E353- I Asked a K9 Officer Everything… Here’s What He Said- Officer C Jones

[SPEAKER_02]: let me give you a scenario so you get a call they say hey we had a stabbing down on this street and the purpose still in the building with we don't know how many people potential hostages, potential kids, civilians, etc.
[SPEAKER_02]: they don't have a gun but they have a weapon.
[SPEAKER_02]: how do you handle that as a cannon officer?
[SPEAKER_01]: well now we're you know a little complex.
[SPEAKER_02]: All right, see Jones, thanks for coming on.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, today, I gotta tell you this.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, today, I'm driving home from here.
[SPEAKER_02]: And right before you get on the Northway going north, right on that busy intersection there, where the bridge is just right up here.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, nay, nay, nay.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, nay, nay, nay, nay, yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I was going north, so I'm like, putting my blinker on.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I just see like this flat, this white flash.
[SPEAKER_02]: crossed my windshield and I was like, oh, is that a bag?
[SPEAKER_02]: And there was a car like kind of cut in front of me.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I looked and it was a beagle.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I was like, what the hell?
[SPEAKER_02]: So I get into like, it's interesting because I thought about it on the way after the fact.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm like, I risk my own life for this dog that I didn't, I do it all the time.
[SPEAKER_02]: I just like go into this Superman mode where I was like, I got to save this dog.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I put my truck and park on the ramp.
[SPEAKER_02]: his guy in this beagle's just nose down sniffing his way through life and i'm like son of a so i put my truck in park and in hindsight i'm like i should have pulled off and like and i didn't put my flashers on but i should have just pulled off a little bit so people could get by uh people could get by but then this guy in a civic shout out to this guy had like a bag full of dog treats and he's like on his car he's like waving his treats and then the dog is getting up probably scratching the crap out of his car
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm like, and I get out, I'm like, can you grab his collar?
[SPEAKER_02]: And he goes like, yeah, so you let grabs this collar, and I went up, and I could just tell the dog was super friendly.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I just pick him up, put him in my truck, and I call animal control.
[SPEAKER_02]: Half moon animal control.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I was like, hey, I just picked up, be, uh,
[SPEAKER_02]: a running that large beagle and she's like, and I could hear, it was like she was like ordering McDonalds, not really, she was like, oh, we got a beagle, she's like talking back to her must be her colleague, and so she's like, well, it's either Hank or it's wailin', so it's like obviously the owners were country fans.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I was like, yeah, I don't know, it doesn't have like a name tag or anything, but I was like, he's super friendly.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was like, I'm gonna bring him back to my facility here, and then we put him in that crate and left, but it turns out they found the owners,
[SPEAKER_02]: It was wild yesterday.
[SPEAKER_02]: I told my wife, I'm like, hey, I'm gonna meet you in 20 or whatever.
[SPEAKER_02]: No, I was like, I just picked up this dog.
[SPEAKER_02]: Anyway, that was my story yesterday.
[SPEAKER_02]: Chris, thanks for joining me, appreciate it.
[SPEAKER_02]: So if those you don't know, Chris is a K&N officer and how long have you been, I know you've been an officer well before that, but like, how long have you been with the dog?
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's been 14 years as an officer and then six years with the dog.
[SPEAKER_02]: Holy crap.
[SPEAKER_02]: I didn't realize it's been that long.
[SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, so Chris is a buddy of mine.
[SPEAKER_02]: We've been training dogs together for Spent a while.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, before you had a dog, we were working dogs.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I've been trying to get Chris in here, and I had to basically give him a no-guide to get in here.
[SPEAKER_02]: No, we've just been working on schedules, but I'm super stoked to have you on.
[SPEAKER_02]: And here's the thing, is as a dog lover, and you're a dog lover as well.
[SPEAKER_02]: and then you're an obviously an officer and then became a canaan officer.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think that the general public don't really understand your job, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Because it's got to be unbelievably difficult to have a dog and I know that you you have pet dogs and then you have your working dog,
[SPEAKER_02]: be in a situation where there's stress, violence, unpredictability, trauma, adrenaline is pumping, maybe for you because you're seasoned, maybe not every call, but when you go to a call, like you have to send your best friend into harm's way, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's something for me being a civilian, but also a dog lover, but also a dog trainer.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's got it.
[SPEAKER_02]: How do you, is there anything when you go through the academy like do they teach you how to deal with that like that stress that you can't really prepare for if that makes sense.
[SPEAKER_01]: Uh, first off, I probably get more anxiety from doing this than doing anything, anything please related.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is nothing.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is nothing.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, you know, me.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not a big social media guy.
[SPEAKER_02]: You don't have to be.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's Chris was texting me.
[SPEAKER_02]: He's like, I don't know where I'm like, dude.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is your job.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm like, all you have to do is talk about your job, like, which is super easy.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: But anyway, uh, you know, I wouldn't say that I get a lot of anxiety from sending, uh, Jay's
[SPEAKER_01]: into dangerous situations, and that's because
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, at the end of the day, that's his job.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, my, our job as a canine handlers is to send our dogs into dangerous situations so that officers don't have to go down there first.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a terrible reality, but Jay has no children.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's no puppies that I have to explain.
[SPEAKER_01]: Why he may not be coming home today.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't want to be in this situation where I wasn't comfortable sending
[SPEAKER_01]: Jay down into it, let's say it all basement or something like that, where some guy is hiding.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't want to be in a situation where I refuse to send down the dog and the officer went down first and he ends up getting shot or killed.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's, that's a truth.
[SPEAKER_02]: Wow, I never thought a bit like that.
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's basically like,
[SPEAKER_02]: That's a great point.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, I'll end it right there.
[SPEAKER_02]: That was great.
[SPEAKER_02]: No, I was just kidding.
[SPEAKER_02]: That was great.
[SPEAKER_02]: Because I never thought about it like that, where so when you show up to a scene.
[SPEAKER_02]: Typically, are you the one that's doing a stop or are you pretty much getting called because you have the dog to different calls?
[SPEAKER_02]: Or are you the one that's like pulling people over, or are you just kind of waiting till you're needed?
[SPEAKER_02]: Because I would assume if you're pulling somebody over for speeding or running a red light or something, and you're on a call and they're like, hey, we need canine for whatever, you got a bus.
[SPEAKER_02]: priority work and you're with with your partner.
[SPEAKER_01]: Our our primary function and Lisa might apartment is we're there to assist patrol and the detective office anything they might need so typically like our unit we're not out there really doing too much proactive police work.
[SPEAKER_01]: Is there times that I go out there and do some yes but our primary function is to assist patrol and assist the detective office with whatever they may need so we typically like to stay clear and
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that makes sense.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then to your point, and such a good point, I never really thought about it like that where it is your best friend.
[SPEAKER_02]: But like you said, there's guys and girls on the department that have, not, it's hard to put life over the value of life over somebody else's or something else's.
[SPEAKER_02]: But that's the reality is sending in a dog who just thinks he's doing a routine training scenario
[SPEAKER_02]: danger to the dog, but it's better than sending a human down there that does have family, you know, or kids or a partner or whatever, and I never really thought about it like that.
[SPEAKER_02]: So when you're on the department, first long as you have been, what's the process in getting a dog?
[SPEAKER_02]: How does that process work?
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, so typically, at least in our unit, we want new officers or officers that are just interested in the K9 unit to reach out to one of us.
[SPEAKER_01]: Start coming to K9 training days.
[SPEAKER_01]: We are unit, we train everyone's day.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like that's our unit training day.
[SPEAKER_01]: Obviously, I train at work every day as well, but like our dedicated unit training days, everyone's day, and we want them to start.
[SPEAKER_01]: coming door trainings, getting in the bite suit, getting bit, you know what I mean?
[SPEAKER_01]: Lane tracks for us, just coming to the training day and trying to soak up as much knowledge as possible, that also gives us an opportunity to get to learn that person a little bit better.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's an important factor, obviously, you know, personality, are they going to be a good fit for the unit, and then obviously just try to master the basics of a patrol officer.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, if you're a good patrol officer, likely you're going to be a decent can on hand or two, or if you're a terrible patrol officer, your tactics are terrible.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can't shoot with the crap, your terrible shape.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're probably not going to be a good, I probably can't turn you into a good can on hand.
[SPEAKER_02]: That makes sense.
[SPEAKER_02]: How much of the, in your, in your profession as a can on officer, just a police officer in general, what's mental health and mental toughness and confidence?
[SPEAKER_02]: How much does that play a role in your position?
[SPEAKER_01]: I would say it plays a big role, and obviously you have to have, you know, get to become.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: People are going to be looking to you to solve some more complex incidents.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you can't think through those things fast, and remain level-headed, probably not the type of job that you should be doing.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
[SPEAKER_02]: And is there, obviously there's tests and psyche evolves that you guys have to go through
[SPEAKER_02]: I would assume before the Academy, before you even, yes, yeah, the interview process, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: My buddy just went into the Academy and he was like, I train with them to Jiu-Jitsu and he's like, he just went in and he used me as a reference and stuff and he was just like, man, it's so much.
[SPEAKER_02]: They dig so deep into, and then when the, I don't know, Lieutenant or Captain or whatever called me to ask about the reference, he's like, hey, I'm, you know, calling in reference for this person and I'm like, yeah,
[SPEAKER_02]: Does he like mashed potatoes?
[SPEAKER_02]: Does he?
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm like, I don't know, and I'm just going to say that, but he went like pretty deep into like, how does he, does he have a temper?
[SPEAKER_02]: Does he, you know, like violence?
[SPEAKER_02]: Is he like fighting?
[SPEAKER_02]: Have you ever noticed his,
[SPEAKER_02]: interest in pyrotechnics or am I I don't know I don't you know he's just a friend, you know I'm known for ever, but anyway, yeah, I just know that they dig pretty deep, but I'm assuming every department is different, too, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Because me and you in particular, I remember we sold we sold a canine to to the Boston area
[SPEAKER_02]: And I don't know if you remember this, but I specifically remember the gentleman, the officer, when we were basically showing the buyer, the person who buys the dogs, just the tracking, the drive, the confidence in the shepherd that we had, that we imported, that ended up having heartworm, that ended up
[SPEAKER_02]: It's why we don't do K9s, it's hard, man.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's hard, it's expensive, but we imported this joke.
[SPEAKER_02]: We used it from the check, yes.
[SPEAKER_02]: He's from the check.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm just thinking, oh my god, I'm just thinking to Greg.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Anyway, we have a friend of ours who kind of went in on this talk with us.
[SPEAKER_02]: She's that was an experience.
[SPEAKER_02]: So our friend pretty much fronted the money to buy the dog from Silvaki or the checker wherever the heck it was.
[SPEAKER_02]: And, um,
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it was all done through Facebook or, yep.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was ridiculous.
[SPEAKER_02]: So we get this dog in.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I remember, he's a big, beautiful black German shepherd.
[SPEAKER_02]: He is still in patrol, believe now, in the North East up here, and he's an amazing dog, an amazing dog.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I remember when I brought him into the vet.
