Jeff Meyer talks with Aaron Harwick about all things K9

Hello, this is Jeff Meyer. Before we get to the show, we're just going to pay some bills here real quick and thank a few sponsors. You guys have been hearing me talk about Ray Allen a lot on every show. As always, Ray Allen is the lead sponsor for the Colorado Canine Conference. So they'll be our lead sponsor this year. The Colorado Canine Conference is coming up just a couple weeks away.

We actually still have some room, so if you're listening to this, get a hold of me right away if you're still interested in coming. It should be a great event. And Ray Allen's our lead sponsor on that. So, I appreciate Ray Allen stepping up and sponsoring this and being active in the community. Ray Allen products are outstanding products. They're known for their quality and rightfully so. So, check out RayAllen.com for all your canine needs.

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On the Facebook, on the LEO Canine Discussion page. If you're not on it, I encourage you to jump on there. I like the way the page is ran. There's a lot of really good pages on Facebook or social media, but that one, I think it's ran. It's ran by several different officers, and they do a lot of work keeping the topics up to date and just kind of moderating it. And it's a pretty good format for just an exchange of ideas and maybe some self-critiques

of our industry. and it's a vetted page, so not everybody could just jump on there. So it's got a lot of discussions on there. I get on there and try and check it out pretty regularly. If I don't get on there and I look back on it, I'll be 10 or 15 discussions behind sometimes because it goes pretty quick.

But one of the things I noticed on that page and reading a lot of different comments is there's some people on there that, you know, they're on there fairly regularly and are are contributing quite a bit, but they're people that we really don't know who they are. There's a lot of people that are out there, like myself, that are on social media and teaching a lot of classes, that people know who they are a lot.

But there's way, way, way more people that aren't really doing a lot of training and aren't pushing classes or anything like that, that have such great ideas. And I always try to find those people and talk to them, pick their brain, and learn from a little of everybody. So on that LEO canine page, I kept seeing a name. It was a new Aaron. And Aaron would be on there quite a bit and put in some real thoughtful comments.

And some I agreed with, some I didn't. But I could tell that it was an officer that was passionate about canine and wanting to make things better, wanted to contribute to the page, not by starting arguments, but by just throwing out some ideas and some constructive ideas. So I've been reading his comments for quite a while, and I reached out to him, got him on the show today. Most people probably aren't too familiar with him. This is the first time I've had any in-depth talk with him.

But I thought it'd be fun just to get a perspective that somebody who hasn't been on a lot of podcasts or probably never been on a podcast and just talk to him about what's going on.

So with that, I have Aaron Harwick on here. So good morning, Eric. How are you? I'm good, Jeff. Thank you for having me. Like you said, I've not been on a bunch of podcasts. If I would say this is my first one, I don't know if that means something. But yeah, this is the first one I've ever done and I'm happy to be on it with you. That's cool. So let's just start at the beginning. Let everybody know, you know, kind of who you are, where you work and what kind of stuff you do at work.

Sure. So my name is Aaron Harwick. I'm a police officer. I just passed 25 years doing that. I currently work for a small department by the name of Murrieta Police Department. We're about 110 from the chief down. So we're not large, but we are a good department. We have four dogs on our unit, myself being one of them. So four patrol dogs. And yeah, we're just having a good time.

I mean, we're working out here in California, and California certainly has some of its challenges, but I think that, that we're working really hard to make sure that our dogs are as good as any other dog across the country. Yeah. I am, I am currently the unit trainer. I went through and certified as a trainer through under Mike Reaver through Albuquerque international. And I've been doing that now for about two years, maybe two and a half.

I started in canine, maybe just shy of 10 years ago. So like right in the nine-year mark. Went through with my first dog. And I just, I mean, I've always had a passion for dogs in my life. But, you know, getting into police canine was something that, obviously, I did a little bit later in my career. Yeah, yeah. You know, hindsight being what it is, I wish I had done it earlier because my nearly 50-year-old body isn't as good as the 25-year-old body was.

But, you know, it's a phenomenal profession. And I say this about canine handlers is I truly think that being a dog handler in police work is probably the hardest job on any department because it is there are so many moving pieces and it's rapidly evolving and it changes on a moment's notice.

It's like a call for service you know you hear the first call for service on the radio and you know you jump in your car and you start heading to it and then it starts evolving and it starts getting worse but you're asking questions and you're trying to make sure that you're meeting your policy requirements and your ground versus connor requirements and you know and then and then you get there and you realize that oh well this isn't at all what it sounded like yeah and so

you just have to be able to do that and that's that's why i think that you know being a dog handler it's just It's just so difficult. Yeah. And also, at the same time, the best job on the police department by a country mile for sure. 100%. So what other job do you get to bring your dog to work with you at? Exactly. Yeah. Where's Marietta, California at? North, south, middle?

