Part One with Military Special Forces K9 Handler Ian Donovan

Hey everybody, before we get to the show, this show is going to be part one of a two-part show with Ian Donovan, who I first met here in Colorado at the Colorado Canine Conference. But before we get to that, let's talk about record keeping real quick. CatsPlatinum.com is where Bob Eden's website is for the Cats record keeping system. Cats is a great program. You can make it exactly how you want it, so it's highly customizable. customizable, and then it prints out some outstanding records.

I just saw recently on social media someone asking about the best way to get records to give to their admins when they ask for it. Well, if you have CATS, you can push a button and it'll print out some very good reports, all the information that they want, and really helps maintain your unit and the integrity of your unit. So check out catsplatinum.com.

Very professional product and it works very, very well so catsplatinum.com for all your record keeping needs also it's a hot summer so make sure you guys are testing your heat alarms i i recommend doing it on your training day figure out you know different systems how you want to test your heat alarms most of them have a built-in tester i also like just pulling the dog out of the car when you're working the dog turn on your heater and turn everything up full blast on the heater and make sure

that it works as designed when the car gets too hot. It should be notifying your phone if you have the right features. And the only one I know that notifies your phone is acecanine.com. So acecanine.com is a great heat alarm. They do door poppers and heat alarms, but the feature I really, really like about acecanine.com is the phone option. So it'll talk to your phone, uses cellular technology, has some redundancies built in for extra safety.

And the owner and inventor of the heat alarm for acecanine.com is John Johnston. Very passionate about keeping our dogs safe. And when you have his product, if you have questions, you call and you'll end up usually talking to him. He'll walk you all the way through how to work it. So great company and a great product, acecanine.com.

With that, let's jump over to the show. 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. Music. Welcome to the Police Canine Training Podcast. I'm your host, Jeff Meyer. Today I have a new guest with me. I have Ian Donovan. And I met Ian at the Colorado Canine Conference last month, and he had reached out to me and wanted to come and do a class on nutrition and was working for Kinetic Dog Food. To be honest, I didn't know really much about Ian at all, and he sent me his bio.

Real impressive bio as far as what he's done in the military. And then, you know, he's done a lot of canine stuff. And now he's transitioning out of the military and he's going around, he's doing a lot of nutrition classes through kinetic dog food. The class was an excellent class. And then as I got to know Ian last two weeks ago, he's got a pretty impressive story to talk about between what he's done in canine with military dogs and then some resiliency stuff.

So with that, I figure I'll just give you the microphone, Ian, and maybe you can take a couple minutes to introduce yourself to the audience and tell us about your background. Sure, man. Well, first of all, thanks for having me. Thanks for thinking of me. I know that there are a lot of guys that did what I did and a lot of good candidates for this show. I'm just honored and humbled to have the experience and get the invite. You know, a lot of the guys that I work with are still working.

I got taken out of the game a little earlier than them.

So, you know, I try to speak on their behalf as much as my behalf because they're not going to get the opportunity to, you know, talk to folks that don't really understand the things that we're doing over there, but it's always good for the general public, especially, you know, patriots of this country to understand what we're doing, because we're still, you know, members of this country, and when we come back after service, we like to integrate with local population,

and there's a lot of stuff we can do for you guys. So we always love to do it. Absolutely.

So let's start from the beginning. Where'd you grow up? Sure. I grew up way down south in Louisiana. It was a great place to grow up for a kid, just outdoors all the time, hunting and fishing and tracking and trapping were pretty much all that I did in my spare time when I was younger. You know, it's called a sportsman's paradise for a reason. It really is. It's a super target-rich environment for anything you want to hunt.

And so that's kind of how I grew up. Really very familiar with guns and shooting and marksmanship or, you know, some of the fundamentals of marksmanship that I continued to focus on throughout my career. But having that baseline was pretty good. So I grew up down there. One of five. I was the middle kid. And, you know, it's kind of crazy, but I was homeschooled until I was in the 10th grade. It's not something that's very common.

It wasn't something I enjoyed, obviously, but we got to go to school and we played sports. You know, we were good enough to play sports. So that's why I went to school. That's why I was able to go to school, but I really loved it and, you know, grew up down there. After high school, I did a little bit of college, but, you know, not too much. I worked in the oil field as a roughneck. Yeah. And, worked offshore on boats and rigs and I was pretty exciting for me. And, uh,

You know, it was challenging. It was hard work. It was exciting work. You know, I was a single guy. Yeah. I kind of gravitated towards those aspects of the job. And that's probably what propelled me into my military career. Was military something that was on the back of your mind your whole teenage life or did it just kind of come from working on the oil rigs thinking maybe that might be a long, long life that way? Yeah. No, man. You know, I don't have anybody in my family. I don't come from

a military family. Yeah. I don't really come from. Fighters to be honest with you you know growing up that's something i did a lot of you know that that i guess that area and that time you know fighting with was not very foreign to kids yeah and i kind of took that with me into you know young adulthood and i i enjoyed it but i wasn't great at it yeah i'd like to gotten better at it and then you know as as happens with some You get the opportunity to get paid to do it. That's kind of where I was.