[SPEAKER_02]: And as I was pulling away, because he had it, he was doing his checkup basically before we could sell him.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, so,
[SPEAKER_02]: So our friend Greg front of the money.
[SPEAKER_02]: I helped with training.
[SPEAKER_02]: You decoid and did all that and I house the dog and then we were like getting ready to sell them everything checked out We're like great that went pretty smooth and I remember pulling out of the vats office and I just remember seeing the vats waving me down And the parking lot and she's like wait wait wait wait I rolled the window again.
[SPEAKER_02]: They're like Luke.
[SPEAKER_02]: He just tested positive for heartworm
[SPEAKER_02]: And I was like, oh my, I was like, what does that mean?
[SPEAKER_02]: I never had a dog with heartworm.
[SPEAKER_02]: You hear about it, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: I never had a dog with heartworms.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm like, what does that mean?
[SPEAKER_02]: She's like, well, come back in, so we talk and she's.
[SPEAKER_02]: So the vet basically said meds and basically the crate for four to six months.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I was like, and this is a high class working dog that's where it's been working his whole life.
[SPEAKER_02]: Basically on a back tie, biting the bad guy's search and
[SPEAKER_02]: And now he's got to be great written for four to six months.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I'm thinking this dog is going to think we are complete jerks By make because you can't you don't want to elevate their heart rate When they have heart rooms and then they go through medication because you're basically killing the worms And then there's all sorts of problematic things that could happen like cardiac and and
[SPEAKER_02]: just the heartworms and themselves and so you basically have to have the dog super low heart rate super chill.
[SPEAKER_02]: So we took this year and changed dog I think and then basically said hey you go to be in a crate and that was awful but when we sold them fast forward to when he got completely clear the heart excuse me heartworms which was awesome I was like oh thank god we brought him out to test him and I remember the the the new canine guy was sitting there and I could just tell he was terrified like his he was like
[SPEAKER_02]: He was like sitting there like this and he's got this German shepherd right here and he was like not I don't want to I don't know how to explain it.
[SPEAKER_02]: He's a great guy and he was just a little nervous You could tell he was intimidated.
[SPEAKER_02]: Let's say intimidated.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's a good word I don't I don't know if I want to say nervous but he was intimidated and I just remember looking at him I'm like is this your first dog and he's like yeah I'm like oh that's exciting that's great.
[SPEAKER_02]: He's like yeah sure and he's like you could tell he was like this big black German shepherd and and this dog is very
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, just beautiful, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Big, bold, like, very European.
[SPEAKER_02]: Everything is thick on them, thick arms, thick legs, thick head.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I was like, oh, okay, cool.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I just remember, like, kind of talking to him.
[SPEAKER_02]: And he's like, no, this is my first dog ever.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm a, yeah, like, in the department.
[SPEAKER_02]: He's like, no, ever.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I just was like, wait a minute.
[SPEAKER_02]: You've never owned a dog before, he's like, no, not even as a kid, like we never had dogs.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I just remember being like, oh my god, so for them, I believe it was like a lottery where to your point, he kind of looked, was like, hey, I'm interested.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then there's this lottery system.
[SPEAKER_02]: And assuming he got picked, and you know, so my point is, is it's interesting to me that somebody like you could come on to department and say, hey,
[SPEAKER_02]: I train dogs, you know, for fun, I have my own dogs, you have a melon wall, you mess around with melon walls, you train a bunch of other police dogs, and you're like, you could be like, hey, you know, I could be the next canine guy, and they're like, yeah, but it's a sit, it gets a lottery, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like, kind of, you just have to wait, you know, that's just how the department does it.
[SPEAKER_02]: And from a civilian standpoint, like that's so fascinating that even if you are the best guy for the job,
[SPEAKER_02]: they kind of go through a lottery system.
[SPEAKER_02]: So is that true in most departments where it's just like, you put your, hey, I'm interested.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then then do they like give you candidates of like, okay, we have 10 candidates.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then you, how does that work?
[SPEAKER_02]: You know what I mean?
[SPEAKER_02]: How does that process work?
[SPEAKER_01]: So our job, we do an interview process or a review board is what they call it.
[SPEAKER_01]: So they put out a posting to see who's interested in the K9 unit position.
[SPEAKER_01]: everybody puts in, they once say everybody puts in and then get the list of names, they start doing home visits, you know, obviously you have to have a dog that I mean, sorry, a home that's conducive to owning a police dog, you know, fenced in yard, the wife or whoever you're living with has to be on board with, living with a police dog, it's not like, you know, living with a normal dog.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you pass that, then you can go to the Review Board phase.
[SPEAKER_01]: The Review Board for us is like they just give you a packet of information.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you just have to do your best to try to memorize as much of that information as possible because you're going to get probably like six day questions from that packet.
[SPEAKER_01]: Randomly.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Randomly.
[SPEAKER_01]: And just don't know what they're going to ask.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just a huge packet of information.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you just got a few weeks to try to memorize as much as possible.
[SPEAKER_01]: Probably not the best way to pick a canine handler, but it is what it is.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's how they do things.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then after that, it's pretty much they decide who they want for us.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like I said, we put a lot of stock into who shows up to training.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, the canine handler is in the unit.
[SPEAKER_01]: have a lot of say of who's going to be the next guy in the unit, you know, because we're working with those guys in training.
[SPEAKER_01]: We know who puts in the work, we know who doesn't put in the work.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm in the squad's a lot with the patrol officers, so I know who's to get patrol cop and who's not up patrol cop.
[SPEAKER_01]: What does that mean?
[SPEAKER_01]: What do you mean who's not up?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, like, yeah, what does that mean?
[SPEAKER_02]: Like when you say who's a good patrol cop and who's not like,
[SPEAKER_02]: Does that just mean like they're, would you say patrol cop, that just means like you're, you get in a car, you go out, you're just trying to call us cop, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Is that what you mean by that?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, patrol officer is, you know, sorry, it's part of our patrol division and they're responsible to responding to all the calls throughout the city.
[SPEAKER_01]: Got it.
[SPEAKER_01]: So you just, you know, who can, who handles their business and who doesn't?
[SPEAKER_02]: Right, right, right.
[SPEAKER_02]: And what do you, what would you look for?
[SPEAKER_02]: If you were to say,
[SPEAKER_02]: Hey, the perfect candidate for a canine officer from a patrol standpoint, like, what box is, would you want to be checked in your vision to be like, all right, this person should get a dog?
[SPEAKER_01]: Well-rounded, Mrs.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think, most important.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think a lot of people tend to do what they're good at.
[SPEAKER_01]: So for example, you might have a guy that's in really good shape.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's all they do, so they just work out.
[SPEAKER_01]: They can't shoot with the crap.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, OK.
[SPEAKER_01]: They can't fight with the crap.
[SPEAKER_01]: They don't do jujitsu.
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe they're not the most confident.
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe they don't know how to write reports like for more writing's pretty important for K9 especially when you're writing a use of force report, you know I'm so yeah, you have to be smart.
[SPEAKER_01]: You have to be commoner pressure, you know, just be well rounded and know how to do the basic jobs of a police officer So I'm looking for I'm not looking for anything crazy, you know, I have to be the best shooter in the world You don't have to be in the best shape.
[SPEAKER_01]: You don't have to be the best fighter.
[SPEAKER_01]: You just have to be well rounded overall
[SPEAKER_02]: Right, because at the end of the day, like, when you guys pick these people to work alongside you, you know, their life is in your hands and vice versa a lot of times, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: When you show up to a call and shit hits the fan, you don't want somebody that is out of shape or not confident or is a bad shot or isn't level headed, they're running around screaming, you know, they can't catch their breath, things like that, I'm going to
[SPEAKER_02]: things that you're looking for to make sure that you know that your team is level and competent to make sure that you're safe and the dog safe, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: That's interesting.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I think if you were to if you were to take big misconceptions being a can and officer to the general public or to civilians, what do you think the biggest misconception is about your job?
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, it's, these dogs, I think some people think like they're the most friendly as dogs in the world, and they're lovers, most of our dogs are not lovers.
[SPEAKER_01]: It can be hard to manage at times when we get home.
[SPEAKER_01]: at first like my dog did not like my wife for whatever reason he was like you're not part of the pack sorry lady you know and so I had to keep him separated my other dog chance that you know very well like he didn't like chance
[SPEAKER_01]: going after him.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's, uh, I mean, just they're just not normal pets.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know what I mean.
[SPEAKER_01]: I would you always get people that go like, I have a German shepherd.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I always like, there's so smart you'd be a great cop.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like,
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I'll only tell you something.
[SPEAKER_01]: These dogs, if they were very smart, they wouldn't do half the things we wanted them to do there.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're highly driven animals.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just genetics that they have these drives that just are good for us to mold them into what we need them to be.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I don't know.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think I would probably the biggest misconceptiveness that they're smart.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, they're probably not so smart.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right, because they're going into risk their life.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's I think the thing though that that Beagle yesterday is he's just like going across the four lane busy intersection with his nose down like do do do do do do do do do you know like Dude, you're going to get plowed like they just don't have any idea how much danger they're in.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it's not smart.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it's not smart.
[SPEAKER_02]: Beagles man, that's a different this is a different thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: So when you're looking for
[SPEAKER_02]: How do you guys pick your dogs?
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like, because every department is different.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I've worked with, I've had a lot of different people in the podcast, military handlers.
[SPEAKER_02]: I've done some work with some of the military guys.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so how does your police department pick dogs?
[SPEAKER_02]: What's your process?
[SPEAKER_02]: Do you get some departments?
[SPEAKER_02]: Will go to a certain breeder,
[SPEAKER_02]: What are some departments will go to the local shelter because they don't have money.
[SPEAKER_02]: How does your department act in picking dogs and picking the right dogs?
[SPEAKER_01]: So we have a vendor that we've been using for a number of years.
[SPEAKER_01]: We reach out to that vendor and say, hey, we're in the process of selecting a new handler.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we're going to need to come down in the next couple of weeks and select dogs.
[SPEAKER_01]: We got for us.
[SPEAKER_01]: We got 10, 20 dogs here.
[SPEAKER_01]: Come on down when you're ready.
[SPEAKER_01]: We get there, kind of talk with the vendor a little bit as to what we're looking for.
[SPEAKER_01]: They try to go through the dogs in their kennel that they think would fit us best.
[SPEAKER_01]: The things that we're looking for, or at least what I think is very important now, especially after having my first dog is first and foremost is social ability.
[SPEAKER_01]: Having a social dog just makes everything easier.
[SPEAKER_01]: uh... police work is a team environment we're working around other cops a lot in close proximity i can have a dog that wants to target back up officers just in no go for me uh... the next thing from there that would say is most important is uh...
[SPEAKER_01]: environmental, and for that it's just confidence, you know, going into dark rooms, slick floors, stairs, loud noises, like just nothing phases that might just want to environmentally like bombproof dog, that can be hard to find sometimes, believe it or not.
[SPEAKER_01]: after that it's a prey drive.