So Marietta is basically Southern California. We're about, if I had to guess, about 90 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border. We are, you know, as far as location, it's San Diego County, and then the first city in Riverside County is Temecula, and then we're right next, we border Temecula. Okay, all right. And so, yeah, about 100 miles north of the border. And your dogs, are they all dual-purpose dogs? So right now, my dog is the only dual-purpose dog.

We're in the process of getting our other dogs to be narcotics trained. Right now, they're all patrol dogs. And then Roger, my dog, is a dual-purpose dog. And then the other ones will be dual-purpose for sure by the end of next year, but probably the middle of next year. I would be remiss if I didn't also say that I also run our support dog. I know people don't call them real canines, but he's part of the Floppy Year Mafia.

As a Gary from worthless handler would say, you know, he's a cool dog too, but he's not the same at all. No. And I think that's where the rub is, at least with me personally, is that, uh, you know what I mean? There's probably a time and a place for them, but there it's not the, the training and the liability and everything is not the same, but that's truly bringing your pet to work. And, um, you understand that cause you work a one, one, 100%. Yeah.

You're exactly right on that. And I, I, it's funny because I always, I always make the joke myself because I know that people say, oh, you're right. A support dog is not a police dog. And I get it. And I have the luxury of running both. So I run a split kennel so I can take the floppier dog to work and drop him off at the station. And I can take what I call my real dog out into the field and do real work.

Well, does your floppier dog, can he be the emotional support dog for your police dog sometimes?

Can he give him a little support? and you know yeah and and it it's pretty funny because you know at home they're the best buddies you know and and i could i could probably run them in the in the same kennel without a split but you know just for safety purposes it makes sense you don't have the split yeah so what's your workload there are you guys up fairly busy or and i'm understanding that workload for canine across the country is down quite a bit but how is it right now for you guys.

It is. So our workload is down. So again, we are, we're a very middle-class city, you know, obviously. So we, I don't know if you know, you've probably heard of Chad Bianco. Chad Bianco is a sheriff in our, in our County. And so, you know, we're a generally conservative County, a very kind of middle-class County. We have, we deal with, we deal with a lot of quality of life issues. We deal with a lot of, you know, sorts of domestic violence type stuff.

But as far as like, you know, and I say this, I feel like I'm qualified to say this because i don't feel that the work that that we do again i'm not taking anything away from the work that we do as canine handlers but our work is not the same as an lapd or an laso sure yeah we we were we are patrol officers we respond to patrol calls we work beats sometimes we handle a variety of calls and those guys up there are literally just hunting

very bad people all the time but let's i'm gonna i'm gonna jump in there because like the agency that i worked for when i first started in the mid nineties, we, you know, we were dedicated canine unit and we were really, really busy, not, not LAPD. And I've spent a decent amount of time with LAPD and what a, what a cool place to work if you, if you like hunting bad guys. But, but when I first started, we were doing, you know, it wasn't uncommon.

We'd do maybe three, four area searches in a night and come up with some bodies. So we used to be real busy doing that kind of stuff. But what I always respected is even, And, you know, the agencies around us, you know, they would say, oh, you know, you guys are so much different, whatever. But the times that you are working, maybe it isn't as often.

But whether you're in Beverly Hills in a, you know, a billion dollar houses and stuff or you're wherever you're at or if you're in, you know, the worst part of, you know, Chicago or L.A. Or wherever, we do the same thing. You know, we hunt bad guys that, you know, that have an upper hand on us. If they're out in the area, they, they have a tactical advantage to a point because we're, they know we're coming.

And, you know, so the dangers there are the same. It just not, maybe isn't quite as frequent or something like that. But I just, I just, I think it's the, it's the same job. It's just not the quantity. And the reason I wanted to really kind of emphasize that point is as I travel around the country, I train with some good handlers. But when we start talking tactics, they tell me they're a little lax because, well, not much goes on in our city.

But it's going to happen someday. And I'm sure, you know, you've been down there for quite a while. You've had some, you know, no matter how nice the city is, there's been some violent incidents in that city. Yeah. Well, you're, you're 100% correct. And, and like I said, I, I don't say that as, as a negative, you know, listen, I'm happy to live and work in a phenomenal town. Don't get me wrong. Like I, I, I, I'm not sure that I want to work in,

in the ghetto. I've done that. I've spent time in, at other departments. I've done that. You know? And so when I say that though, what I mean is like, when, that's why I think it's so important to, and I call it the fives. And I'll explain that in a second. But that's why it's so important to have people in your circle that you can talk to. And so where we might be lacking, let's say LAPD. Let's say LAPD does 10 searches in a night.

We might not do 10 searches in a month. And so what I do is I rely on talking to those other people so that I can kind of live vicariously through their experiences and bring those experiences back to our training group. And so when I say the rule of five, and I encourage everybody to have a rule of five. If you're a SWAT operator, you know what the fives are. You have the two, three corner and the one, four corner, and you can have full containment on a house with just two people.

