Jeff Meyer Talks with Colorado K9 Conference Instructor Howard Young

Hello, everybody. Before we get to the show, I just want to pay a few bills here and thank a couple sponsors for sponsoring the show.

First sponsor I want to talk about is Next Level Canine Academy. Tim Adams is vending dogs out of, he's got Utah and Las Vegas. His kennel's in Las Vegas. You've heard me talk about Tim. He brought me some dogs up here to Denver and the dog just finished training one of them. Fantastic dog. So the customer service from Next Level Canine was fantastic, and Tim was really easy to work with. Since then, he's been up here and sold a few dogs to some other agencies.

So if you're looking for a dog, check out Next Level Canine Institute online, or give Tim a call. 801-358-0120 is his phone number, and the link to his business will be here on the show notes here. But Tim's also going to be the lead sponsor of the Colorado Canine Conference. So the Colorado Canine Conference is back this year. We're going to move it a little bit north. We'll be in Loveland, Colorado the last week of July.

A lot of the instructors from last year are returning, plus a lot of great new instructors we're going to add on. So it'll be bigger and better than last year, and the feedback last year was really good. One of the cool things with Tim Adams coming from Next Level Canine is he's going to be the sponsor, and he's going to have dogs for sale. So he'll have single-purpose and dual-purpose dogs with him that you can test. And if you like them, take one home with you.

So it'll be an opportunity that he's going to let us use some of his dogs for selection test class. You can test the dogs yourself, take them, work them with some of the different vendors or instructors we have. So maybe if you like a dog and you want to see what some of the instructors think of the dog, get some second, third, fourth opinions, great opportunity to buy a dog and end up being real satisfied with it. So come to the Colorado Canine Conference at the end of July.

And you'll be able to meet Tim and all of our great instructors. So the website for that is in the show notes also, but it's coloradocanineconference.com. Also, I wanted to mention acecanine.com. So it's going to start getting warmer. Make sure your heat alarms are functioning properly now so that way, in case you need to get them repaired, that you have time to get them up and running before the hot summer. So check your heat alarm. And if you have an Ace Canine, just run the self-test on it.

If you don't have an ace canine probably a good time to maybe start thinking about getting the best canine heat alarm on the market so ace canine has the cellular option great customer service and it's just all around i think the industry standard for heat alarms i would not recommend any other brand other than ace canine so check out ace canine.com for all your heat alarm needs and then finally let's talk about ray allen real quick ray

allen's here in colorado and they have obviously been around forever. If you're dog handling, you know who Ray Allen is. But check out the what's new part on their webpage. It's just fun to go on there, click on it, and see what's going on on their webpage. They always have new stuff. They have a lot of videos, videos about products, and products also talk about some training and different stuff. So besides equipment, there's a ton of information. So check out the webpage at rayallen.com.

And with that, let's flip over and talk to Howard Young and see what he's going to be teaching here in Colorado in the end of July. Music.

This is the Police Canine Training Podcast with Jeff Meyer. Join us for each episode to get real-world advice from canine professionals who have experience on the street. Each episode will focus on up-to-date information that you can use on the street. Spend about 30 minutes with us each week as part of your training day. Our goal at Police Canine Training is to make every canine team be the best they can be. Welcome to the Police Canine Training Podcast. I'm your host, Jeff Meyer.

Today, I have Howard Young with me. Brought Howard on just to talk some more. He's been on the show a couple times. And Howard, again, is going to be teaching at the Colorado Canine Conference, which we're doing here in Colorado in July again of this year. So we've got Howard on. We're going to talk a little bit about what Howard's up to now and then what he's going to be teaching here in Colorado in a few months. So how are you doing today, Howard?

I'm doing very well. I'm glad to be on again. Yeah, happy to have you. You're staying busy, and did you get some snow there too? Well, we had a couple threats of snow, and we got cheated. We didn't really get any. We always have extra snow here in Colorado. I'll send you some. Yes, please do. So we'll just jump right into this. For last year, you taught this class, but then you were doing like a muzzle station for the hands-on stuff.

This year, you're going to do kind of a similar class. I think you've updated a little bit. Let's just talk about the class you're going to do, which is called Steps to Effective Engagement. And then the description that you sent me is a frequently asked question is, how can I ensure that my dog will engage a suspect when the time arises? Conventional wisdom suggests that preparing your dog for a real-world engagement involves a myriad of activities in order to remove any confusion for the dog.