[SPEAKER_01]: We want to dog that is absolutely bonkers to chase down and bite things.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you know, because I mean, that's their function, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: It's to find, find is first and foremost is locating, right, but
[SPEAKER_01]: Pre-drive is going to be for their toy.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're going to use a toy a lot for their training, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: So if we have a dog, it doesn't want to engage with any type of toy.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's going to make things harder for us.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then the net last thing I would say is hunt drive, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Hunt drives that too.
[SPEAKER_01]: desire to go out and search for things.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're going to be searching a lot, whether it be for people, or evidence in relation to a crime, or for mine's explosive detection dogs, so searching for doing explosive detection dogs would do long searches a long time.
[SPEAKER_01]: So if you don't have a dog, it doesn't have that high-hunt drive and won't search for a long period of time, like it's probably not going to work out for us.
[SPEAKER_02]: How before you bring dog, so I'm
[SPEAKER_02]: like at the vendors.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not very long unfortunately.
[SPEAKER_01]: You probably get a good.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we bring it on to dog multiple times a lot of times.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like, hey, we're going to test this first, see how that goes and we're going to go through all the dogs first and then we're going to give them a break, go through all the dogs again.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the first thing we usually like to do is just bring them out, sociability and environmental.
[SPEAKER_02]: What are you doing for that?
[SPEAKER_01]: So one we want to see how they engage with the hammers.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we'll usually have like three or four hammers from the unit go out.
[SPEAKER_01]: These are these the guys and gals that are potentials or just actual officers are ready.
[SPEAKER_01]: Actual, actual canine hammers and then the new handler.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: That obviously never had a dog before.
[SPEAKER_02]: How is that like, is that nerve wrecking a little bit to kind of get these high caliber dogs with these people who don't know how to handle
[SPEAKER_02]: A dog, let alone a high caliber working dog.
[SPEAKER_01]: I guess, so I came in different, you know, like you know my background.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: When I went out to select dogs, I was comfortable with the process of going out.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like doing dogs.
[SPEAKER_01]: It also kinda...
[SPEAKER_01]: ruined it for me a little bit because as the new guy in the unit, you're not picking anything.
[SPEAKER_01]: So you're like, I, I, I, guys, I like this.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, they don't care.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: They don't care.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're, they're going to, you're going to, they're going to select the dog for you.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you just have to accept it.
[SPEAKER_01]: So like, they're almost really better going into the process not knowing anything because then you're like, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you,
[SPEAKER_01]: You don't know what you don't know.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, it was like sure.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're gonna pick the best dog possible for me.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sure, you know, so Usually so when you're the new guy in the unit, so like we hopefully will be getting a new guy in the unit on the near future Like he's gonna come and be a part of the process here.
[SPEAKER_01]: She will obviously become part of the process with us and We're gonna select the dog the best possible dog for that person.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, yeah But yeah, we're always out on that
[SPEAKER_02]: No, we're just talking about the selection process.
[SPEAKER_02]: So you bring a dog out look for socialization.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_01]: Seeing that the dog's social isn't coming out.
[SPEAKER_01]: Just looking to bite all of us.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't want to dog that's just the first react.
[SPEAKER_01]: The first thing that comes to its mind is when you see something, somebody knows, like, I'm going to bite that person.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, not good.
[SPEAKER_01]: We've had a couple dogs like that when we go to test them out, and they just come out and just like, wow, really?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, they're taping their teeth at everything.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, yeah, you can put that dog in the way.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, that's not something we need.
[SPEAKER_02]: What would the vendor do with the dog like that?
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, Hawk for an example?
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, dog you just, we have that dog.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_02]: What do they do?
[SPEAKER_02]: They just wait for the right person
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, are there departments that are like, we want that one?
[SPEAKER_01]: Uh, I had this day and age probably not, like, back in the day, like you hear the stories of like these guys getting like junkyard dogs, such as like, literally bite eats, like, oh, you told them the bite, they just bite the table.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know what I mean?
[SPEAKER_01]: They're like, those bite anything.
[SPEAKER_01]: Uh, we're looking for more an acting, most canine, handlers now in this day and age are looking for a little bit more sociability.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, less lawsuits.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's the higher risk, higher liability job, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: So I don't want a living, breathing animal with teeth and the ability to cause some pretty significant injury to people just thinking that I'm just, it's okay to bite whoever I want whenever I want making their own decisions.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the sociability aspect is obviously important.
[SPEAKER_01]: We bring the dog out on a leash.
[SPEAKER_01]: Just see how they interact with us.
[SPEAKER_01]: They don't have to like, they could be neutral to us and not really care, like that's a level of social ability, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: They don't have to be super like loving and coming up to everybody and like, oh, pet me, and all that stuff, you know, just be neutral.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm okay with that, and then environmental's.
[SPEAKER_01]: And when we test environmental's, we want to do those things out of drive, meaning we're not pulling out a toy in jazz and the dog-ob,
[SPEAKER_01]: pulling out food or anything that's going to any type of stimulus that's going to jazz the dog up and bring them into a drive.
[SPEAKER_01]: The reason we do that is because drive can mask problems, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: You might find a dog that doesn't want to go into a dark room.
[SPEAKER_01]: out of drive because they're like, I don't know why you put me in that room.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's scary in there.
[SPEAKER_01]: But as soon as we pull a ball out, jazz them up, they go in there and no problems.
[SPEAKER_01]: That can be an issue later on in the street, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Because there's not going to be a bad guy inside the house with a whip or a ball or a clatter stick or any of the things that we, you know, the tools that we use to jazz dogs up its decoys, like they're not going to sit there and just start whip it, you know, hitting a whip, hitting a clatter stick and jazz in the dog up and like, come on and bite me.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you know, they're not going to do that.
[SPEAKER_01]: So you needed a dog that's just confident out of drive and can do those things.
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, that's the environmental portion.
[SPEAKER_01]: Make sure that they're good to go as much as possible, the gun fire test for us.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're just looking for neutrality, meaning like if we're just the dogs just out walking in a field, we'll have an officer go, you know, a distance away, we're not going to, you know, start shooting over the dogs head with a blanket.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's just not reasonable.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we'll go a fair distance away while the dog just out walking around.
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe he's just sniffing, you know, sniffing things and looking for a place to go pee And we just pop off a couple rounds See what the dog does.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's okay for him to like look at it like it'll be like a little curious to see what it is But if he's like jumping out of his collar and backing out and looking to get the hell out of there because he heard you know too loud bangs and I'm like You might be able to train that
[SPEAKER_01]: but make it better, but if I could start off with a dog it's not scared of that, why would I not select that dog?
[SPEAKER_01]: So we're looking for that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then we probably give them a break after that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Go through all the dogs that we're going to test.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then we come out.
[SPEAKER_01]: Next thing is hunt for us.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, we're going to do that outside and inside.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we're going to find a field that has really thick grass or something like that where the ball is not visible
[SPEAKER_01]: Because if it's just a visual thing, then it's not really testing the hunt.
[SPEAKER_01]: We'll take the ball, show it to them, jazz them up a little bit, throw it into that.
[SPEAKER_01]: For us, it's not important how fast they find it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that's where some guys get a little hungoff.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're like, wow, that dog found that really fast.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, what does he do when he doesn't find it and 30 seconds to a minute as he continues to search or does he just come back to you and go like, all right, dude, can't find it.
[SPEAKER_01]: So for me, if I can, you know, good five minutes, like a dog searching for a good five minutes for that ball, not giving off, not checking back and with us, I feel like that's a good amount of time.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then what does he do when he finds the ball?
[SPEAKER_01]: A lot of the dogs we get are super possessive of that toy because of the way that they're raised overseas.
[SPEAKER_01]: So a lot of times they don't trust people and they don't bring the toy back.
[SPEAKER_01]: They bring it to a corner and I'm sure you've seen this where they just like they bring their paws around it and it's just like I'm going to hold on to this ball for dear life.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's mine.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not giving it up.
[SPEAKER_01]: I prefer the dog that obviously brings the toy back.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is something that can 100% be trained.
[SPEAKER_01]: But once again, if I can have a dog, I just does it naturally.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's going to be less issues down the road.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like Jay, my first dog, he was that super possessor dog that if I had a waffle leash, he was taking that ball.
[SPEAKER_01]: he was going to get as far away as possible.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yep, now we have a great relationship, it brings the ball back to me, he outs it for me, we have zero issues with that, but it took some time, it took a probably good salad six months of working with him before he was like, all right dude, now I can take him off leash and completely trust and bring it back and engage with me.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yep, so then after we do the outdoor one, we go inside, maybe hide the ball and a drawer or something like that, and just see how he searches inside.
[SPEAKER_01]: all through all through that and then the last thing we come out is we just test their prey drive and their bites and we want to see that the dog as soon as he sees the decoy that he you know immediately fires up we're looking for an active dog reactive decoy all right we don't want the dogs to just sit there and wait and and they're like okay dude what do you want for me you know like no as soon as you see a decoy you should know that's it's time to go
[SPEAKER_01]: right if they've done the training properly if they see a decoy and a suit or decoy with a bite sleeve they should know it's equipment right say it's a stimulus for the dog to know that it's time to bite yeah so we're looking for the dogs that just naturally turn on pulling at the end of the leash trying to get to it and then when they it's time to bite they're biting with a full grip with intent
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's the vendor's training responsibility.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, these vendors, they get these dogs, and they definitely will take a few weeks to get them ready for the test.
[SPEAKER_01]: And every vendor's different.
[SPEAKER_01]: The vendor that we typically go to, they let us kind of run our own test, which is great.
[SPEAKER_01]: Some vendors don't allow for that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you can definitely tell that they prepare these dogs for that test.
[SPEAKER_01]: They'll have their employee run the dog
[SPEAKER_01]: the same test and with their people and won't even let you touch the dog, which I typically don't like that style of vendor because the dog's just doing a test that they've prepared for.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it's routine.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's exactly.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're doing routines.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like I, you know, the IGP now, like you're doing an IGP routine, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: So I typically don't like going to the vendors like that just because I want to be able to put my hands on the dog and run the dog through the test that I think are important.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then after that, if you have a really good vendor that you start, so after you've done all the tests with all the dogs, you start ranking, you know, your first two or three dogs that you think were the best.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the vendor we were going to for a while would let us actually take the dog off site.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that for me is probably where you're going to see, either it's going to be make a break, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: because the dogs are confident and comfortable in their environment.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that kind of, they've been there for a few weeks, maybe a couple of months.
[SPEAKER_01]: So you're not going to see a whole lot of environmental issues there.
[SPEAKER_01]: But maybe you take them off site to somewhere else.
[SPEAKER_01]: And all of a sudden, the wheels fall off because they're like, oh, we should have never been here before, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Not going to be able to candidate for us, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Because we don't get when it's time to send our dog into a house or a dark basement.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't get a chance to, hey, let's just train it first real quick.
[SPEAKER_01]: And a couple of reps.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like, no, you got to do it the first time.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah, and what's what's that what's that timeline like when you're testing the dogs like is that a day.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, one day right.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, one day.