So for me, the rule of five is I have five people in my circle that I absolutely trust when I need advice or I am listening to it. And I'm happy to name them. And I start down a list. Tom Fidel, probably a name that's not well known, but he is an operational dog handler, working patrol, has been doing it for a very long time. One of the best in the business. Scott Callender, retired Mesa dog handler. Excellent. Mike Goosby, retired lead trainer for LAPD.

Excellent, excellent resource. I call him my admin whisperer. I tell people if you have an admin problem, Mike Goosby is the guy to go to. Yeah, because he sees it from both ends. He does. He's an admin guy and a working guy. Yeah, Daryl Gonsma, number four, retired LASO handler, owner of Paraclete K9. Man, that guy, he's been in it. Like, he was in it for a long time. And my other one is Mike Reaver of Apple Horse International. That guy has put his hands on more dogs than I bet most humans do.

And so when I need advice, like, I go to those guys for those specific things because of what it is. Like, we don't have our own patrol academy or we don't do these own things. So I need that guidance for those people. And so I value those relationships. And that's one of the things where I think that canine.

Really, if you talk about the industry and what it is, that's one of the things that I think that the canine industry does better than most industries, but can still use some improvement on. And that's being able to have conversations with people and being able to take their input. And what I do is I say, listen, you have a conversation with somebody. And like you said at the beginning, you don't agree with everything I say.

There's no harm, no foul in that. Exactly. But for you to be able to hear what I say and hear my perspective, even if you disagree, it now gives you an understanding where I'm coming from. Exactly. And then we can start that conversation from there. And I think it's important to note that in your five, you know, I, again, you know, I don't really even know each other. So, but that those five people are not your Wednesday training group,

clearly. And I think sometimes people, you know, are like, well, I, you know, I, I discuss things a lot of times, but it's in their own group and they become more insular than they really realize. And they're not getting, you know, fresh ideas from outside their, their circle.

So I like the idea that you kind of have a lot of people with a lot of experience that – and I know if we put all five of those people on the podcast, there's going to be several things that they are pretty adamantly disagree on, some tactics and different things like that from knowing several of them. But everybody would get along just fine. It would just be a matter of opinions. Exactly. And, you know, and like, I'll even go like, that's my core five, but there's a bunch of other people.

When I went through my first Canine Academy, I met a handler by the name of Quinn Hanley. We just, we became friends. He's a trainer. He works up on PD. We became friends. And man, we probably talk to each other once a week about different Canine things, about different tactics. And he'll send me a video of something he did. And I'll send him a video of something I did. And like we, you know, just to collaborate, to make us, to make the whole community better. Yeah.

And I think having those, you know, I've got a lot of really close relationships right in this area. And then, you know, I've been fortunate with all the stuff I've done in this industry, you know, that I have relationships all over the world. But those, one of the things that, and I think you're on the same page that I like about those is that when I'm training with people like that, or if I was to send them a video or whatever, I'll get an honest answer.

I won't get like, Hey, that's, that's phenomenal. I'll get a real opinion, which, you know, I don't need someone to always agree or whatever. So it's, it's good to get that diversity of thought. Yeah. And, and, and I think it, it, it's a, it's a growing moment.

I mean, and that's, that's the hard part. And so like when, when I run my training group and so it's our department and then we have two other departments that, that come in and train with us that, that I do their training for. And, you know, what I learned. What I always try and say, and the big crux of most of my training, and the one thing that really gets me is excuses. Yeah, absolutely. I get it. If you sent your dog, okay, let's do it as an example.

If you're doing an article search, and the final response for the article search is that your dog either sits or lays down. And if your dog goes out there and puts his nose on it and stands there, to me, that's a failure. That's not a found. Right. I don't care if your dog is tired or, you know, oh, he found it, but he don't want to sit like none of that stuff matters. Like, I'm just black and white, like your dog either did it or they didn't.

And so like, I'm fortunate that, you know, the handler group that we have, you know, works so well together. And we all hold each other accountable for that. Because even even as the trainer, you know, I'll go out there and I'll do something and they're like, really, Aaron? I'm like, yeah, that's my bad. Yeah, that's my bad. I did it wrong. And you know what? And for my pens, I'll get in the bite suit next.

And that's the mark of a good trainer, the one who can take the criticism from, you know, I've told stories even on this podcast of doing an e-collar class and someone with six months on the job and learning something from them. You know, so you can, you can take criticism or learn from, you know, from anybody, whether your title's trainer or supervisor or sergeant or whatever, it's, it's a group.

It is, it is. And so like, I look now as I, as I enter the kind of the twilight of my career, I've got, I've got about two years left and I'm going to, I'm going to pull the plug.