If we have done our due diligence and selected the right dog for the job, we must prepare the dog for the battle. There are no shortcuts, and it's never just one thing that gets the job done. In this class, Howard will share a recipe to prepare your dog for real-world engagement. Note, the class explores a variety of techniques.

In this industry, many things are ever-evolving, but many times techniques are cyclical and have a way of coming back around again, whether they are a technique is new or simply a rebranded technique it's imperative that it's done to fidelity and i mean those of us who have been in this industry for quite a while now we've seen those cycles go through quite a few times and it's not a bad thing i think sometimes people come up with new

stuff and then the old if you want to call it the old technique kind of goes by the wayside and then a dog presents itself and you start remembering how we used to do this and then that technique is more popular again. It doesn't seem like there's not a ton of new training, maybe, you know, twists on the traditional training here and there. But generally, you know, what's out there is kind of, like you say, cyclical. So I like that paragraph quite a bit.

Yeah, well, thank you. You know, I think there are probably times in my career doing this that I've, used to do something and then for some reason I stopped doing it. And then there's, there was probably not a good reason to stop it. There may, there may be a good reason to, to revisit some of those things. So yeah, I think it is very, very cyclical and people, you know, do put their own spin, their own brand on it. And that's, you know, that's a good thing. Absolutely.

I mean, I'd say any of these techniques we're talking about, even if it's a similar technique today, hey, if we go back to how we did it 20 years ago or 30 years ago, the technique might be similar, but people have figured out ways to improve it.

And oftentimes from what my perspective is, I'm curious if yours is the same, is I think, especially 25 years ago, I think we gave lip service to dog psychology and the science part of it and kind of used the words but didn't implement as deeply now as we do, you know, like thinking about trying to work a dog and drive and think, trying to figure out what drive the dog's in and stuff.

And it seems like maybe the technique's the same, but we're trying to apply a little more scientific principles to it. Yeah, I think so too. And I think looking at taking behaviors a step further than, at least for me, you know, I would say in the past I would, strive to have a dog that would bite with a full grip and that would maybe counter in. But now, you know, I think it is definitely a step further in. We're not just looking for a full bite. We're also looking for a pushing forward bite.

Yeah, yeah. And that was something that was missing in my training. I think most of ours. Certainly, yeah. So I do think we're certainly, we're evolving as a group and gaining better understanding of what we're doing. And I think if we can apply, you know, back it up with science, then, you know, that's a good thing too.

Yeah, I agree. And I'd like, you know, I know like the first dog I trained, obviously, I think we talked about briefly about maybe classical conditioning, but certainly not, you know, operant conditioning and not learning, you know, quadrants and that kind of stuff and never got that deep into it.

And I think, you know, we talked about dog psychology on the basics of it, but it wasn't until later when I was really trying to problem solve real difficult dogs that I realized how valuable all of that information could be, you know, to really try to analyze the dog better before I even go out and try to train him a little bit, try and look at his behavior from a science base of it.

Yes. You know, one of the things that I've noticed too is that, you know, the lingo has evolved and changed as well. When I hear people talk about specific behaviors, I don't even know that behaviors was in my vocabulary. But it certainly makes sense. We're trying to elicit certain behaviors and reinforce them and make them very impactful.

Exactly. So in this class, how did you end up, you know, what, what got you passionate about this particular subject? Well, typically I think those sorts of that chain of thinking comes from having experienced some failures and, and trying to figure out, well, and you see this frequently in dog groups or whether it's on Facebook or any kind of dog group where people are, they've had a failure. And they're grasping at how do we overcome this failure.

And I think that the answers are fairly typical or the responses to that problem is, you know, one is trying to eliminate the equipment in some fashion or another, make it more realistic looking.

And I think everybody seems to think that they have, if they've overcome that issue or even if they've never had that issue, they feel like they have the answer and there is no one real answer sure sure and that's really the the class from my perspective is having done this for a while is that what has been most effective for us is a culmination of things yeah you know not not just muzzle but maybe also prosthetic yeah also teaching some just making sure that

we have good powerful grip mechanics the whole idea of the bark fence or the bite fence. I think that's a cool aspect. And again, that's not a new, that's not something that is necessarily new. I know that some of the old time, when I say old time, some of the Schutzen guys back in the day were doing that kind of thing. Godfrey Dildai was doing it with Schutzen dogs. And just to be clear, when we're talking about, we started this by talking about failure.

