As the airport's Ready 5 fighter, Piper must be ready to launch within 5 minutes to defend against all enemies, foreign and domestic. Get a bearing on Hollywood and Wolfman and launch the rescue helicopter immediately!' - Top Gun Anytime, day or night, K-9 Piper stands ready to fight the good fight. Repeat, we've lost Hollywood!' -'Launch Piper on Alert Five. There is no greater satisfaction than watching him excel.-'Voodoo 1, Voodoo 1, Wood's been hit! Wood's been hit! We've lost Hollywood. Mostly though, he's my inspiration and he makes me so proud every day. 'Piper absolutely loves winter because he doesn't get hot.' He gets plenty of breaks and water and is never left alone outside.' When not outside, Piper is inside a maintenance building, usually playing ball with somebody. Other than that, we try to be outside doing what he loves. 'As an Airport Operations Supervisor, my duties are not strictly wildlife management, so the amount of time outside depends mostly on my workload. 'We frequently play hide and go seek, he always wins!' Piper must know where his ball is at all times and will remember where he left it at work when we arrive the next day.

Please join me in thanking the men and women, past and present, of Air Station Traverse City for their awesomeness. Piper's number one priority in life is his ball. He played soccer, got some much deserved butt scratches and yes, he chased away one last. Chasing birds comes pretty natural to this guy, so we didn't have to work on that as much as the obedience.' Most of the training revolved around off leash control, making sure he would listen to me no matter what. So instead of just running, we started to mix in training.

'Piper and I spend a lot of time outside anyway, but even more so during this time while I was training for racing and tough mudder events. Edwards read about the use of border collies at airports a long time ago and decided to see if he could train Piper up to the task.

Piper traverse city airport dog