And, you know, as I look in the twilight of my career now, like I'm more concerned now more than ever with the sustainability of police canines. And, and, and it's a hundred percent selfish. My son was just accepted to the Riverside Sheriff Department Corrections Academy. So a corrections officer, that's just his foray. He's wanted to be in law enforcement. He's just turned 20 yesterday.

That's where he, that's where he's starting. And my, my goal is that in 10 or 15 years, that if he wants to be a dog handler, that that's available to him, you know, that, that, that, that option is available to him. And, and, and that means that we as an industry have done the right things to make sure. I mean, you know, in California, we're beating back bad bills like nobody's business, you know?

And it's like, you know, when people look at or they talk about the challenges in law enforcement, again, I don't know how well you know Mike Goosby, but Mike Goosby is the guy I look at. I mean, that guy ran a team in what is arguably the most liberal, most litigious city I would bet in the entire country. Yeah. And those guys do it, did it, and continue to do it at a very high level day in and day out. And what is the secret sauce that has allowed that to occur?

Because you and I have all seen agencies across the country disband their canine units for various reasons. You know, how is it that he's been able or he was able to put that program together in a way that was palatable to everybody involved? Yeah. And I mean, the fortunate thing there is that, that, that, that history with LAPD has gone on for so long that, you know, they've learned so much over the years. And the fortunate thing is, is that they, I just said the key word, they learn.

They don't, it's almost like they don't fight the changes. They've had to go with the changes. Whether, whether they like them or not, they have to go with them and, and adapt and, and, you know, keep, keep doing their job and stuff. And I agree. It's a very, very difficult place to work. I've spent some time with them. And you can learn a lot even just picking their brain and how they survive.

And I see, as you say, smaller departments, sometimes they don't survive because they want to dig their heels in and say, this is how we do it and we're not changing. And sometimes, unfortunately, bad policies lead to bad rulings and consequences. 100%. And you're right. And I agree with that. These little units try and dig their heels in. And so again, you know, we're a, we're a four man unit on our, on our department, but we train 52 times a year.

We have 52 dedicated training days every year. We train once a week. Yeah. Not everybody can say that. Yeah. So, I mean, the department has good support. Yeah. We, we, I mean, we, we train more than the SWAT team. We train, you know, we, we get more training and, and so it's like, it's funny cause you know, just like everybody, you know, the handlers that we'll get together and, and, you know, they, they will have a complaint about something.

I'm like, yeah, but like, let, let's, let's figure out what, what we're fighting. And like for me, like, you know, one of the key tenants of my training group is that I tell everybody and every time we have a new person, whether it's a new decoy or we have even a administrator come out or another dog handler, I always say this is like Fight Club. What happens at Fight Club stays at Fight Club.

So what I mean by that is that if we have conversations here, those conversations are meant to be here at this location. Right. And so I, because what I want, and I'm sure that you've seen it. And again, there's, don't get me wrong, Jeff, there's hundreds of people out there with far more experience than I have running training groups and being trainers.

But what I noticed is that when guys come into the training group and maybe they're having some trouble at home or they had got yelled at at work or there's some other issues, you know, they bring that baggage with them, the training group. And it negatively impacts their ability to train.

And so what I want guys to do when they come, and I say guys, we have female handlers too, but I want guys to be able to come there and this is dog training and we're going to focus on dog training and you don't have to worry about if you said, oh, I don't like this particular person or this, whatever. And I tell people, if I find out that something that was said here gets out of this training group, you'll be asked not to come back.

Yeah, you have to have a free and welcoming environment for ideas and stuff. And we have a great idea. Listen, there's no hurt feelings here. If someone says something you don't like, say something. You know, we're, we're, we're all adults here. We're all going to get through this, but I want guys to be able to come there and like, listen, being, being a parent is difficult. Sometimes being a spouse is difficult, being an employee, being a cop. There's a lot of difficult things.

I don't want dog training to be that difficult. I want that to be a relief for people. Yeah. You know, so that's why I want them to come and just, I'm not, it's not a free for all. Don't get me wrong. No. Yeah. Yeah, but you can still enjoy your job, and it's fun to remember that you're getting paid a lot of money to play with dogs. It is. And again, I'll go back a little bit to the Mike Goosby thing for just a second. I first was introduced to Mike on the LEO group.

And I say introduced, like I saw him, I happened to see it. And I'm not going to lie, like a little bit enamored maybe, a little bit of fanboy.

I'm like, oh, here's this. you know i've seen the tv shows that department has tv shows and movies made about him a little bit a little bit enamored by him and and i reached out to him and he you know he's like hey why don't you guys come up for a training day yeah and i'm like oh okay like are you are you sure and and so i remember like our team drove up there this is you know a couple years ago our team drove up there,

and jeff i'm telling you they were the most inviting they're dog guys oh yeah yeah i like Like I said, I've spent some time with them too, and they're easy to work with. They're not, there's no prima donna about that, that, and that's been the case of that agency for as long as I've been around with, you know, different trainers and stuff. Very, very professional and, and very open to, to sharing stuff, you know, from their experience.

