Bomb-sniffing dogs are ’79 grad’s best friends
Staff writer
Roger Maag has been surrounded by animals his whole life.
After moving to Marion from the unincorporated community of Conway in his sophomore year of high school, Maag’s father began raising racehorses on the family’s property.
On the weekends, Roger and his friends would take to surrounding wooded areas, and spend sunny afternoons on hunting expeditions.
“Back then, it was pheasants and coyotes,” he said. Or he might go bass fishing in ponds around the county.
It makes sense, then, that in Maag’s professional life, he has found himself drawn to animals: namely, bomb-sniffing dogs.
Maag grew up in Conway, a tiny community in McPherson County.
“It had an elevator, and it had a little KwikShop that could make sandwiches,” Maag said. “That was really all it had.”
In elementary and middle school, he attended a two-room school. Three other kids were in his grade.
Compared to that, Marion High School seemed a massive place. But, Maag said, it was “easy to get adjusted” to the town.
“This whole community is a really good community,” he said.
After his graduation in 1979, Maag worked for the Department of Transportation as an engineer, surveying the county and working on road and bridge construction. Eight years later, he was hired by former sheriff Mike Childs as a deputy.
In 1989, Maag moved to Garden City, where he took a job with Kansas Highway Patrol and became familiar with bomb dogs.
He soon took a liking to the canines, who are used to sniff out explosives as well as evidence like guns or drugs.
The dogs can track “anything with human scent on it,” Maag said.
After he transferred with the Highway Patrol back to Marion eight years later, Maag continued working frequently alongside bomb dogs.
In 1998, a new Highway Patrol department came calling. The Special Response Team, or SRT, had just been created, and Maag signed up as part of the department’s original team.
“Right around 9/11,” Maag said, he transferred to SRT’s dog unit.
Handling the canines was now his full-time job.
“We were really busy,” Maag said. As with his school classes in Conway, only three other people in the department initially worked statewide.
“A lot of my days, I’d travel all over the state,” Maag said. “We had our dog classes in Topeka. And we also trained other agencies — in Wichita, Topeka, Hanes, Salina. I mean, we were constantly traveling.”
Maag was sent out on assignments from his home at Marion County Lake all around the state. If the department needed him somewhere particularly urgently, it would send a helicopter or private plane for him and his dogs.
In addition to training others in the art bomb dogs, Maag was sent to events all around Kansas to sniff out explosive threats.
He described working University of Kansas and Kansas State football games.
“We’d start three hours before kickoff checking those stadiums,” he said.
Maag took his bomb dogs by electric equipment, TV gear, and trash cans. “Anything where somebody might have set something down,” he said.
Maag also frequently worked with the Secret Service at public talks scheduled by current and former presidents. Even if there was no reason to be concerned, the SRT would always be sent if the president was involved.
“Most people don’t have a clue,” Maag said. “You can hear the comments. People see us working the dogs, and they’re like, ‘Oh, they’re sniffing for drugs.’ People don’t even have a concept that bomb teams work.”
Asked if he’d ever had a real scare while on the job, Maag laughed.
“Which one?” he joked.
Between grenades, IEDs, and pipe bombs, Maag came across all sorts of explosives during his years on patrol. He never became one to actually defuse them, however.
“I told my boss, ‘let’s just send the younger guys,’” he said.
Maag will celebrate the 45th anniversary of his graduation at this year’s Old Settlers Day. Asked what he was excited for about the event, he spoke about the possibility of togetherness.
“I’m hoping eventually the community will pull back together. It’s a great community, and it’s just a few bad apples that threw a kink into it,” he said.
Maag’s love of dogs has not wavered since he retired in 2014. He owns three dogs now, and refers to them as “my kids”: two English bulldogs, Dani-D and Toots, and a French bulldog with spina bifida named Freckles.
“He’s like having a toddler, because we got to change his diapers. He wears pull-ups and suspenders,” Maag said.
In his house, Maag and his wife keep their former dogs’ ashes, including a few of his bomb dogs.
“You get pretty attached to them,” he said.