So failure in these terms, what we're talking about is a patrol dog that is in the right situation and everything, all the stars are aligned, right, that this patrol dog should actually bite a person and fails to do so. Usually, you know, on the dog's first, second, third opportunity that he's had to do so and just doesn't perform the way that we want him to, right? Right. So we talk about pictures, too.

If dogs, if we believe that dogs learn in pictures, and what I mean by that is that they have to see certain, situations that they are they're able to understand and identify what they're supposed to do you know we one of the the things that we really focus on too is passive someone that is being very still you know dogs are are prey monsters at least the ones we tend to work with so they understand if if it's moving i'm supposed to go get it they may not understand

well what about the thing that is that is lying in wait and being still in a room they have to understand that picture as well yep. Yeah, and it's just like you say, just that exposure and showing them because I think we get those training scars built in of, you know, the decoys do this and then the dog knows that it's okay to bite that person. And then that's why I think you're probably on the same page.

To the best of my ability from day one, I try to do things thinking that this is what the suspect's going to do, you know, in a building search when we're teaching the dog to use his nose and search. Never, ever, ever do I make noise. Try not to have decoys, present their arm, you know, bring the fight to it. So I assume it's that same philosophy that you're in. Absolutely. And I remember from previous conversations with you that you like to do away

with the sleeve pretty quickly too, don't you? Yeah. Yeah. Like, I'll tell you how quickly I do away with it. I don't use it. That's pretty quick. I have a sleeve that it's 20 years old and it looks, I mean, almost brand new. I'll use it every once in a while if I have a dog that I believe is just a little young and needs to just learn how to open his mouth and bite correctly. And I'll bungee that dog, and I'll do that for a short period of time and then kind of work back up into the suit.

But I know I'm probably on the opposite of that. But I just got done training two dogs for a contract for one of the counties. And those dogs, they probably saw a sleeve in Europe, but they sure as hell didn't see it through the whole three months that we were training together.

I just think it gives the dog you know when talking about pictures i think that's a powerful picture for the dog to see this big thing on their arm and then when it's missing you know at least a bite suit is is kind of a consistent cover for the whole person and then we try to put clothes over it and stuff and make it look a little more realistic when we can yeah. So let's back up to the, when we talk about, cause I mean, again,

I think we've, we've had this discussion. I think we've talked about it here. If you've done this for a while, you've had a failure. And if you haven't had one, then you're a liar. Cause we've all, I mean, there's my own dogs, dogs that I've been responsible for training.

You know when when the time came things you know for the first couple of them on a lot of them that didn't go quite quite right but i think i think sometimes when especially now in the environment that we're in focusing too much on making sure that this dog you know just goes and just destroys this guy on this first bite is kind of it's it's kind of dangerous because in my opinion i want to pick your mind on it I think when that expectation is built for a handler that you know you

got this monster dog and he's gonna you know first time you ever bite somebody look out and then when it doesn't go right a new handler sometimes is not prepared for you know the handler doesn't have the picture in their mind like whoa what happened the dog barely bit the guy and now he's back to my side and I think sometimes that's when we get those videos of handlers that are grabbing the dog and throwing him on top of a suspect, trying to, trying to make something work out.

And I think that kind of starts with not educating the handlers at the beginning that, you know, we're, a dog is the most unpredictable piece of equipment in law enforcement. So all the great training in the world, your scenario on the first one might not line up the way we, the dog thinks it should, and it might not go right. So in your training, uh. I guess my long-winded question is, what really constitutes a failure?

So I guess what constitutes a failure from my perspective would be just the situation where the handler sends the dog to make an apprehension and the dog either fails to engage or isn't fully committed. And I kind of like to prepare folks for the worst. You know, we won't, we won't assume that they're going to do well. And if we've done our due diligence by one, selecting the right dog and two, preparing that dog.

But even then we can't, we can't always trust that the first time it's going to go as expected. And I think that, you know, from, from the naive perspective of a new handler who sees his dog bite day after day in training, they think that it's going to all work out the way it should. And we know from experience that it, that it doesn't always, and when it does, it's, you know, it's amazing. When it doesn't, it's, when it doesn't, it's devastating.