And it's funny cause so we, I, and I'll never forget, we run a scenario, we're in a scenario and like their dog, they're running their dogs off leash and we run our dogs, we were running our dogs on leash. And so, you know, it wasn't Mike as one of the other trainers, he's like. Why are you running on a leash? I'm like, Oh. And so I started making excuses about why I was doing it, you know? And he's like, do you like, do you think your dog won't listen to you?

Yeah. And I'm like, no, no, he'll listen to me. He's like, well, let's give it a shot. And I'll tell you what, we ran the dogs off leash and they all did phenomenal. It was just kind of that like moment for me. It's like, we did it this way because I thought that was right. You know? And these guys just, they opened my mind to like, no, just look at, look at other options. Yeah, exactly. I want to back up just a little bit. You talked about that this is a precarious time in canine.

But let's just talk. You've got 25 years on. I've been around for a while, too. I have my opinions. But just in the state of police, as policing in general, how do you feel about it from when you started to now? And not just canine, but just policing in general. Not even just California, just in the entire country. So I think it's harder, right? Oh, absolutely. And I say it's harder not because the job is different, because there are so many more hoops to jump through.

Exactly. So if you want to go from A to B, you can't simply get in your car and drive from A to B. You have to jump through all these hoops before you get there. And that's the hard part. And I remember when I started Brand, Spankin' New, Bright-Eyed and Bushy-Tailed, like, yep, this is where law enforcement, And I remember guys like me back then. Oh, this policing is never going to be the same. This is the way it used to be. This new way is ridiculous.

And like, for me, like, so body cams came during my time. Like when I first started, we didn't have body cameras and now we have body cameras. And so we've had this, people are like, oh my God, I can't believe they're watching every move. They're doing this. And like, I spend my time at, you know, doing my job. But I also like, I've been on the police officer association for a number of years. I've been with administrators.

And most of the time they're saying like, listen, And if guys really think that we're spending hours a day watching their body camera, they have no idea what it's like to do my job. Exactly. And so busy. So the police thing as a whole has changed.

And I think the problem, like, and I've seen a little bit of it generationally, too, as, you know, we as a society have either made it easier for people to do things and made it easier for people to say no. No like there was a time like when i first started in police work if you're a sergeant or you're a lieutenant or your captain someone said hey can you do this that meant right now yeah and the answer was yes it wasn't a discussion yeah yeah exactly

it was right and so now generationally you get guys like well like i'm i don't really know like like what like the other one now they want to debate with the supervisor or like or there's an overtime shift and hey we're short we need to fill this spot. I'm like, well, I don't really know. Like, like I'm busy. Like that's the day. That's the day I stay on the couch. I can't do it.

And so, so generationally there are some issues. And so I, I think as a policing as a whole has gotten more difficult because of regulations. I, I. Those things have made us better and made us more accountable. I think, yeah, I mean, I think there's some, truly there's some, obviously some good changes.

I have no, no argument that my, like, cause in Colorado, you know, I think unfortunately for Colorado, I think a lot of these politicians here see crazy stuff that you, that they do in your state and they're like, hold my beer. We can do, we can do more than that.

So, you know, there's a, there's a, there's a, there's a chunk of politicians here in Colorado that, you know, their, their happiest day is when they can criminally charge a police officer and it's happening right and left, you know, here in Colorado, a lot crazy, crazy times.

You know, I think, uh, you know, I started in 1989 and getting hurt and possibly even getting killed was, you know, it was an acceptable thing that, you know, you could put, you could wrap your mind around, like, I don't want it to happen, but, but I understand it going to prison for doing my job was never part of that exception and and 100 and they seem to that's to me if there's anything that that stands out as the the state of of our entire

policing right now across the country especially in in you know basically kind of anti-police states police that you know like i live in it's it's just the the unjustified you know prosecutions and stuff like that which Which definitely correlates to canine. And, you know, when you were saying it's precarious, I think it's precarious that we could lose canines, especially as a patrol function. I know there's lots of, you know, you guys already fought back some bills, they keep popping up.

One of them is going to stick, unfortunately. And, you know, between that and then prosecutions of canine officers. And I've seen a few videos that they're hard to justify some of the videos. They are. And like if we talk about policing in general, so we recently in California, obviously, I would argue probably one of the hardest states to be a common, you know, but so we recently several years ago, we had SB2, which was the bill that allows for decertification of police officers. Yeah.

