Kennel Attendants at Clark

The local national kennel attendants at Clark provided a service far beyond that for which they have ever been given credit. Originally they had been hired as janitors to care for the immediate kennel area, but as time passed each and every one of them also cared for the individual dogs.

Almost all handlers paid them a relatively small sum of money each month, usually about $5.00. The handlers would pick out an attendant they liked in particular and that kennel attendant would care for the handler's assigned dog. They would do everything from bathing the dog to picking grass seeds from their skin that they collected in the elephant and scrub grass around the base. The kennel attendants also took the dogs to their vet appointments.

None of these things actually fit their job descriptions but the service they provided was known about by the back office and condoned. The back office figured the dogs were getting better treatment from the kennel attendants than they would ever get from the handlers that averaged nineteen to twenty years old and whose main priorities were catching intruders and running the bars downtown.

My personal kennel attendant was Nardo and he did an outstanding job caring for the various dogs I handled while at Clark.

I don't know what ever became of these unsung heroes when Clark Air Base passed away in 1991

The kennel attendants numbered about ten to fifteen in all and the below are the only names I could remember. As with the handlers and dogs, if any of you remember any other names please e-mail me and I'll include them.