[SPEAKER_02]: What should make a day out of it and how many dogs will a department usually like you guys say how many dogs will you bring home just one just one for one person one handler.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yep, and then then then they all come most of the vendors offer like a working guarantee.
[SPEAKER_01]: If there's dogs going to cut it or not, that's a very important time.
[SPEAKER_01]: Some vendors don't offer that, and it's kind of like you just kind of make it work when you get the dog which kind of sucks.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, because this is a lot of time too.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, because you've already put the how long is the academy for that?
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like about five and six months.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh wow.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're fortunate in this area.
[SPEAKER_01]: There are other, you know, like other states that do a much shorter academy for their officers and K9 analysts, which is crazy to me, but because even six months sometimes seems like a short amount of time when you think about the amount of things that we have to teach these dogs.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: A short period of time?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: What's an average call for you look like like what is let's say you have 10 calls a day?
[SPEAKER_02]: What are more than 50% of those calls look like for you?
[SPEAKER_01]: So for me it's a little different like I'm attached to one of the federal task force and I do a lot with them
[SPEAKER_02]: What does that mean?
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's usually like, pre-planned going after guys with warrants.
[SPEAKER_03]: OK.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we do a lot of that type of stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: So whether it be going to their home and trying to catch them inside their home, or waiting on the street for them and seeing if we can get them open air meaning out, like, out and about walking.
[SPEAKER_01]: Is that in conjunction with your
[SPEAKER_01]: your regular department stuff yeah it kind of seems like extracurricular it is it's a lot of extracurricular stuff and then I assist like our swat team you know or narcotics even at any time they have certain you know high research warns or they're looking for somebody with a warrant cool i go help them out a lot uh it's far as like on the patrol side of things
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a lot of it is just like I said, reacting to what comes in that night.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like there might be a night where nothing comes in.
[SPEAKER_02]: Really?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, just no canine calls coming anyways.
[SPEAKER_01]: Obviously, the patrol guys are out there doing their, you know, going to domestic, going to that.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was just going to say, because you always hear like most of police calls, patrolman calls are domestic.
[SPEAKER_02]: So those are typically like the most dangerous.
[SPEAKER_02]: Is that right?
[SPEAKER_02]: They definitely can be.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Why are domestic so dangerous?
[SPEAKER_01]: just it's an unpredictable every call you go to is it's unpredictable and a lot of times your uh and a masticks these uh the people that we're dealing with are just very upset for whatever reason whatever is going on in our life sites it's just unpredictable unhinged yeah so what is if you could say like what is your average call look like
[SPEAKER_02]: Meaning, what do you get called on for the most?
[SPEAKER_02]: Because I would just assume it's a civilian.
[SPEAKER_02]: They're calling you because you have a dual purpose dog, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: So they do sent detection and apprehension.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I would assume a civilian you're getting called for searches in a car.
[SPEAKER_02]: Is that wrong?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, for the so I have an explosive detection dog We don't do a lot of searches around cars so you don't you drugs now.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay no drugs so for me Would probably be the is shootings that I go to okay, you know, somebody does a shooting or they just let some rounds go somewhere And they want to find the shell casings So a lot of times I we use these dogs because they can detect gunshot residue Yeah, so we use the dog to go locate those things
[SPEAKER_01]: Got it.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's probably as far as the detection goes or if they take off running, maybe toss it gone.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hey, can you use your dog to maybe find the gun?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, no, that makes sense.
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's probably what we do the most of.
[SPEAKER_02]: So you would do the...
[SPEAKER_02]: Dispets should call and say hey or or one of your when you're guys on the on the how does that work they're like hey we have We have a guy that just we believe through a gun or through a rifle or through a Whatever then you would go and track that's that's more of the common call you to get yeah So if I'm working obviously I'm I'm paying attention to radio if I hear a shots fired call go out or shooting call go out
[SPEAKER_01]: I will just put myself on the call, get there, see what's going on.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't just pull the dog out and just start going to work.
[SPEAKER_01]: You got to start getting some information, figure out where I'm needed, and then just try to assist them the best that I can when I get there.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then if I'm not working, and the on duty supervisor wants a canine, he will just notify dispatch, like hey, call in one of the dogs.
[SPEAKER_01]: dispatch will call me say hey Chris we've got a shooting at you know at this intersection you available come out and I'll be like yep let me get ready and it comes at all times the night you know obviously all times a day and I'll just get in the corner and go to the call so there's not another king and officer on because I would just assume you guys would swap if you're off then someone else is on
[SPEAKER_01]: not not always the case.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, canine can be seen as more of a luxury more than an necessity sometimes.
[SPEAKER_01]: So with budget cuts, manpower issues, a lot of times we're not fully staffed like we should be.
[SPEAKER_01]: God, like I think we should be, but you know, like I said, we're kind of seen more as a luxury.
[SPEAKER_01]: So right now, like we're in our unit we're down to two dogs.
[SPEAKER_01]: Wow.
[SPEAKER_02]: So how many, how many officers do you guys have in your department?
[SPEAKER_01]: I think we're slotted for somewhere around 300.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that we are like two dogs.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and we're down almost 80 officers.
[SPEAKER_01]: Wow.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's, yeah, so, you know, manpower issues right now are causing, and you know, every unit is seeing that.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not just us, like every unit's tab.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we're hoping in the next, like I said, six months or so that we might be getting a third, so at least then we'll have 24 hour coverage.
[SPEAKER_01]: But even then, like, wow, if it's their night off or they take the night off, you know, there might not be a dog working there and those shifts.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, God forbid, there's an injury.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, our an injury.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, we actually, that did happen.
[SPEAKER_01]: One of our dogs, you know, towards ACL.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's for what I have, like, four or six months, you know.
[SPEAKER_02]: Dude, and then you're on.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, the whole time.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Do you ever call other, like other agencies, state troopers, sheriffs, like you're like,
[SPEAKER_02]: when you help.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, Chris is Chris is on vacation.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, I mean, that's happened.
[SPEAKER_01]: Obviously, like, if, you know, I miss a phone call.
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe I'm out and about and I miss a phone call.
[SPEAKER_01]: They'll call in another agency, whether it be the state police or the shares.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, why is the man powered down in the law enforcement?
[SPEAKER_02]: Is it just your depletes department?
[SPEAKER_02]: Or is it just is it a nationwide thing?
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a nationwide thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Is it money or
[SPEAKER_01]: not just interest.
[SPEAKER_02]: I just think it's just you know I mean you know how things were you know and so you just feel like the just because I feel like society over the last probably five years like because me I've always had such a you know always a great relationship with police officers and always like those are the those are the people you call in here in trouble but I feel like the last five years it's it's more like
[SPEAKER_02]: You guys have to deal with such a stressful situations all the time.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I feel like every little mistake that police officer makes or something is so scrutinized.
[SPEAKER_02]: And sometimes it's more like that, more political, where it's like,
[SPEAKER_02]: people are pointing the blame it you guys all the time when you're just, you know, I mean, there's like one bad apple within a thousand officers or something.
[SPEAKER_02]: Is it more like that?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think they just they've painted with that broad brush.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, like, it's like, oh, one guy's bad.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're all bad.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I try not to think about that too much anymore.
[SPEAKER_01]: I, you, I would bother me a little bit when it first started.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sure.
[SPEAKER_01]: But, uh, defensive.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, but you just can't go to work every day thinking that way.
[SPEAKER_01]: You just, it's not a good, uh,
[SPEAKER_01]: No, you don't just to go to work every day.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, especially when you guys are, hey, somebody shared a kill somebody, go help them.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I don't want to show up.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't want to deal with people with their phones out.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like, no, you go.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, hey, somebody just get hit by a car.
[SPEAKER_02]: Hey, somebody just, you know, whatever.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like, you guys don't ask questions.
[SPEAKER_02]: You just go, you know.
[SPEAKER_02]: And yeah, yeah, that sucks.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that's crazy.
[SPEAKER_02]: So there's, oh,
[SPEAKER_02]: about 300 officers and just two dogs.
[SPEAKER_02]: And is the other dog a dual-purpose dog as well?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: Do any, so there's, are there any dogs in the department that do narcotics or drugs?
[SPEAKER_01]: Not currently.
[SPEAKER_02]: Wow.
[SPEAKER_02]: So if you guys have to do a search on a car for drugs, you'd have to call another department.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_02]: Wow.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, so,
[SPEAKER_02]: Wow, that's interesting to me because being such a, I mean, 300 people, I don't know.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm very ignorant with that.
[SPEAKER_02]: To me, that's a lot, like that's a lot of officers.
[SPEAKER_02]: And you know, you guys cover such a big area, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: And doesn't matter if you're in the bunis or you're in a big city, like that's, that's not a lot of power of dog, you know, when you guys need it the most, that's wild.
[SPEAKER_02]: What are, what is it, can an officer?
[SPEAKER_02]: What do you, what's your favorite breed?
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, if you were to go to a vendor and pick out a breed, what's it gonna be?
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm a mountain, we'll go.
[SPEAKER_02]: Why?
[SPEAKER_02]: They're just fit my personality.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's saying a lot.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know me, buddy.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's saying a lot.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: So what do you, what do you like about the mountain wall versus?
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I would say, I think dual purpose dogs are typically mountain walls and shepherd, German shepherds, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_02]: And why do you like the mountain wall over the shepherd?
[SPEAKER_01]: I just they have more horsepower than the shepherd and you know, they just a lot of drive zero like the mountain ones that I've had my hands on you know zero self-preservation on which to the point where it's like you have to like really be careful what you're doing with them because they just do really stupid things.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you're just like you want to set up a bubble wrap on sometimes
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, but I just I just love their their more agile have less of the medical problems that the chepherds have meaning like the hips you know spine issues
[SPEAKER_01]: I just, I don't know, I just loved the dogs.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've had a number of them and it's always been my favorite dog.
[SPEAKER_02]: OK. And if you were to pick a detection dog, would it still be the Malmaw breed?
[SPEAKER_02]: Probably not.
[SPEAKER_02]: If you just had the due detection, either a saw or detection, what would you pick?
[SPEAKER_02]: Probably a lab.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, how we're talking?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: I love labs.
[SPEAKER_01]: Me too.
[SPEAKER_02]: My wife and I, we had a, um, chocolate lab in yesterday for like a follow-up.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I, you know, I went in there and I was like, man, I was, because I was going to get a lab and then we got my master and my wife is like pissed.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, you best dog.
[SPEAKER_02]: I really did.
[SPEAKER_02]: Really did shout out to my wife for letting me choose the dog.
[SPEAKER_02]: When actuality, I should let her choose
[SPEAKER_02]: I ever tell you that story?
[SPEAKER_02]: No, why I picked him.
[SPEAKER_02]: You remember the young girl who went missing up in Morrell?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, I was laying in bed.
[SPEAKER_02]: I used to go to Morrell, I was a group in Selkun's Falls.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I went to Morrell all the time.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a beautiful park.
[SPEAKER_02]: And things went out like, hey, I think she was five or six, or something like that.
[SPEAKER_02]: This young girl was abducted.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I had just had my son at the time.