Right. And so I know a lot of other states have it, you know, and we have we have Pobar. We have the police officer bill of rights. We have a lot of protections here in California. But that SB2 board scares me because SB2 board, they're not like they're maybe retired cops, but they operate completely independent of any other government agency.

And so, as an example, if I was under investigation in my department and my department did a thorough investigation and they cleared me, and so I'm back to work on 10-8, the SB2 board can still reach in and pull out that investigation and could still potentially decertify me, even though a full investigation has been done and I've been exonerated.

Yeah and that you're right that's the part that scares me too when it comes to canine bills you know we have cory jackson who's one of the paris representatives yeah ab ab742 who says that dogs are racist yeah yeah like and nobody the media challenges them on that it's no on its on its face it is just a ridiculous assumption you know oh the dogs are why does that mean like i'm not listen i'm not saying anything i'm not saying this to say like this is the famous quote oh my

one black friend but we have a a black handler in our group with a dog it's it's it's a crazy.

It's it's so unfounded as a statement but he's not challenged in the media or by you know people that want to want to parrot what he says it's crazy it it's hard because even guys like there were a ton of people in the state you know we have a bunch of good trainers you know and a bunch of people have offered hey i'll debate bob eden from cats yeah hold the stats right you know there's There's another guy that he pulled staff.

He's like, that's just factually incorrect what he's saying, just based on the little amount of information that I'm able to get from my software. I've reached out to him many times in every format I possibly can to tell him to come on this show and talk to him. And not even a response, not even a polite no, not any response, not anything. So he doesn't want, you know, he wants. When you discussed investigations, I think one of the things.

You know, that was good in my whole 33 years was that I think all of our, whether they're internal investigations or if they were looking at you for, you know, a police shooting or whatever it was, they always, everybody that I've ever dealt with always looked at it in the proper way that is written in Graham versus Connery, where they look at the information you have at the time, they don't go back second by second and second guess everything you've done.

They take into account, you know, the changing circumstances. All of that, at least in a couple of cases here in Colorado, some high-profile cases, have all been thrown out the window. They prosecuted some police officers and some paramedics on a deal here.

And they literally sat in the courtroom and went frame by frame and looked at every single thing they did, all in complete violation of what Graham v. Conner said and convicted two paramedics and a police officer on something that they should have never been charged with. That should have a chilling effect. Those types of things, even though that wasn't a canine case, it should have a chilling effect to everybody to really kind of take a step back and think.

And then, again, there's a lot of canine cases. You and I have both seen some of the videos that pop up on the Facebook page, some good some not good or whatever but I see that that you know that trend of. Taking the body camera and overall, I think the body cameras help because they show, you know, you know, kind of a lot of the information, but now it seems like they're, they want to take them frame by frame by frame and argue, you know, and it doesn't matter what you do.

If I tie my shoes and you take it frame by frame at some point on a frame, they're going to say, look, your fingers in the way here or something. It's crazy.

It's a terrible trend. So it is. And I think that, So there was one in California, and I won't name the agency, but the department put out a press release on this, right? And they put the whole videos together about everybody's body cameras. And when it came to using the handler's body cam, they just did a bad job. They just framed it very poorly.

And the dog had a failure, right? It wasn't good, but they framed it in such a way that it not only did it make the dog handler look bad, but it made the department look bad. And I'm not saying that we should – I 100% am not saying we should lie about things. We should not do those things. But when we're doing and putting these sorts of videos together for a press release, I think the departments need to have some consultation with people.

And we're not building a movie here. We're not looking for cinematography. yeah we're looking you know we're just just the facts yeah and i think what i see unfortunately sometimes in the canine industry to wrap it back to that is you know we get these videos and you get it and it is frame by frame and i think that you've probably seen most of my posts that i make i'm like hey listen like if what is said is is accurate that's really bad but i encourage everybody let's get all the facts

first let's understand exactly what happened we we if we go out there and we eat our own and i i call them the fafo mafia you know yeah you know it's it's the fafo mafia is out there and it's like i get it that's a cool catchphrase it's this but it's dangerous because like i i think that it it diminishes or it.

Shows or makes the handlers out to be just knuckle-draggers and again like i said if i go back to my original comment i think that handlers have probably the hardest job on the whole department that there's so much stuff so fluid evolving changing happening at every moment that the handlers have to be thinkers yeah and you know if if we just boil it down to fafo i think that that put this all in a negative light and it makes this look like we're not critical thinkers I 100%

agree and I think that you know that I think that mentality is largely going away and I don't I mean I'll agree early on in my canine career we were busy and we had a lot of fun stuff and I probably was very much in that knuckle dragger you know let's just go out and catch bad guys without really thinking but the world's changed and times have changed and that critical thinking because not only you know you are you know obviously tactics are the the most important, your safety and everything,

then, you know, the legality of all of it. And then on top of it, I don't think people really, I think maybe they think I'm a, you know, the sky is falling kind of thing, but we're, we could really, really be one deployment away from losing it across the country. And people, I think, think that that's an exaggeration, but look at what one George Floyd did. did, George Floyd video did to our entire nation, especially our profession, one really bad canine video.