And, and I wish it wasn't such a devastating thing. So I, that's why I say I try to prepare guys for, you know, this, this probably isn't going to play out the way you thought it would in your head. You know, you, you're expecting this great dynamic thing where the dog was just going to take the guy off his feet and it may not work like that at all. And if it doesn't, it's not the end of the day. And we'll just, we'll just work on it. Hopefully, you know, we can, you know,

get that thing turned around. And usually we can. Yeah. Usually it's, we, we realize, well, maybe he's not seen enough of this and we, we kind of back up and sometimes we'll try to replicate the exact thing that took place. And, but then other times it's just continuing on the path that we're, we're going and we just need more exposure.

Yeah. And that's what I like about, you know, when we're talking about some people tell me I had a failure and then, you know what, they'll describe something like maybe the dog searched really well got to the person you know i knew for sure he was working the guy went under the bush pushed on the guy barely bit him and then came back to me that's not necessarily a failure at that point it i think i think we it and the reason

i you know i kind of like to harp on it is if if it happens just like that and the handler has in his mind okay we've we've located the guy our dog's a locating tool that's what we all say they're primarily do so we haven't failed he found this guy. He didn't latch onto the guy like I thought he would, but now I've backed up, I've got cover. I get the dog refocused and the dog's now paying attention, starts barking, can smell the guy.

We order the guy out. There's no more contact with the suspect, but the dog thinks he's won. That ends on a positive, you know? And I think a lot of times it turns into a failure when the handlers try to push the issue. It's like, for whatever reason, that dog is not going to engage that guy right now. And then they just keep trying to do other things to try to take a dog that's out of drive and under stress and try to get them to engage the person.

And, you know, besides getting the dog, you know, under more stress, you're obviously, you know, putting yourself in jeopardy, you know, civil and legal problems and everything. And when I watch those videos, I think it's, it's like a lack of training, not letting the handler know it.

Quite often it doesn't work well so right right there's a it's funny there's a video that's floating around but it's i think it's i don't know how old it is i think it's probably with less than a year old it's from somewhere out on the west coast and i don't want to say names because i really don't know what agency it is it really doesn't matter yeah but it's very agitated individual who has a ladder oh yeah and he's sending the dog off

with the ladder and of course You know, there's so many different schools of thought. Some people feel like the dog is, you know, a failure or a week. And then my perspective is it's probably not even a dog call anyway.

Yeah. So, but what's unfortunate about it is that it's kind of what you're describing is that the handler, rather than seeing that the dog is maybe working at a deficit or not really being a hard charger and putting all self-preservation aside, the dog is basically being managed by the guy with the ladder. He wants desperately, the handler wants to desperately make it happen.

It's not going to happen. So, you know, at that point, you know, call the dog back and let's, you know, regroup and figure out how to deal with this situation.

Yeah, and that's something that I've actually, you know, in the last just couple of years, I've really instituted that into my training a lot, that, you know, when we have a, if we're like, you know, if we're going to put the dog under some stress, a dog that I've been training a lot with lately doesn't like slick floors a whole lot and doesn't like small rooms. So we set a scenario up and the dog went into the room a little bit, wasn't comfortable, bit the decoy a little bit and came back.

And the whole, instead of, you know, I think the handler thought that the training was to get the dog to go in the room. But what the real training for me was, is the handler going to grab the dog, leash him up, order the guy out and do it just like, you know, if that happened in the real deal.

And so we've been working those types of scenarios. And then just recently that handler, not the strongest dog in the world, had a weird deal, you know, with the real person in front of him, went through his training and the dog ended up, you know, really focusing on the guy.

Didn't need to bite the guy, but he said with all confidence the dog would have because you know the handler started learning that the the there's there's steps that you have to go through on real deployments to get the dog focused sometimes, yeah so when you're when we're going back to just the dog the dog training you know i know that we're talking about varied equipment and stuff.

Do you use a sleeve? Do you do a bite suit? I know you do muzzle for sure, but do you have a method to that or is it just kind of dog by dog? Yeah, I'd say it's really dog by dog. Don't do a lot of sleeve. Yeah. I have, like you, I have used some sleeves in terms of maybe trying to improve the grip. Yeah. And sometimes, you know, a big barrel sleeve gets the dog to open his mouth. Yeah. And really chomp down and maintain some good pressure. It was really strange.

