EVERY dog has its day. And the dog that always remained in Lt L. Packrisamy’s memory was a black crossbreed named Prince, which played a special role during the early 1960s, the days of the Confrontation with Indonesia. Prince helped Packrisamy recover weapons that were carefully hidden in the muddy bottom of a stream in Sarawak, a discovery that later led to the capture of subversive elements.
Packrisamy, 73, who died on July 5 after a brief illness at the Singapore General Hospital, spent 29 years training dogs — 15 in the British Army in Malaya and 14 years with the Singapore Armed Forces. And over this period, Packrisamy trained some 500 dogs — German Shepherds, Labradors, Doberman, Rottweilers and crossbreeds.
He was the officer–in-charge of the Dogs Wing of Singapore Army’s Provost Unit before he retired in December 1985. He holds the distinction of being the first Asian dog trainer in the British Army in Singapore, which he joined in 1956 as a dog-handler and moved up to be dog trainer three years later.
The only child for soldier Loganathan and Janaki, he was born in Alor Star on Nov 26, 1935, and his interest in the uniformed service was awakened by his father’s army life. He joined the British Armed Forces in Penang after his early education at Penang Free School.
After the independence of Malaya in 1957, Packrisamy opted to join the British forces in Singapore, where he honed his skills as a full-fledged dog trainer with the Singapore Armed Forces.
Back on holiday in Penang, he fell in love with and married Elizabeth Tan Boon Leong, who was of Chinese-Indonesian parentage. She was a year old when her parents, poor and in ill health, could hardly afford to bring up their four daughters. She was given up for adoption to an Indian family that renamed her Rukumani Nadasan.
Packrisamy moved on to become one of Singapore’s top army dog trainers, training dogs as guards, narcotics sniffers, trackers and arms and explosives searchers. He was sent to New Zealand and Australia in the early 1980s, to pick up new dog training techniques.
When Packrisamy retired as the officer-in-charge of the Dogs Wing of the Provost Unit at the Mowbray Camp of the Singapore Army in Ulu Pandan, his dogs gave him a final woof. Certainly, he was a master in the "Bow-Wow Brigade", having trained more than 500 dogs during the course of his career.
In training dogs, Packrisamy is said to have never lost his cool. As he confessed to a friend:"I never lost my temper with them ... with my children, yes, but never with them".
He is survived by his wife of 44 years, Rukumani, sons businessman Muhammad Amirul Suresgaran and air steward Saseegaran, and two granddaughters.
This article was taken from: The malay mail: news 7 august 2008
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