And there is, there is no canine deployments now that are not on a video somewhere. Exactly. Lots of angles of it probably. And one of the reasons that I feel so passionate about this is because, like, I truly do believe that, you know, and I've said this multiple times in the forum, like, you know, California swings a big stick. And we don't have to hit a home run. It could just be a bunch of singles. But if we're out there with bad deployments, pretty soon that really has the

potential to sweep across the country. If we start limiting it and all of a sudden it just takes, you know, California limits it, then all of a sudden maybe Colorado sees it or maybe New Hampshire. And so now it's a couple. And like this is the this is the scenario I always use. And you might not know this, but at one point in time, there were California smog compliant cars. And then there were 49 state compliant. Yeah. Yeah. And now and now there's not that doesn't exist.

They're just all California smog compliant. Yeah. And I fear that, and maybe I feel more responsibility working in this state to try and help make sure that we're not the cause of something bad sweeping across the nation.

Yeah, yeah. And I think it's a justified fear, the way things work. So, I mean, just kind of to wrap everything up, I think when you say it's the hardest job, you know, you're looking for your own safety, your own everything, plus you don't want to be the one who causes that.

First domino to fall and start going because i agree too i think if california did it then colorado will jump right on board because we're we're your little brother anymore when it comes to politics and then a few other states that are as weird as your state in my state and then i think some bigger agencies would be like well if they're doing it why are we why why do we still have dogs and it's a it's a scary proposition to me i think you know would it happen overnight night no

but it it could happen over you know a long period of time yeah i i think that it wouldn't i think that it's not not a stretch to say that over a five-year period if if california put their foot down and said hey we're doing this i don't think it's a stretch to say over a course of five years that the rest of the country might somehow be browbeaten or whatever into making those changes also. And again, like I said, that's scary to me.

I just, what I want, and like, so we just had a handler graduate at the Basic Academy, comes out of the Basic Academy, and I'm talking to him. And again, we all go, we go up to Adlerhurst International. I love Adlerhurst. They're, you know, under Mike and they're doing a phenomenal job building dogs. And so when I get him, he's asking me, he's like, how do I do this?

How do I do this? And I, And I explained to him, I said, listen, what I'm not going to do is I'm not going to give you how to do this. But I'm going to give you 10 or 5 or 10 options of how you can accomplish that goal, right? And I want to give you all of these different things. And I want you to choose the one that fits your dog best. All of these are acceptable.

We're not going to teach unacceptable things. But, you know, when we're teaching the article search, like we can teach this using this method, this one, this one, or three different methods, and we're going to use the one that suits you and your... Yeah, that you're comfortable with and you're good at. Absolutely. And he doesn't have to do it the way that I do it. Yeah. You know, and I use... I took this from, you know, I took this from Scott calendar, Scott calendar, and I are good friends.

And he's like, listen, he's like, if you go out on the field and your dog is not the best dog on your team, he's like, you're doing something wrong. He's like, you're not putting the best training in. And so I, I really took that to heart and I, I put a ton of training into my dog and like all of our dogs are great dogs and those guys all work hard. And, and so, you know, when I'm training this new guy, I'll pull my dog out

and I'll do something with them. And I had this conversation, like I said, I'm not, I'm not doing this to show you that I'm better than you because I'm not. I'm just like, I'm a high school graduate. I'm just like you. What I'm trying to show you is what's possible. Yeah.

You know, you just have to, if you put the time in and you put the effort in, this is, this is the one field or one of the few fields where results are a direct correlation to effort.

I agree i agree i think i i saw somebody posted on that page uh i don't know a couple weeks ago and i can't remember exactly i was worried if it was if if you're you know a year or two out of your basic handler school and your dog's still having you know some basic issues or whatever it's it's on you at that point it's not on the trainer it's not on on your initial training it's it's on you at that point it's yeah it goes back to the excuses that you were talking about and and i I tell my guys,

again, we're patrol cops. We all have the potential to run a beat. Sometimes we're city cars and we're not stuck in it. But I try and tell my guys, I'm like, listen, if you would just put in 15 to 30 minutes a day with your dog, you are going to see extreme results.

Your dog is going to get it. They're going to pick it up. Like, sure, if you're fortunate enough to be one of those agencies who you run a dedicated unit and you can, you know, spend four or five hours a day training, that's awesome, too. I said, but if you would just commit to on your work days, putting in that time, you will see the results. And I said, again, let your dog just be a dog on your days off. I said, you want days off, he wants days off.