I'm working a dog right now that is not at all happy with his bite work. And I started thinking that he was very frontal with his grips. And I thought, well, I know how to fix that. I think I do. But it's really bizarre how some dogs are just, they seem to be right out of the womb, know how to do that. Yeah, yeah. And so it makes you really question how much of that is genetic.

But I do think you can improve upon it. So with this particular dog, I was using just a soft sleeve, and I thought, no, we're going to go to a big barrel sleeve and see if we can't. So he looks really good on a big barrel sleeve. The other thing that he looks really good on is we call it, it's like a leather wedge or a leather pillow. Yeah. And he grips that thing full. In fact, I think of all the equipment that we've used as probably his favorite, which might be a red flag in and of itself.

When we do, we get him on a sleeve, it goes right back to that crappy grip. Every once in a while, it looks pretty good. But, you know, I just don't think he's really comfortable biting a man. Yeah, yeah. I think he prefers, you know, there again, he sees that sleeve is a piece of equipment and he's comfortable with that equipment.

Yeah. He's comfortable with that leather pillow. it's equipment yeah but when he has to engage a full-blown individual i think it's almost too much for him yeah it's so i don't know if i'm answering your question yeah you absolutely are absolutely and just for our listeners besides being a shallow bite what else are you seeing with that dog i suspect a lot of vocalization yeah which it seems stressful to be stressed yeah it's not a happy you know i'm enjoying this i

think and it's a lot of shaking yeah so from my perspective i think where the dog is in his head space is that he wants to grab it and kill it and have the fight be over with yeah as soon as possible and when and when the fight goes on he becomes just more anxious yeah and a lot of times dogs like that what i've seen i'm sure you probably see the same things you start looking their eyes and their eyes are looking at where they want to go, not, not back at you.

Exactly. He does. He's doing, you see a lot of whites of his eyes. He's looking around what's going on in the room. So I'm not real happy with it. I don't know what my final decision is going to be. We're already pretty deep into this, but then you have to ask yourself, this is the dog for the next eight to 10 years. So sometimes it's, even though you've invested heavily and all the other aspects seem to be going pretty well, this is a vital part of what he needs to be able to do.

Yeah, it's telling you what's in his mind. Yeah. Yeah.

And I think, you know, that's, I like talking to people like you that, you know, had a lot of dogs go through your hands. Because I think one of the things that you learn, you know, doing it a long time are those small idiosyncrasies, you know, the whites in their eyes. And I think as a new handler, that didn't mean that much to me. I knew that, you know, one time we had a dog that bit shallow, but he just bit shallow. And I didn't look at everything else, you know, what was important.

And interestingly enough, later, as I was a trainer, I had another dog that bit shallow. But all of the other stuff that you would look for, the whites in his eyes, the vocalization, the shaking, the ears back, you know, any other thing that the dog was super, super comfortable and everything. He just bit with the front of his mouth. And we ended up putting the dog in service. And he had plenty of street bites. and just, he always looked like crappy, but the dog hunted well and it would bite.

And whenever we do, you know, people came and saw him, they always wanted to try and fix his bite. And I got to this point where it was like, there's nothing to fix. And we stressed him trying to make him do different stuff. And, you know, sometimes dogs are dogs on that kind of stuff. For sure. You know, to contrast it, we've got this, I've got a neighbor that's got a really well-bred Malinois that he has brought out to train.

He brings it out to training some, and I pull out a leather wedge, and this dog has got this thing fully. I mean, it can't get any more in his mouth. Yeah. And he's never had anything like that in his mouth before. Yeah. It's like, it's just disgusting. Yeah. But then that same dog might not really want to ever bite a person,

you know? Right. Exactly. So do you do, is there some scenario stuff also, or what, you know, besides, you know, we always focus on, cause it seems like the failure, if you will, is that the dog doesn't bite.

