Dog protects planes at MacDill

UPDATE 1/15/09: Early reports indicate a plane went down in the Hudson river because of birds hitting the aircraft's engines. Click here for more information.

Tampa, Florida -- It's a dog's dream job: a 40-pound pooch protecting 160-ton jets and peoples' lives at MacDill Air Force Base. She doesn't sniff bombs or detect drugs -- she chases birds.

How does your workday look? Got a conference call? A presentation? "Trim" is booked all day. She's got nothing but meetings -- with flocks of unwelcome feathered guests.

Parked about 200 feet from a group of white egrets on Monday morning, Trim's boss and partner, John Gilbert, commanded her to hop out of her spot in the back seat of his SUV.

With a mix of commands, whistles, and shishing noises, Gilbert sent the black-and-white dog sprinting across the grass. The tall, spooked birds leapt from the ground, tucked in their legs, and took flight. Long before Trim got anywhere near them, the birds were bound for another part of the base. Tongue hanging, Trim bounded back over to Gilbert, eager for a congratulatory pat on the head.

"Trim absolutely loves her job! Border Collies are one thing -- they're obsessive-compulsive... It has to either work or it has to play -- it has to have something to do," said Gilbert, who works every day with Trim. His canine partner is now 12 years old, but a recent checkup shows she's nowhere near retirement.

Find any grassy patch around MacDill Air Force Base, and you'll find these two chasing away anything with feathers. They're under contract as full-time scarecrows, working to make much of the base a flock-free zone. If a flying bird hits a flying aircraft, the damage can be incredible.

"That is basically like a five pound cannonball hitting the aircraft," said Major David Eisenbrey, who heads MacDill's safety office. He says their planes can survive a single bird strike, but if a flock plows into a wing, or gets pulled into an engine, it has the power to bring down the aircraft and its crew.

Nearly all planes can handle an initial strike and land safely, but they go down for repairs. And if flocks are too frequent, controllers have to close down the runway. Pilots are grounded and tax dollars are wasted. Since Trim joined the team, moving birds away from the dangerous runways and onto other areas of the base, they've cut that downtime by 75 percent.

John and Trim are the most visible parts of MacDill's Bird Air Strike Hazard -- or BASH -- program. But there are other aspects to the effort. Some are bold, like booming pyrotechnics that scare away stubborn birds. Other methods go nearly unnoticed, including using light poles designed so birds can't nest on top of them, and even cutting the grass to a particular height that birds don't like.

"We are setting up an environment where the birds decide that this is not the best place for them to be," said Eisenbrey, the safety officer.

The trick, Trim's handler explains, is that the birds see a black-and-white Border Collie, which is bred to herd -- as something else, which is bred to hurt.

"They get the image from Trim being out and about, moving around, that this black-and-white wolf is gonna try to eat them. That's what they're thinking," Gilbert said.

But Trim's not hungry, she's just happy. And she's never happier than when she's hard at work.