
― David Alton Hedges, Werewolf: The True Story of an Extraordinary Police Dog

“The longer I work with Brag, the less I see him the way I used to see a dog. He doesn’t feel like a dog at all, more like some creature that possesses entirely unique behaviors and motivations; a werewolf. I suppose. I trust him, some of the time. When I release him to do his job and I’ve done my job to try to limit the possible outcomes (biting another police officer, biting an innocent civilian, biting anyone he’s not supposed to bite, whether they are innocent or not). I’m confident he won’t fail.”
― David Alton Hedges, Werewolf: The True Story of an Extraordinary Police Dog

“In a police K-9 team, the human is always the weak link. We are forgetful and our enthusiasm waxes and wanes. Dogs love to work and they forget nothing.”
― David Alton Hedges, Werewolf: The True Story of an Extraordinary Police Dog