So then to fix that, we focus on making the dog bite in different scenarios, but I assume you have other stuff that you want to look at with the dog, you know, before, before he goes out and starts doing his initial searches, you know, on his own, as far as like scenarios or handler stuff or whatever, just to get the whole team ready for those first, first deployments. Sure. I mean, I do want the dog to, to, to enter a room looking for,

not necessarily looking for movement, but for looking for a target. Yeah. So we may initially, he may see somebody run down the hallway and we pull the dog back and he doesn't know where they are. So when we release the dog, he's got no, he just knows there's somebody in there. Yeah. So that's kind of a starter for him.

And I'm really finding that I feel like I've maybe made some mistakes in my building search where I've started focusing way too much on trying to get a good indication at the door rather than trying to really enhance hunting behavior first. And I was just thinking, we need to spend some time with some of our dogs just letting them hunt. Yep. Yeah. And then we'll work on that actual indication at the door.

So having dogs pursue folks that are active, having dogs pursue people that are passive and, you know, not making any sound at all, having them engage somebody that is laying down. Yeah. All seated, you know, then someone that's confrontational. Yeah. It comes out and challenges them, you know, by surprise. It keeps coming. Yeah. Just all those things. It's every possible thing we can think that they may encounter. Yeah.

And what, so since you've done, you know, like this type of training, you know, for probably quite a while, has there been some stuff that has evolved, you know, that you've added in, you know, like I'll give you an example for me. We didn't do, when I first was a handler, we did a little bit of muzzle, not quite as much. And now I do, I do a lot of muzzle and I think in my, my time training dogs, muzzle would be something I'd start later in their training.

And now I actually start earlier in their training just because I, I want the dog to know that it's not just a bite suit, you know, that you're going to be in these environments in lots of different ways. So are there things that you're still evolving with and finding, you know? Yeah, I think we do the muzzle probably fairly early on. And I think that the danger is that, that we just do bite work or just aggression with it.

So, you know, I really have stressed to some of the handlers that what I'd like for them to do is just periodically while they're working, put the muzzle on the dog. Yeah. He just rides around in the car for an hour or half an hour. The length of time is irrelevant where he's just not being asked to do anything. Yeah. Yeah. It's just on. And so he doesn't necessarily view the muzzle as a tool in which he uses to fight. He could possibly track with it on.

Yeah, yeah. He could actually do a detection situation with it. Yeah. So I think it's a real disservice to not only the dog, but maybe even your vet. The only thing the dog ever does in a muzzle is fight. Yeah. You think, well, I'm going to put the muzzle on him and take him to the vet. Yeah. That doesn't usually work out too well. No, I think that's a great point.

I think having a dog that's very neutral in muzzle, another advantage that people kind of forget about is I had a dog that got injured real bad. He had a bunch of stitches inside and outside his back leg. Instead of having to wear the cone of shame and all that, I just was able to put his muzzle on and he was so neutral in the muzzle, he had to recover at home for about two months and most of the time he just had his muzzle on and it didn't mean anything.

So, and I'd done that work beforehand with him. So, you know, there's some good benefits to having a good neutral, neutral muzzle behavior.

Sure. For sure. And then when we're talking about, you know, these failures and stuff, I think one of the things that at least in, for my training that's changed is if I went to a vendor and I had a bunch of dogs to look at. And I think we've all, I think you and I have even talked about this, is I would get the craziest, highest drive, baddest ass dog that I could possibly get out of the kennel. And then we'd have to fight with that dog to get, you know, a decent amount

of control on him. But the dog was always...

You know kind of right on that edge because he was not and somewhat social you know social because they had to be but not social because they were social and just that that you know kind of a street monster is what we'd call them dog and we kind of wanted that but then we through just necessity a few times when i bought dogs those dogs weren't available and i got some dogs that But when I look back, they were super social, easy to handle, easy to train.

And in the first couple of times engaging a person, they might have struggled a little bit. Where these really badass dogs, most of the time they would kind of figure it out a little quicker. But I assume you probably had that same kind of. Oh, for sure. I mean, there are dogs that we've had that I would not get again. And those are the dogs that they probably did well on their first one, but the juice isn't worth the squeeze on those when we've figured out how to train properly.