[SPEAKER_02]: Get out of two.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I just, in my head, I said, what is the most protective and innately aggressive dog I've ever worked with as a professional who primarily focuses on that aggressive dogs, the bore bull, like, like there was no question.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I remember like three a.m. And I went like bore bull breeders in the US and I ended up getting one then.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's what drove me to get one.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that was kinda,
[SPEAKER_02]: knee jerk, but as a young parent, that was just like so scary, you know.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I mean, I would definitely take my master over a lab any day, but I could have, you know, look, even Lakota, like my Duchy, she's fine, like she would have, you know, she's just as protective, you know, but I just went so overkill.
[SPEAKER_02]: And now I'm, but you know what?
[SPEAKER_02]: He's taught me so much about dog training because he's so difficult and he's so stubborn and he's an awful pet.
[SPEAKER_02]: Don't ever get a boreble, anybody out there.
[SPEAKER_02]: They are awful pets.
[SPEAKER_02]: He is, because there's a spectrum of them.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's just German chepherds, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: You can get a show line more petty, if you will, and then you can get the high caliber working lines, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: And this is the same thing with Portables.
[SPEAKER_02]: You can kind of get like the goofy, big, mast, divvy, type dogs.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then you can get like the South African farm dogs, like the super protective guardian dogs, because they were bred in South Africa to protect livestock against lions and shit.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so they're like in their very suspicious about everything, they act very nervous quite honestly.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like they're very nervous where they come in and there's like a coat hanging on the hanger that wasn't there.
[SPEAKER_02]: and they're like, whoa, and they're, or their hackals are going up.
[SPEAKER_02]: But they're very nervy, really.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like, dude, it's just the, you know, but anyway, I got one of those, and he is, um, yeah, he's an early dude.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, so now that you're, what are your plans like you, so,
[SPEAKER_02]: When would you like when would you retire you've been in the unit for over 16 years?
[SPEAKER_01]: No, uh, so I've been an officer for 14 and 14.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, 14 years.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: So what what's the life span?
[SPEAKER_02]: Because you're would you out live?
[SPEAKER_02]: You're would your would your career out live your dogs career?
[SPEAKER_01]: That makes sense.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean it could Jay is seven now.
[SPEAKER_01]: What age was he when you got him a year old?
[SPEAKER_01]: OK, so he's been on the street now for six years.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's starting to break down a little bit, body-wise.
[SPEAKER_01]: Our threat is everywhere.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's had a hard six years done a great job.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm starting to think about, like, hey, maybe it's time to start looking for another dog and then slowly phase him out and then give him the good life laying on the couch.
[SPEAKER_02]: Does he get along with your wife now?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_02]: OK.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that could work.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it could work.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he finally respects the other dog, you know, my other dog chance, and often not like attacking him anymore.
[SPEAKER_01]: Good.
[SPEAKER_01]: I know, it was like that's not, you know, not accept the world anymore.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, good.
[SPEAKER_02]: So he could retire happily, and oh, yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, good.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, good.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, so you, so if your street dog now does phase out, you could still then get another puppy or younger dog, and then go back to,
[SPEAKER_02]: Just building right back up.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Because I know a lot of guys when they retire From K9 they usually read they some departments like they retire their dogs with them not always But a lot of departments will especially if the dog is in that age frame instead of like holding the dog on for another year Just to finish out with somebody else and then then what you know a lot of I was just curious Unlike where you were at with that in your career, but yeah, so like
[SPEAKER_01]: I got what six years left.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, obviously, by, you know, we do 20 years of my department, where you can retire at 20 years of my department.
[SPEAKER_01]: I probably will.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, my second dog, if, you know, when I hopefully get one, and then in your future, we'll probably be at an age where he's not necessarily ready to be retired, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: But our department typically lets the handler retire the dog with them.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's cool.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, that's how it's going to be tough because they don't look in the military and other other agencies this different government agencies like the DOD and the seals and it's like, no, we paid for that dog and we need that dog.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: In your case, too, like your department, you know, if you only have two dogs, you know, if one of them is not, you know, almost ready to retire, it wouldn't make sense if you have a three year old dog and it's like, hey, you're retiring, but your dog is definitely not.
[SPEAKER_02]: They still have a good shelf life, you know, that's got to be difficult.
[SPEAKER_02]: What's the scariest, what's the scariest calls that you have to get put on in your opinion?
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know, okay, I hate to say it, but I like I don't.
[SPEAKER_02]: Can you remember when you were maybe a rookie, can you remember those days where you were like, when you get, okay, walk me through a call, like walk me through
[SPEAKER_01]: granularly what happens you flip your sirens dog gets fired up like how does how does that all entail like walk me through as a canine officer what what a call looks like for you typically so if it's a like our typical shots fire call or shooting call it goes out they usually put three units three patrol units on it with a supervisor
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll put myself on it.
[SPEAKER_01]: More patrol officers naturally start navigating to those areas.
[SPEAKER_01]: If there's a victim, you know, we provide aid, obviously, to the victim.
[SPEAKER_01]: Prior to you have my skinning there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Start setting up the scene.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, coordinating it all off.
[SPEAKER_01]: Start talking to witnesses.
[SPEAKER_02]: Dude, I've watched Chicago PD.
[SPEAKER_02]: All right.
[SPEAKER_02]: No, I'm just kidding.
[SPEAKER_02]: Chicago PD is dangerous.
[SPEAKER_02]: I know how it goes.
[SPEAKER_02]: Hank Void shows up.
[SPEAKER_02]: Endles the situation.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yells at everybody.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: So if you do have a victim, you're calling ambulance, etc.
[SPEAKER_02]: Is it likely that, because I know it depends on where you work, but let's say you do get that call.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, you get it.
[SPEAKER_02]: I didn't mean interrupt.
[SPEAKER_02]: Get everybody out.
[SPEAKER_02]: Is it likely that the, the purpose still there, or that you're actively chasing, or apprehending that person, or is it typically you're just picking up the pieces
[SPEAKER_01]: I typically probably just picking up the pieces to investigate, having said that, we have had shots fired where we get there and the witnesses are very cooperative and willing to give us information and we're able to start setting up parameters and start doing surgery.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, you're my couple of minutes.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sorry, okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's why you can hear yourself.
[SPEAKER_02]: So when you start to fade out, you can hear yourself.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: So like I said, everyone's in a while, we have witnesses that are willing to give us information very quickly and we're able to set up criminals and start conducting searches for actual suspects and have been successful in finding them.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now does that fire you up?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, that's 100% why I got it in the Canaan.
[SPEAKER_01]: Nobody, I feel like signs up to be a cop because they're like, I just want to take accent reports and pet it largely reports and go to domestic so they long like it's part of
[SPEAKER_01]: Nobody comes a cop because they're just like I just want to take reports all day long.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, you know, like paperwork, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and a lot of paperwork and that's our job is a lot of paperwork But like you've come a got cop you would hope anyways because you want to catch bad guys and help people, you know, like That's the cool thing about canine is you're like The alt the canine's like the ultimate man hunter.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you know, I mean, and like that's why I like to do so that's Every time I get
[SPEAKER_01]: the chance to deploy Jay, to conduct a search for a violent suspect, like, I'm in heaven.
[SPEAKER_01]: Wow, I love it.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so, adrenaline's gone, you're excited.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, you're pumped up.
[SPEAKER_02]: So what does that look like?
[SPEAKER_02]: Let me paint you a picture if I can.
[SPEAKER_02]: Let me give you a scenario, OK?
[SPEAKER_02]: So you get a call.
[SPEAKER_02]: They say, hey, we had a stabbing down on this street.
[SPEAKER_02]: and the purpose still in the building with, we don't know how many people potential hostages, potential kids, civilians, et cetera.
[SPEAKER_02]: They don't have a gun, but they have a weapon.
[SPEAKER_02]: How do you handle that as a can and officer?
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, now we're, you know, little complex there.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, yeah, I'm just saying, perp inside with a weapon, and you don't know if there's hostages or other civilians that are at risk.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so if we don't have any information that there's any innocent civilians in or any type of hostages, we're going to do, we're going to surround it first, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: The first step in any of these these problems is contain the problem.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, contain the problem to that location.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you can't contain it, then it becomes a bigger problem as that person starts to run away, start going into neighborhoods and makes your life a lot harder.
[SPEAKER_01]: So contain the problem, get the resources that you need there first before you start trying to do something that's going to stimulate movement from the suspect.
[SPEAKER_02]: What if there's active,
[SPEAKER_02]: like what if the guy is actively shooting or people are screaming and like if the person is actively hurting civilians is that still you're you know okay that's different that's
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, sorry, I didn't mean to change the story.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was just curious, like what your priorities are there.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, go back to the original storyline where there's somebody inside with potential civilians, you don't know.
[SPEAKER_02]: Surround the perimeter, secure the perimeter.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: What type of resources would you want to get on scene if in that situation?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so in this situation, I'm going to treat this as like a barricade, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: This is a barricade subject, which means that they're potentially armed with a weapon, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: armed with a weapon, all right.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we're going to start getting as many officers as they're as possible.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're going to start setting up in a rest team, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Usually in rest team is we're going to be stacking up against, you know, pillars on cars and everything using cars is cover.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're going to start doing call out procedures, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: We're going to try to get this suspect to come out to us.
[SPEAKER_01]: in our workspace, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: We don't want to have to make entry, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: If we're making entry, they have the tactical advantage.
[SPEAKER_01]: Usually, especially on the patrol level, because we don't have a bunch of tools like drones and stuff like that that we can use to visually clear the space before making entry.
[SPEAKER_01]: So saying we don't, none of that hat, like we do call out for a while, and we get no joy.
[SPEAKER_01]: The bosses are going to have to make the decision at that point.
[SPEAKER_01]: Do they want to activate, we call it a emergency service system, which is our swatine, because we have a barricaded, pretty much a barricade suspect, doesn't have to be a gun, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: If they come, if they take over this scene, they're going to do the same thing, they're going to
[SPEAKER_01]: Set it up, contain the problem.
[SPEAKER_01]: Start doing call-outs.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're going to drone with seven to drone into the building.
[SPEAKER_02]: Really?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, to visually clear as much as possible.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's cool.
[SPEAKER_01]: Drone's are awesome, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: We use the drones a lot, but the one thing they can't do is they can't see behind closed doors and they have no nose and they can't smell.
[SPEAKER_01]: So there's no like thermal drones.
[SPEAKER_01]: There are, but we don't have them for interior, like we have thermal drones for like exterior types of stuff, so like somebody goes into the woods, you know, and then the whole night, we have thermal drones for that.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's crazy that you can't use the same technology if you were to put it, because it's just heat, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean, they make them, it's just that they're super expensive.
[SPEAKER_02]: You don't have a legotit.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, they definitely make them, it's just... What is your dog doing at this time?
[SPEAKER_02]: That's what sets up.
[SPEAKER_01]: So swat sets up, usually I bring the dog out any time that we're going to do something that stimulates movement, meaning we do call odds for a little while.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, I get the dog out of the car, get him set up in a spot where he can see the front door or for in the back, see the back door.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, just in case somebody comes out the door, uh, nothing happens for a while, put them up for a little bit about them figure out the next step if they're going to insert Uh, gas into the house to try to dislodge that person from the house and come out to us.
