Military Kennel Taking Shape At Fairfield Hills

By Andrew Gorosko

Some of the soldiers who will staff it last week toured the Connecticut Army National Guard’s Military Working Dog Facility, or kennel, which is now under construction at Fairfield Hills, near the Governor’s Horse Guard, Second Company.

Lieutenant Colonel Gerald Lukowski, who is the guard’s construction and facilities management officer, gave the soldiers a tour of the kennel complex now being built near the intersection of Wildlife Drive and Cross Street in the agricultural section of Fairfield Hills. The soldiers will be receiving training in military dog handling before working at the kennel.

After it opens late this year, German shepherds will be trained at the kennel for antiterrorism work, including explosives sniffing and drug sniffing. The kennel project is approximately 50 percent completed.

A $2,352,000 federal grant for kennel construction was augmented last week by $187,00 in state bonding required to complete the facility, bringing the project’s cost to $2,539,000.

Lt Col Lukowski said eight full-time soldiers will staff the approximately 5,000-square-foot kennel complex, which will house six dogs when it opens.

The complex under construction is the first facility of its type to be built for an Army National Guard unit in the United States, he said. Construction started late last year.

Besides their military duties, the dogs to be kept at the kennel are expected to occasionally be used to aid state police in their work, according to State Representative Julia Wasserman. “The working dog teams will save lives and enhance public safety in Connecticut,” she said in a statement.

The dogs to be kept at the kennel will be involved in state and federal search-and-rescue and search-and-recovery missions, as well as counterdrug operations and bomb detection, according to Lieutenant Colonel John Whitford, a National Guard spokesman.

A farm building at Fairfield Hills, commonly known as “the piggery,” was largely demolished to create a construction site for the kennel. The piggery’s hay barn, however, was retained to serve as the visual centerpiece for the kennel.

The piggery was built in 1932. It was used for hog raising at Fairfield Hills, a state psychiatric hospital that closed in 1995.

To the east of the kennel, an approximately 3.5-acre dog workout site is being constructed. The site, which will contain an obstacle course, will be used for dog training.

While the kennel site is being built in a relatively isolated area, it has easy access to Interstate 84.

Oak Park Architects of West Hartford designed the facility. Banton Construction Company of North Haven is building the kennel. Because the project is being built on state-owned land, it is not subject to review by town land-use agencies.