For sure. And one of the unfortunate things that happens in some of the smaller agencies that I work with is that it's rare that the individual that starts the dog is going to be the individual that retires the dog. That's a good point in the smaller agencies. So, and we have situate, we are very successful at getting a new handler up to speed on a, you know, an existing dog or a retread, however you want to look at that. But the more badass that dog is, or the more sharp that dog is,

the harder that process is. Yeah. I mean, we, I, this is a, an unusual situation, but we had a check shepherd years ago that was super, super hard. He had four handlers, and the one thing I could tell each handler is that he's going to bite you. You know, I don't know when. It's not a matter of if, it's just a matter of when. You're going to step on his foot, and it's not going to be an all-out attack, but he's going to let you know. And true to form, that's exactly what would happen each time.

I mean, he never really sent any of them to the hospital with anything serious, but he'd let you know. Yeah. On that note, what about the dogs that, you know, I've seen kind of a little bit less. It seems like, and maybe it was just the vendors we were dealing and the vendors knew that we'd take kind of asshole dogs back then. But it seems like a lot of the dogs now don't have as much propensity to go up the leash.

As they did you know maybe 25 years ago or like maybe that was ones we just happened to buy but are you seeing less of that and when you do see it are you putting up with it the way maybe you used to or do you just kind of move on now i think we're seeing less of it this this particular dog that has the grip that i'm not happy with is a little bit on the sharp side and is actually he We had to choke him out to the point that, you know, because he kept coming.

Fortunately, the handler was kind of prepared for it. Could kind of see it building. I think, you know, hopefully we've gotten a little smarter in our training, too. We try to create less conflict. I think conflict is where that typically comes in. And it's the dog doesn't understand or we're, we're putting undue pressure before the dog has any kind of understanding what it's supposed to do. And that's where those situations arise.

I think that's a great. Yeah. Sometimes we have to, we have to handle it the way we've, I only know self-preservation kicked in at some point. Right. So. Absolutely. And, and that's what, uh, you know, I think the same thing that. I've just, you know, like I've had an agency not too long ago come to me and they showed me a dog and I looked at it and the handler was doing everything he could, but the dog was just continuously biting him.

And I told him, you know, there's just enough nice dogs out there that you don't have to put up with it.

You know, go find a nicer dog. If it's something where the dog just needs to learn or you got to change your training a little bit, you know, because I think, and when you say that, that resonates real well with me, what you're saying about the stress and the conflict, because I think the way I was trained and then definitely the way I first started training, I was a little bit hardheaded and it was like, this is how we train and the dog better adapt.

And now i think what like a light bulb moment to me one time was a years back i was reading something on the internet i think on leerberg's thing and somebody wrote an article about why you should never alpha roll your dog and that's a that's a whole podcast but i was taught it is i was taught to alpha roll i'm sure you probably were too and i was it was a technique that i still think it has value in the right time and place but the way i had the first dog i had he got alpha rolled a lot.

And then I read this article and the title of the article was why you should never alpha roll your dog. And I thought, well, here's a, here's a guy who doesn't know how to, you know, how to train a tough dog. And so, well, then you read the, you read it. And the guy had the resume that he had trained many, many tough dogs.

And the whole point of it was if you're doing stuff where you've got to roll your dog, cause he's coming back and training, train a different way, you know, quit, quit fighting with the dog. And it was like a light bulb came on, like, I guess we could do things different and quit picking these fights, you know? And now I haven't had, even dogs that maybe would have that propensity, like you say, I'm very cognizant of taking conflict out of training as much

as possible. You know, there's always going to be a little bit. I assume that's probably stuff that you've changed over the years also. Oh, for sure. And I can't think of a specific example, but I think the implementation of food and certainly helping to eliminate some conflict in the very beginning. It's kind of funny. I've got a Dutch shepherd that's a bit of a butthole. And, you know, when I go out of town, I'll have a handler that will take care of him.

And I've got a big fenced-in backyard. And he stays in a 10 by 20 kennel. So when he lets him out to clean the kennel and feed him, we have a very, very specific routine about how he goes back in the kennel. And if you try to force it, you're going to find yourself in trouble. If you don't overstimulate him and you let him do his thing and go through the routine, which is a routine where we call him up on the deck, you have him sit.

You give him a little piece of freeze dried liver he will take the initiative and run to the kennel because he knows that's the routine yeah yeah if if you stand at the kennel door and you call him and you try to tell him to go in there he's probably coming to get you yeah that's one of those dogs that has asked me what to do you know ask me to do something don't don't tell me to do it. Just ask me. Exactly. I'll do it if I'm ready. If you're polite. Yeah. Yeah.