[SPEAKER_01]: Once again, dog comes out.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, ready to receive that suspect just in case he decides he comes out and starts running on the block.
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you ever have the dog be the reason why people come out?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: 99% of the time, the dog is probably one of the things that makes people come out.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it usually just takes one announcement to announcements, whether it's just like, you know, you give your canine warning.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's pretty much states like, hey, an officer with a canine.
[SPEAKER_01]: It talks to him and you know, you're inside this building.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you don't come out now with your hands up, a dog's in the command and you could be bit.
[SPEAKER_01]: And usually that's when people go, okay, okay, I'm done.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's often.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, very often or they just that'd be me.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was a bad guy.
[SPEAKER_02]: It would be wise.
[SPEAKER_02]: I would rather get shot Honestly like non-fatally shot than get bit by a shepherd.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, or Malmall.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I've been told that by somebody before That I have to the fact that she was like, you know, he said he'd been shot and stabbed Prior to this incident and he goes the dog bite was way worse than either two of those two things.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so I was like He goes like, I'll never do that again
[SPEAKER_01]: Wow, yeah, good, you know, like, uh, so yeah, most of the time people surrender.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's why, you know, I think the dog is to me, like, that term de-escalation, like the dog to me is like the ultimate de-escalation tool.
[SPEAKER_01]: I can't even tell you how many people are just surrender.
[SPEAKER_02]: But does it also give you an inkling of how serious the situation is if they go not?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I, what, whatever situation I'm in right now,
[SPEAKER_02]: I'll I'll let the dog come bite me potentially.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean that I mean some guys are just Hate to say but it's just stupid.
[SPEAKER_01]: They just think about the dog won't find me
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I've had guys hiding in some pretty creative places where you wouldn't think that they would be hiding.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that dog's nose, man, it's good, you know, and they're very motivated to find that person.
[SPEAKER_01]: So like they use that nose pretty effectively, and then they find if they're inaccessible, you know, they're barking.
[SPEAKER_01]: My dog sounds like a werewolf trying to bust down the door, you know what I mean?
[SPEAKER_01]: Like he's barking, scratching, trying to get into that thing, and a lot of times then after being located,
[SPEAKER_01]: The person will surrender because they're just like, oh crap, they actually did find me.
[SPEAKER_01]: And this dog doesn't sound me.
[SPEAKER_01]: He seems about that life.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, so like I'll recall the dog back, you know, because you can hear the person saying, hey, hey, okay, surrender, please don't want to bite me.
[SPEAKER_01]: He called the dog back and just start doing callouts again from a position of cover and You know, you get that person to custody with zero force used.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then if you do have to release the dog and they do bite somebody, what are the protocols and priority steps there?
[SPEAKER_02]: Like let's say the guy didn't surrender or threaten the dog or started actively trying to hurt the dog.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, where's that split decision?
[SPEAKER_02]: Where is that split decision as an officer to release the dog if the person is a threat to you guys as human officers?
[SPEAKER_02]: So let's say, let's say there's a pertinent side of house and they have a knife and they won't come out and then that person starts to charge towards you guys.
[SPEAKER_01]: Are you releasing the dog or are you shooting with tasers or firearms or so yeah that would be a deadly physical for situation like if I can see the suspect is armed with a weapon and now he is charging us with a knife like I'm not going to release the dog for that like
[SPEAKER_01]: We have other tools for that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Say for tools.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, say for tools.
[SPEAKER_02]: So when would you release the dog on a situation with a guy barricaded?
[SPEAKER_01]: So we can't see him like we don't know where he is.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we need the dog to locate them.
[SPEAKER_01]: So like, okay, you know, now if we drone, you know, we use a drone and the drone locates the guy and we just see him standing there with a knife.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, like, if we didn't, okay, we know where he is now, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, like we have other, we have other tools to get that guy to comply and get to come out.
[SPEAKER_01]: Is there a voice box on the drone?
[SPEAKER_01]: No, that'll be cool.
[SPEAKER_01]: It would be.
[SPEAKER_01]: There.
[SPEAKER_02]: A mother effort?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: We have robots that have that robot.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, robots that we can, you know.
[SPEAKER_01]: A little, yeah, like a little RC robot.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, that's it.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can come in and talk to me.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hey, like have a therapist there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, like a buddy.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, hey, man.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's wrong.
[SPEAKER_01]: But, you know, like in that situation where they're accessible, we can actually see that they're on or the weapon.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like that would not be the adequate use of a dog.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're not sending these dogs on suicide missions.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, like, okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's usually just if they're barricaded, not coming out.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_02]: And you can not notice we see a weapon.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_02]: They're just like, I'm not coming out.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm hiding or I'm too scared or I don't want to go to jail or whatever the reason is.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_02]: You send the dog and
[SPEAKER_02]: I know like doing different protection work.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's like the barking holds.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's the finds like if you release a dog into a building, are they going to then find that person and then bite?
[SPEAKER_02]: Or is there a different command to say find that person and do like a barking hold?
[SPEAKER_01]: So if they're accessible and the dog can get to them, they're going to bite and hold.
[SPEAKER_01]: Bite and hold, okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you're just listening for screaming.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we try not to
[SPEAKER_01]: fight off more than we can chew right so pun intended yeah exactly you know like the the dog is not just going to be given free rain to go certain like you know in a two-family house on me i'm not going to go if i'm on the first floor and i want to search first floor i'm not going to want to go to the second floor the basement and go just do whatever he wants to do right like the dog has to uh he's a tool right he's a tool for us to use and we're not going to sacrifice uh sound tactics for the sake of the dog right so
[SPEAKER_01]: Dog's gonna, you know, if we're with the SWAT team, the squad leader will let me know.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hey, I want the dog to search X, Y and Z.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, good to go.
[SPEAKER_01]: Send the dog out.
[SPEAKER_01]: He searches X, Y and Z. I pull the dog back to me or recall him back to me.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now the team goes and physically clears that area.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now he goes, okay, cool.
[SPEAKER_01]: We got that cleared up.
[SPEAKER_01]: We just, now I want you to do this area.
[SPEAKER_01]: Send the dog in.
[SPEAKER_01]: Clear that area, call them back.
[SPEAKER_01]: Team now goes physically, clears it, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: And we just keep on eating up chunks of the house as we go along.
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you have a camera on the dog?
[SPEAKER_01]: No, but we're in the process of hopefully getting one soon.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, cause how would you, how would a situation does the dog know who's a threat?
[SPEAKER_02]: No, so like, let's say, let's say, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm in the building.
[SPEAKER_02]: You guys didn't know I was in the building.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm listening to my headphones doing laundry in the laundry room.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's a perk up upstairs.
[SPEAKER_02]: He stabbed his wife.
[SPEAKER_02]: You got to call.
[SPEAKER_02]: I didn't know about it.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm carrying my laundry basket.
[SPEAKER_02]: Dogs coming up the stairs.
[SPEAKER_02]: Is that a situation where he's going to come after me just because you didn't know I was there?
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's just like, Mr. Schmore paperwork?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean, it definitely could happen.
[SPEAKER_01]: But that is...
[SPEAKER_01]: One of the reasons why we do so, I do so much like on the front end, investigating everything, trying to figure out who lives there, who's, you know, who's supposed to be there, who's not supposed to be there.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if we're like, you know, Tom Davis lives here.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, where's Tom Davis?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Is he home?
[SPEAKER_01]: Is he home?
[SPEAKER_01]: Is he this?
[SPEAKER_01]: We do, well, I do a lot on the front end to help mitigate those bad bites.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, I have not had one.
[SPEAKER_01]: I had a bad bite yet.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hopefully never have one.
[SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, we try to do a lot on the front end to help mitigate that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if we think that there might be other innocent people in there, I don't, typically I go off leash search.
[SPEAKER_01]: I do all my searches off leash because, you know, long lines kind of just get in the way of the dog.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you ever try to do a long line search inside of a house, sometimes it can be a real pain, especially when the dog decides to go wrap around like the, you know, the coffee tables or any shares, anything like that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then all of a sudden, it's getting wrapped up and everything.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I try not to use a long line as much as possible, but like if we have information that like you're you know There might be somebody else in there.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right cool.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm gonna use a long line or not the dog at all You know, I mean I'll use a long line When I'm only go so far where I can't I never lose sight of his nose and then Just can be a little bit more choppy, but we can we'll figure out the problem
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I've always wondered this if if if I was a bad guy and I knew anything about dogs or training and a dog K9 was training me and if I if I was on the dog was searching for me and I and the dog was coming after me And if I just said plots or kushe how how what's the likelihood of that dog actually like let's say
[SPEAKER_02]: The dog's like coming after me in a hallway and I just go, Blat's Blat's and I'm yelling like, you would yell.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like a canine guy would yell.
[SPEAKER_02]: Do you think the dog would second gas be like, wait, like, what do you think would happen?
[SPEAKER_01]: Uh, so I think that if you didn't train that and, you know, in a daring training that I could definitely confuse a dog, if you knew they're, you know, they're down command and you're like, plots and that, you know, like the dog might actually listen.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what I was thinking.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I,
[SPEAKER_01]: have thought about this because we've talked about this before, like, I'll have my decoys yell commands to the dog as he's coming at them, like I'll send the dog, you know, and training on a suited decoy, and I'll be like yell his commands.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's pretty if he listens to you.
[SPEAKER_01]: And like in the beginning stages, yeah, he did.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's funny now.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's like, nope.
[SPEAKER_01]: That didn't say it like you're getting it dude.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: What's your equipment like for your dog training and and for the K9 unit?
[SPEAKER_02]: What's your daily equipment for for J when you go like, you know, to work?
[SPEAKER_01]: Just like for deployments.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_01]: Uh, so he has a you know, his flat collar.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, any collar and harness.
[SPEAKER_01]: What do you call it, do you use the Garmin Pro 550?
[SPEAKER_01]: Is it trackable?
[SPEAKER_01]: No.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's how long is the distance on it?
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to say it's like a mile.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's pretty good.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's it's one of their high end collars for sure.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I just like it.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's it's got a big remote on it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's just very easy to use and not look at what many levels is it are there.
[SPEAKER_01]: So there is seven levels on the dial and then each level has a high low medium and high.
[SPEAKER_01]: I remember that.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's one of the reasons why I like it is because I can just find a, you know, a good working level.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like he's usually like a low like three.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: So he'll usually listen to low three, but if, you know, there's a decoy in play or, you know, something like that, I might go to a high three, without even having to touch the dial and in a stressful situation for us.
[SPEAKER_01]: And this has saved me so many times on the street.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've had to recall him back
[SPEAKER_01]: And is that because they're like, okay, yeah, they give up, they give up or maybe the dog targeted a cop by accident, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, because he doesn't know.
[SPEAKER_01]: He just sees like, oh, that guy's running.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, maybe he's the one.
[SPEAKER_01]: You've seen those videos, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: I posted one once.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: And we're the, it was, it was tough.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, it's tough.
