Capper is a 2 1/2-year-old, 65-pound male Border Collie who is used in wide area search (or "live find") and is in training for HRD. Region G K-9 Search Team coordinator Joe Marsillo received Capper as a gift last January from a renowned handler in College Station, Texas, who heard from a colleague that Marsillo would provide his dog a good home and would be a good handler. Capper is sometimes reluctant to bark, or "alert," when he finds something he's searching for. "If we can get a bark alert out of him, we'd like to use him for disaster because he's great on a rubble pile," Marsillo said. "He has no fear of rubble." Capper has shown in the past that he doesn't like the sound of thunder and that he's a master escape artist. During one big storm, he climbed out of a metal-fenced kennel, chewing through a wall and squeezing through an opening that by all accounts doesn't appear big enough for his body. He came back 13 days later, "knocking" at Marsillo's front door and looking like he had been through the ringer. "I open the door and in he walks," Marsillo said. "He looked like he was saying, 'Boss, it's hell out there. I ain't never doing that again. What do you want me to do?' "He's been a changed dog ever since." Before Capper's lengthy outing, Marsillo had been working with him on his "down" alert, for HRD. After his return, he was suddenly an expert. "The first time I worked him after that, he hit the ground and looked at me like, 'what else do you want me to do?'" Marsillo said. "'I'll do anything, just don't send me out there again.'" Now that modifications have been done to his quarter, Marsillo figures Capper's escaping days are over. "I don't think he'll get out again," he said. "But he's a great dog with a great personality."
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