And I think I was raised in an environment that I'll tell you to do whatever I want to tell you to do. I'm going to make you go in there. Yeah. And the battle would be on. I'd grab them, throw them in there and then somebody be bleeding him or me or both. And I think, I think I see that universally that a lot of that's being taken out.

And I think what's germane to this conversation is I firmly believe that when you get rid of that handler-dog conflict, that when there's some stress in these initial encounters with a real suspect, there's not as much conflict with the dog, and they probably will respond a lot better to your natural stress. Because if you're stressed, and that usually means violence is coming to the dog, then in that time the dog is going to shut down pretty quickly.

Yeah, I guess if you're being heavy-handed, and you're really using a lot of compulsion. At what point are you being viewed as an adversary versus a partner? And it's not uncommon. And I think, you know, until we started really discussing it today, I never probably thought it through in my mind that way. But I can think of some people that I know that are probably a little bit heavier handed handlers.

And they often are the ones that have those issues on the street, you know, and try to force the issue as opposed to, you know, when it doesn't go right, there's still probably ways to try to make it positive for the dog in that environment. Sure. Well, that's good stuff. I mean, is there any other things that you think of before we sign off that you want to add in on your class?

No, nothing that I can think of. I imagine I'm going to have kind of free reign to do different activities with different folks. And I'm looking forward to it. We had such a great time last year. I know the instructors did. I know the feedback from the participants was good. I certainly try to encourage folks to go to it. Of course, I'm on the other side of the world from you. Should be a good time. We're going to be, we're actually moving a little bit

north. We're going to be in Loveland, Colorado. So just right next to Fort Collins, Colorado, but fly into Denver or drive in. And we have some fantastic training venues. We've got some, based on last year, we've got a few cool things. We're going to, one of the cool things, we're going to be able to do some intensive tracking. And one of the instructors we have doing tracking has a good relationship with the University of Northern Colorado.

It's a decent sized campus in Greeley we're going to own a huge chunk of that campus to go and we'll have groups that will do like a one day intensive urban tracking course through the middle of the campus and work on different environments as opposed to just going to like a golf course or somewhere it'll be a kind of real world tracking and Mike Kamesik from Sheepdog Guardian is going to come and do the keynote class so you get a Sheepdog Guardian legal update on the first day.

So it's going to be a fun time. I'm glad to have you back again. And yeah, I appreciate it. I'm looking forward to it.

So certainly honored to be one of the instructors. Absolutely. Absolutely. So, well, Howard, I appreciate your time today and we will be in touch very soon. Okay. Sounds good. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Well, that's going to wrap it up and I hope you enjoyed that show. Howard's a great guy to talk to and he's even more fun in person, and just a very relaxed, laid-back person, but a ton of knowledge. And sometimes you have to talk to him because he's not going to just jump in and interject.

But if you have a question, he's usually going to give you a very thoughtful and experienced answer to whatever your question is. So I'm really looking forward to spending some time in person again with Howard at the end of July at the Colorado Canine Conference.

I want to thank a few more sponsors, Kevin Sheldahl with Canine Services down in New Mexico. Basically, if it's a police dog related, Kevin does it. He does, besides training all different types of dogs, he sells dogs. And then he also does audits of units, checks their professional standard reviews. If you want to just have your unit kind of looked at, he can be an expert witness. You name it, Kevin's been around forever, so he can do it very, very well.

So if you would like Kevin to come and maybe do a seminar for you or just check out your canine unit or you want to see what he's got going on down in New Mexico, if you want to visit him down there, his website is canineservices.com and it's k-9services.com. And you can also give Kevin a call at 505-250-4576. And then also I want to talk about record keeping. You know,

record keeping is very important for all dogs. Obviously, if you work a drug dog, you're going to get your records subpoenaed quite often. But really, any dog, if your agency needs to produce records, or maybe your command wants you to produce records to show them what you're up to as the industry leader, it was the first one out of the gate. So check out catsplatinum.com. Bob will set you up on a little free trial to see how much you like it, and you can see how well it works together.

So check out catsplatinum.com for your record-keeping needs. Or give Bob a call and he'll be able to walk you through everything and show you all the different features. So excellent software for your record keeping needs. All right, everybody be safe and we will be back next week with another show. Music.