[SPEAKER_02]: Let me see if I can find it, but it's not for nothing.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like, when you send your dog out,
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's chaos, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: We're civilians are running, kids are running.
[SPEAKER_02]: Officers are running chasing the guy.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's multiple parts.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's like, what, how does the, when the dog's 50 feet 100 feet away from you?
[SPEAKER_02]: They, how are they gonna know, you know?
[SPEAKER_02]: It's really hard.
[SPEAKER_02]: So how do you distinctly, I know like when, when we're doing training, you're kind of like locking the dog up.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then sending the dog after that one person and the person obviously looks very suspect because they're like either running, right, or they're yelling, you know, if it's drunk or somebody on drugs, like how do you, how do you help your dog target that person in those situations?
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's all training.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have in the past like four years that have become very big.
[SPEAKER_01]: and to adding backup officers into the picture for everything.
[SPEAKER_01]: What does that mean?
[SPEAKER_01]: So at any time we do type it's on any type of training.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yep, it doesn't matter what it is.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's always cops and full uniform there so that they just learn that like, hey those dudes are off the menu.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, you know, like any officer in uniform is what you're deterring.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, like, because I think.
[SPEAKER_01]: where some came on handlers falter is that it's always just them in the dog they do like they do a training building search they send the dog right to the you know the the door they're by themselves with all the backup officers behind them and they get their announcements right in the door and send the dog in and then they go search with the dog and there's no backup
[SPEAKER_01]: and then they go to do a game day and now cops want to be involved because they should be involved, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: We don't go clearing buildings for data people with myself and the dog, like, that's just not safe.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're letting the dog dictate your tactics at that point, which is not what we're supposed to be doing.
[SPEAKER_01]: So in training, I always have backup officers in the picture, and my guys are required in my training group, like, you have to wear your duty even a form.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, and, you know, we download our weapons, download all our weapons and everything like that.
[SPEAKER_01]: So they see that picture, too.
[SPEAKER_02]: And what would be like the, I can't find that video, but what's the, what,
[SPEAKER_02]: What would it mean for you if I know New York State there's been lobbyists trying to ban equipment for dog training in general doesn't matter what your dog does?
[SPEAKER_02]: What would that mean for you in your partner?
[SPEAKER_01]: It would definitely limit our capabilities and it would increase risk to officer safety.
[SPEAKER_01]: One of the reasons we use dogs, right, is their location of, you know, abilities, right, like their noses are amazing, go find things very quick, but they give us time and distance.
[SPEAKER_01]: If I'm attached to a leash at all times with my dog, then I'm going to have to be even closer.
[SPEAKER_01]: And.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can see videos of golfsters going on tracks with their dogs.
[SPEAKER_01]: And your dog is essentially leading you into an ambush.
[SPEAKER_01]: And when I'm tracking, I have a leash in my hand, no weapon out.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I don't have the ability to defend myself.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm very reliant on my backup officers to do the fighting for me if we were to get into a shooting.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I have control of a dog.
[SPEAKER_01]: And my whole focus is now handling that leash, managing that leash,
[SPEAKER_01]: watching the dog, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: If you didn't have those e-colors, like you couldn't do things off leash, because I mean, let's be realistic.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it would be very hard to make a dog be 100% reliable on the street.
[SPEAKER_01]: Or that recall more importantly because a recall is very, very important for us right like when I call my dog back he has to come back to me, but if you have no way to reinforce that when he decides to give you the finger because chasing down bad guys is more fun than coming back to you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think that would be a detriment to please gain on.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I would agree.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Sad to see some of that stuff pop up sometimes, but I think just the general public don't.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: They don't see that.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's the same thing when I'm working with aggressive dogs, or even just a six-month-old lab that wants to be off leash at the beach, but like, hey, I can't run with my six-month-old lab on the beach.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, I want to be able to really let my dog go out there and run and rip and run around and enjoy life.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I also want the ability to recall the dog if at any point in time.
[SPEAKER_02]: see all the benefits of that.
[SPEAKER_02]: But that's neither here or there.
[SPEAKER_02]: So as you're going through these situations like as a canine officer in your work life, how do you decompress when you come home?
[SPEAKER_02]: I feel like you're a vet now.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I feel like you've had you have a good like
[SPEAKER_02]: mechanisms to be able to be like, all right, you know, when I'm when I'm home, I just would assume in like when you're going out and your your job is to respond to everyone else is problems essentially yeah for the most part rather it's like, hey I lost my kid or I just rack my car or.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I just shot me or whatever.
[SPEAKER_02]: How do you shake that off to go home to then be a normal human and act like, or maybe not even act, but maybe like, cope with that?
[SPEAKER_01]: You can be hard, you know.
[SPEAKER_01]: Can you not in is like, for me, is like this all consuming job.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not a nine to five job, where you take the uniform off you go home.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, J comes home with me every night.
[SPEAKER_01]: Uh, when we have a call that maybe didn't go exactly as how I wanted to go, I'm naturally I hyper focus on that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm like trying to dissect every little thing and trying to fix it, so it doesn't happen again.
[SPEAKER_01]: I kind of let work at the best of me sometimes with that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like I just always, always locked in social media now.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like my whole Facebook feed and Instagram feed is all police canines stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like even when I'm at home, you're scrolling on your phone.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just like canines stuff canines stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, it's just everything is about that.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I try to, when I'm at home, I've gotten a little bit better about it.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know,
[SPEAKER_01]: going to the gym, working out, doing the Jetsu, hiking, I love hiking, taking the dogs out, being in nature, being in nature, I bought a boat a couple of years ago, love being out on the lake during the summer time.
[SPEAKER_02]: Where do you go?
[SPEAKER_01]: I start to ugly, nice.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so.
[SPEAKER_02]: You try that new sauna place out there.
[SPEAKER_02]: I have not.
[SPEAKER_02]: It seems interesting.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like a sauna in the back.
[SPEAKER_02]: If it, you know, in the winter, you can jump into the cold.
[SPEAKER_02]: body kind of starting to where have you have you looked up peptides at all for the dogs at all I haven't because remember as texting last night yep I started I started a peptide stack last night myself just because I'm
[SPEAKER_02]: sore from train jiu-jitsu.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm like, I want to say it's not age, but it's got to be age.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's just going to hold it.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's just kind of all sorts of old geysers, but it just seems like I'm doing a lot of like underovers, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: So I'm like doing a lot of like grabbing here, going over from inside control, I'm like going over and under my arms.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like it feels like I'm like
[SPEAKER_02]: like an Olympian like swimmer because every time I do this I can feel this and so I was just curious because now the peptide conversation has been interesting.
[SPEAKER_02]: I've been kind of like keep in line.
[SPEAKER_02]: I know for humans it's been a thing for years and it's all that you know how it goes for me.
[SPEAKER_02]: For other people it's been great for muscle tissue repair and ligament repair but for dogs it's starting to become not popular but it's starting to become conversational where people are like you know these amino acids could
[SPEAKER_02]: Especially for the reason why I'm mentioning it is because a lot of dogs, especially as he is older, especially shepherds, like my Dutchy had the TPLO surgery because she had a tour cruciate and the recovery sucks.
[SPEAKER_02]: She never really recovered like she bought to be fair.
[SPEAKER_02]: She had complications in the surgery and I also didn't do great PT, which I should have.
[SPEAKER_02]: I kind of like looked at PT as my fault.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's just being stupid and ignorant.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I'm interested in it.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm kind of paying attention to it.
[SPEAKER_02]: We've had some conversations with some companies about it, but I'll keep you posted on it because it'd be interesting to like, if you can, I don't know how it would work orthopedically.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like if a dog has bad hips or whatever, I don't know if that would help at all, but I know for the cruciate tears and the dog being out.
[SPEAKER_02]: Because I mean with Lakota,
[SPEAKER_02]: She had this surgery, which is pretty invasive.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like they're shaving down her knee and then putting bolts in a plate in her leg.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then of course, then there's the whole post-op surgery and then there's the PT, which really like a year, honestly.
[SPEAKER_02]: And a year for a dog is a long time, as you know.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I'm always keeping an eye on it for that, but I'll keep you posted on that.
[SPEAKER_02]: So you like to go hiking for fun with the dogs and kind of decompress, but what is it like, like, do you bring your street dog, if you bring your street dog out for a walk, let's say, they're not in uniform either, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: They're just, you know, okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: Just plain Jane, just a collar, cool, cool, and how much more do you how much more like you have a certain level of anxiety knowing that you like that's okay, let me back up you're out for a walk you have your You have your your can and partner with you and an off leash dog comes running up for me, just as a dog owner, I'm like oh
[SPEAKER_02]: you know, shit.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is not good.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, we're kicking, we're yelling, we're screaming out of here.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't want you to attack my dogs.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't want my dogs to fight you.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a stressful thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: But like at what point in time do you have to like, is there the switch where you're like, now this is a cop.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now you're attacking a cop.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, how would you handle that?
[SPEAKER_02]: I empathetically speaking.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean, because I've had it happen at work.
[SPEAKER_01]: I haven't had it really happened off duty, because I typically don't go to a ton of spots where I know there's gonna be dogs off leash.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: But you know with hiking, sometimes people do that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that's what maybe I think of it as if you were out for a hike with your office, your partner, and like some random off leash dog came up aggressive, like you're like, when do you switch that switch?
[SPEAKER_02]: This really isn't even my dog.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's the department's dog.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, how do you, I usually, if I can see it coming, I might yell to the owner like, hey, get your call your dog back, my dog's not friendly.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then if that doesn't work, I've had to choke up on Jay's collar, pretty much grab onto his collar to hold him tight.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then if you got a booted dog, you got a booted dog.
[SPEAKER_01]: Unfortunately, it's not something I want to do, but, you know.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's way better than my dog latching onto them, and then there's a big dog fight, and now we got, you know, each dog got holes all throughout them, and I just don't want to break that up.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, good.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I just wasn't sure if it was more like a, I'm just thinking as like a canine officer, they're like yellow bro, I'm a cop.
[SPEAKER_02]: Don't mess with me.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I think they can tell.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think I can tell.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, we walk around and talk about it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm just going to look away.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Especially the Chihuahua's.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: So if you could change anything in your...
[SPEAKER_02]: line of duty not with your department not with your colleagues in your department, but like in general being a canine officer if you could change anything about the operations or the daily things like what would they be and obviously these changes would be to make things safer and better.
[SPEAKER_02]: What would they be.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh God.
[SPEAKER_01]: I would say the biggest thing for that I've learned is the longer band of the department, slowing things down.
[SPEAKER_01]: I tell the guys on the street all the time, like slow things down.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like there's no reason to go 100 miles an hour anymore and be a cowboy.
[SPEAKER_01]: uh... primitives are our friends containing the latest it contain the problem if we can contain the problem uh... and there's not one of these two things you know like there's no hostages there's no innocent civilians we talk about priorities of life all the time right so the priorities of life for us hostages
[SPEAKER_01]: innocent civilians, officers, and then suspect, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: So if there's none of those factors up in the, you know, no hostages, no innocent civilians were next up in the prior year life, that means screw that guy, we can sit here all day long.