I agree. I always encourage people, you know, go out and when you, you got to give your dog a break when he's running around to take a break, I'll always throw in just some quick, fun obedience games and it keeps them surprisingly clean. You could, I, we had a handler who, uh, for different reasons seemed to miss a lot of training days, but he was diligent about just throwing the Kong and doing call-offs of a Kong and releases and stuff.

And when it came time to a certification, he walked through it and wasn't, it wasn't how I wanted it to happen because he didn't have enough training days but he's still you know just just putting in that that effort on his own he was he was just fine and i think i think the same is true too and i try and i try and tell guys to not just my team but other guys when when you're looking at something and like when you see like okay so we have our agility equipment out

there well we'll have an a-frame or we'll have a catwalk something like that i said run your dog over the catwalk and i said like well we're never going to encounter a catwalk in real life i'm like 100 you are accurate if you encounter a catwalk walk you walked into the yeah but i said you've never seen a raid plant a rape flower bed yeah exactly you know or i said so don't don't look so so microscopically at those things look on the broader scale and how how does the skill that you're

having your dog do translate exactly operational effectiveness and i said our job is to make sure that our dogs are mission ready 24 7 And I said, it's my job as the trainer to make sure that your dogs do not encounter something new for the first time when lives are on the line. Exactly. Exactly. You know, agree more. You know, and so, yeah, I just, like I said, I mean, overall, that's, that's kind of my feeling on, on law enforcement. I just, I just want guys to work smart.

I want guys to have open minds. And I want us as, and I'm not even me, probably you, you're in the position as the senior statesmen, you know, the you, the Goosbees, the Gaunts, you know, the Calendars, those guys who've got 20, you know, Howard, you know, all those guys who've got 20 plus years in law enforcement. It's like, I almost feel like, like to re to instill some civility back in the units and, and to just be that voice of reason.

And I'm worried that some young handlers will come on and they'll see the discord and they'll see the, you know, the arguing and they'll see the whatever. And they'll either get turned off by the industry and not want to be a part of it or they'll pick up a bad habit because it wasn't the popular answer. It was just the loudest answer that they heard. And that's fair, too. You know, it takes some research, but.

Well, I think this has been a good conversation. Like I said, I just thought it'd be fun to sit down, talk to you a little bit, kind of the state of the industry. You've been a cop for a long time, you know, towards the end of your career. Not what, you know, I think what I like about talking to you is there's not a big personal agenda here. You're not trying to sell your, you know, training or whatever product or whatever, just a real passionate, hardworking dog handler.

So I appreciate you coming on today and kind of sharing that. And if people, you don't want to reach out to you, you can reach out to me and I'll pass them directly on to Aaron. And, and maybe if we get some more feedback, I'll bring you back on and we'll talk some more. Yeah. And if anyone finds himself in Southern California, we train every single Wednesday and, you know, I, I, I turn no, I turn no one away.

And so if you want to come train, I don't care if you're the greatest dog handler in the world or the worst dog handler, everybody's welcome in our group and we're all going to have a great time doing it. That's excellent. Well, thanks Aaron. I appreciate the time. Of course, man. Happy to do it. All right. Well, I hope you liked that show.

Like I said, Aaron's not a real well-known name, but I think he's just a well-thought-out, seasoned officer who has some really good reminders and some good ideas.

So I like bringing people like that on the show and just letting you hear from a different viewpoint from somebody maybe you haven't heard from before.

If you like that idea and you have some people that you train with that you think would be a good fit for that, that or if it's even you and you just want to have some good ideas or some good opinions and you want to share them just reach out to me you can email me at jeffmeyer1 at outlook.com i like getting new people that you know shares new ideas so i really welcome that kind of feedback so just

reach out to me through the show and i'd be happy to you know get new guests on here as much as we can. Before we sign off, I just want to thank a couple more sponsors. So every show you've been hearing me talk about Bob Eden's canine record keeping software, catsplatinum.com. Again, that's just a first software that came out, and it's a software that you can really make to your own. So you can customize it as much as you want and then push buttons, and you'll get really professional reports.

Those reports are great when your admin is asking you for stuff or if you have to go to court. So check out catsplatinum.com, and if you call there, you'll be talking to Bob Eden himself, and he does all the customer service there. So really outstanding product.

Finally, last episode, if you listened to it, I had Kevin Sheldahl on the show. He had a lot of really good information when we were talking about human remains dogs, but Kevin's knowledge goes over all of different types of police dogs. So if you need training in either the human remains dogs that we talked about last week or you want to talk to them about patrol dogs, SWAT dogs, any type of detections, setting up canine unit audits, Kevin can do all that for you.

He can come to you or you can go visit his facilities down in New Mexico. So Kevin's company name is Canine Services and they provide just about everything canine related. So check out k9services.com.

So it's k-9services.com. Or give Kevin a call at 505-250-4576. Wealth and all. Music.