[SPEAKER_01]: and figure out how to solve the problem.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know much so that we can slow things down and just figure out how to solve that problem.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, whereas if you're always in a rush to catch people, that's where I think bad things happen, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Just don't be in a rush, you know, like that.
[SPEAKER_01]: So things now, think things through.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is starting to learn as I get a little bit older now, thinking things through is like the way to solve a lot of these problems.
[SPEAKER_01]: And not just be so gung all about catching the bad guy.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's no stop.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, when we start a stop watching, saying you had to catch the guy in three minutes or your fired.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, same thing for Jiu-Jitsu.
[SPEAKER_02]: I've been learning.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: I've been training like three or four times a week now.
[SPEAKER_02]: And just by why I'm so sore.
[SPEAKER_02]: Instead of trying to like cause I think starting off, it was always like get a submission, get a submission.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like you're like, come on, I gotta get a submission.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like you're looking at the clock and it's like, if you can just dominate position and be comfortable and be safe, that's much like to your point.
[SPEAKER_02]: As you mature and I think as you learn more, you're like, you know what, I'd rather be safe.
[SPEAKER_02]: and I'd rather be in a good position than be winning all the time, and I've learned that that's like help my digits who games so much, where I'm like, before I was like armbar, Kamora, we're gonna make a joke.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm just always trying to submit somebody.
[SPEAKER_02]: If I'm, if I'm not submitting, I'm losing, and then as I've gotten more mature in my blue belt days, I've just been like, you know what, I'd rather just be in dominant positions, and if this
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, is that makes sense?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, totally agree.
[SPEAKER_02]: But it's the same thing as what you're saying.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like, hey, guys, we don't need to rush through this and get the guy, it'd be nice, but let's just be safe.
[SPEAKER_02]: Let's wait this out.
[SPEAKER_02]: We have all the time in the world as long as we're safe and you can be in that upper hand position.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's much better to do that, I would assume, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: I did a post on, not specifically you coming on,
[SPEAKER_02]: Canine officer coming on and I think it just posts that I want to take some some questions from people if we have any.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'll check him out in a minute, but as as you mature in your field, right, are you trying to also help I'm assuming you're trying to help the other so you only have I taught that's crazy that you only have one of their canine person.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like it's still hard to believe like I would just assume and I think I already asked you this, but what is the other dog?
[SPEAKER_02]: Uh, as far as what like a type of dog?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, a German expert.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, cool.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's so you have no narcotics dogs.
[SPEAKER_02]: No.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I remember when I trained many years ago when they did the Albany.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was like the big canine conference you remember that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, yeah, like the, uh, it's like at the abandoned building by the airport.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that was a lot of fun.
[SPEAKER_02]: That was a lot of fun.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, like how to get stitches for that one.
[SPEAKER_02]: Really?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, you were decoing.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, yeah, in the, in the, in the, in the butt, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like a dog went through the suit.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, yeah, I remember that.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's wild.
[SPEAKER_02]: What happened?
[SPEAKER_01]: uh... they were doing a scenario where i was uh... laying on a bed in a full bite suit and i had a bed sheet over me and i was going to be passive so meaning that i wasn't going to agitate the dog at all uh... i wasn't going to react to the handlers commands nothing and i'm facing away from them right so i'm facing the wall standing up laying down
[SPEAKER_01]: How are you laying down and facing the laying the down?
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm laying that down.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yep, facing the wall with the back to the door.
[SPEAKER_01]: Got it.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, so they long line the dog in, you know, after giving, you know, canine warnings.
[SPEAKER_01]: And obviously I'm not complying today.
[SPEAKER_01]: And they long line the dog in.
[SPEAKER_01]: and the dog bites onto me, they drag me off the bed, drag me back to the door, get me into custody, get the dog off, I decoy another like two dogs, and then all of a sudden I'm like, there's like a little break, and I feel like something warm like dripping down my leg.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm like, I didn't hurt?
[SPEAKER_01]: No, I felt more like a pinch than anything.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I've been decoy for a while, so I was like, oh, it's pinching, it is what it is.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we take off the soup pants and I have a cut probably like that big in my ass.
[SPEAKER_01]: I remember that and it was just the perfect spot where in our soup pants on the side there's like an opening, you know, just a little opening right there, normally I use the straps to close that opening up, but it hit loosened up over time so that dogs canine too, they just got into that spot and then when they drag me off, it just obviously tore a little bit and
[SPEAKER_02]: went to the ER or not the ER or urgent care rather in got stitched up and then went back to decoing but I remember that that was crazy because it was in a band and building and essentially if you guys can imagine canine officers from all over New York state and beyond because it were helpers and
[SPEAKER_02]: Different people actually from different countries had flown in for it.
[SPEAKER_02]: I remember there were some Europeans there decoined and teaching.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I remember how crazy it was.
[SPEAKER_02]: Because you walked into like this abandoned building, which was massive.
[SPEAKER_02]: It looked kind of reminded me of like an on a, an asian asylum like it was like an old school house looking thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's old nursing home.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: So there's like, there's like room like hospital.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's like rooms.
[SPEAKER_02]: And you just walk through this building and hear screams.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I remember going down to the basement, there was strobe lights and fog machines.
[SPEAKER_02]: And they were doing like,
[SPEAKER_02]: masks it was like a it was like one of those haunted houses except for dogs That was wild.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and it was a couple days too.
[SPEAKER_02]: There were many different scenarios.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that was a lot of fun Now they still do that every year just not here.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, not that level So that was my buddy Ken Ken Stern from Albany County.
[SPEAKER_01]: He would set those up man and like
[SPEAKER_01]: But that was sick.
[SPEAKER_01]: They were a lot of fun.
[SPEAKER_02]: They had like food vendors and you know I just like I think I don't know who I beg to go.
[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe you got me in because it wasn't open civilians.
[SPEAKER_02]: No, I just got to go I don't know how I got to go
[SPEAKER_02]: But that was fun, dude.
[SPEAKER_02]: I learned a lot too.
[SPEAKER_02]: Because I remember there was this, I actually have a video of it.
[SPEAKER_02]: There was the scene where this guy, they were doing this drill where the officer would come in.
[SPEAKER_02]: And again, it was like, it was literally a haunted house.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, there would be the part like, the conwood hide here, and then Michael Myers would jump out here and it would be the same scare every time.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I remember the decoy came in,
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm sorry the dog came in the room after the announcements come out you're gonna get bit come out You're gonna get bit dog would go in on a long line and I remember the perp was like standing there Shate had a mask on and was like shaking like a tide bottle with like BBs in it like shaking it as the decoy And I remember the guy the officer came in let the dog go and there was another guy right here
[SPEAKER_02]: like at the door and then every time bang you're dead he would just say that bang you're dead and the canine guys were like oh man you know and obviously it was a drill but some of the guys were so distraught like they were like
[SPEAKER_02]: I wasn't coming home after this drill, you know?
[SPEAKER_02]: And so it really like hit home, where I was like, whoa, this is, that was like, that was a crazy thing, dude.
[SPEAKER_02]: Cause I remember just walking, you'd be walking around a different rooms and there would be like,
[SPEAKER_02]: a cafeteria and there would be people in the kitchen with pans banging dogs flying over tables and like they'd be putting them on top of the table doing a bite taking the oven and slamming the oven down on the dog and then you just walk and then down another hallway there'd be another scenario and there'd be there'd be like old mattresses in the dog they cut a whole new mattress the dog would have to go through the mattress to bite a guy and it was like
[SPEAKER_02]: And the officers all had like their, you know, their fake guns and they'd be, it was nuts.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Holy crap.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was a blast from the past, just remember in that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: That was crazy.
[SPEAKER_02]: What could you say like, is there anything in your career so far that has been like the most rewarding?
[SPEAKER_02]: Anything maybe in particular or is there certain scenarios where you go home on the opposite end, where you maybe go home and dissect every situation?
[SPEAKER_02]: Do you go home and you go, man, that felt good?
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh yeah, I mean, I can't talk about specific cases.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're just one of the things they said and they're like, hey, you can't do that, but there's been a couple where I was like,
[SPEAKER_01]: Dan, like I was so happy and so proud to be a part of that, you know, be a part of the team and be part of the solution, you know, the dog obviously got the guy in the custody for us with nobody hurt so like that's those are good days like that's when you're like damn I'm like I'm so glad I do this.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so when when everything goes right and your dog does the right things and people go I'm safe and the bad guy gets locked up those are the best ones.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that's cool.
[SPEAKER_02]: Any if there's anything else Outside like if you if you weren't a canine officer, what else would you do?
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, you know what this point, and I'd probably be a dog trainer, I mean, I mean, I mean, you are, but yeah, I mean, I love, I love working with dogs, so like, I mean, that's not hopefully my plan when I retire from this is continue on working with dogs.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, I can't really imagine doing anything else at this point.
[SPEAKER_01]: Cool.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: What would, if you didn't have a canine dog, like, let's say you were a dog trainer.
[SPEAKER_01]: What breed would you choose?
[SPEAKER_02]: if I wasn't a dog trainer no like sorry if you're just a dog trainer let's say you retire okay you retired today no and you had no dogs at home what breed would you go out and get and why probably a lab you know
[SPEAKER_01]: just labs can be like just really cool dogs depending on if like you go out and get like a hunting, you know, like a lab that's bred for hunting, they could still be very high energy, very active dogs, love the water, love hiking, like all the things I like doing, I think would be like the lab would probably be a good fit for my lifestyle.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and I think I would, yeah, man, I could just keep going back to how I should have got a lab, but, yeah,
[SPEAKER_02]: I didn't, I got a burly instead.
[SPEAKER_02]: Anyway, all right, I think Bull, rapid here, dude.
[SPEAKER_02]: This was incredible.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I've been wanting to sit down and do this with you for a while because we've been friends for a while and I'm always like, do you just come to the podcast?
[SPEAKER_02]: Just come on.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know, bro, I'll do social media, bro.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm like, dude, it's not social media.
[SPEAKER_02]: Because I think it's like for dog owners, we don't,
[SPEAKER_02]: you know for me anyway it's just like we don't we don't have like an idea of what goes on behind the scenes you know and what you have to go through and all the sacrifices that you have to make and all the dangerous situations I mean I think you're kind of a rare breed though because it sounds like you you're you handle things so well I think because you're a veteran and you're like you go in and you're like jacked up and you're not nervous and you're like I'm ready to do this but I think it's such a cool thing that you do and you know I personally you know
[SPEAKER_02]: So we're appreciative of what you do and going out there and protecting the community that we live in.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think that that's incredibly like, there's so much dignity of that and pride in that.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think it's great.
[SPEAKER_02]: So thank you, but thanks for coming on.
[SPEAKER_02]: And anybody listening to this, you can also watch this on YouTube.
[SPEAKER_02]: And if you're listening to this on any other podcast platform, you can watch the full video on Spotify as well.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thanks, Chris.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_02]: All right, bye everybody.