I was doing quite a bit of training in martial arts and enjoying it. And I enjoyed the challenge and the hard work in the oil field. And I enjoyed really the, I guess, just kind of moving around and seeing a bunch of different places. Having that freedom of movement. And that's when I decided to join the military because it seemed like the best fit for what I wanted, where I wanted to go with my life. How old were you then?

I was pretty old, man. I was 23 when I joined. I was an adult, obviously, with life experiences, and that really aided in my success. I joined with the 18 x-ray contract, is what it's called. That's a special forces recruit, basically, off the street. You have to test for it physically, which is not very difficult, and you have to test for it mentally as well. And so I scored high enough on those tests to get that contract. And all that really means is that you're going to get the opportunity.

You're going to go through infantry basic training and one-station unit training, Fort Benning. And you're going to go to airborne school upon completion of that. And then from airborne school, you go to Fort Bragg in North Carolina. Now, these bases probably have different names. Sure. They'll always be those names to me. Exactly. Yeah. And then when you get to Fort Bragg, for us, we had a preparations course or preparatory course for selection, special forces assessment and selection.

And then we went to selection. If you got selected, you started the Q course. If you didn't, you went needs of the Army. So it was always just something that I put in my head that that's what I'm going to do. I wanted to join the Army instead of the Navy or the Air Force because I figured, you know, the Army is always the guys you see with guns. They're always fighting, you know, and I didn't have any clue about the military or the Army, you know.

But I just knew I wanted to go and fight. I'm a huge patriot.

What year was this that you joined it? Oh, man, this was back in 2010. 2010 was when you joined? Yeah. Yeah, well, actually, 2009, I got finished with basic training in 2010, yeah. But there was a lot of fighting going on. You knew you were going to be out fighting somewhere. Right. Yeah. That was the general idea. I mean, I didn't want to go. So in the, in the military, everything you can do as a civilian, you can do as a, as a service member, you know, but I didn't want to go and

be a cook or a mechanic or anything. I wanted to go and fight. So that's really why I joined the army. I figured everyone in the army has got a gun from the movies here.

I saw, you know, the movies. yeah but it seems like if everyone in this organization has a gun you want to be the best of those guys it's probably the better yeah you know yeah the better faction to join so that was that was my very uh ridiculous thinking well it seemed to work out so so from the time you signed signed up to the time that you were officially like a green beret what's that time frame yeah so it's you know it's about two and a half years

to get your beret if you do everything right yeah Yeah, I got so, you know, you go through selection and assessment or assessment and selection at Fort Bragg or Camacol. It's kind of closer to Fort Bragg. And then once you get selected, you start the qualifications course and they determine your MOS, your military occupational specialty. Mine was an 18 Bravo, which is a special forces weapons argument. So you'll go through training, you know, with your other peers to become a qualified

Green Beret. And then one portion of that is your specialty training. You know, mine was, again, to understand and be able to work with, manipulate, and fix all foreign and domestic weapons that we would find ourselves utilizing both here and overseas. And then, you know, and then you go to language school. For me, it was six months, you know, basically eight in the morning to five in the evening. And you become as proficient in another language as you have to be to deploy. Yeah.

Obviously, once you deploy, you get a lot more proficient because you're speaking to a lot. Yeah. But that whole process is about two to two and a half years. And for our medics, it's even longer because the medical course is a little longer. Sure. So you get through all that in a couple of years and then get deployed right away then? Yeah. So I went to – I got stationed at 5th Special Forces Group. That's at Fort Campbell in Kentucky.

Splits the Kentucky-Tennessee border. and our area of responsibility was the Middle East. So it's, you know, that time frame was pretty busy. When I got to my ODA, they had just gotten back from Afghanistan. So we weren't scheduled for another trip for a little while, which was probably good for me because, you know, I had zero Army experience. I had all this training, but I was basically a civilian. You know, all I knew is what they had taught me. I had no real-world experience

with combat yet. So, yeah. Those are some growing pains you probably want to be able to prepare for with guys who have been there and done that prior to going out. That's not always the case. I had buddies who were in my same boat that got there and actually met their teams in country. They got to Fort Campbell at fifth group, and then they just flew them overseas to meet their teams. So they were sanitized by flight.

I was fortunate enough to get some really quality instruction from some some very senior season combat veterans and were they pretty were they pretty open to you i mean as a new guy coming in and they've already been back and forth probably with some experience i mean you're not really battle proven at that point but just the fact that you made it through all that training are they pretty open to you at that point, no no they're not i could imagine i'm not gonna i'm not gonna sugar yeah yeah

you know you wish that they would be obviously but you under you kind of have to understand yeah and i think that I obviously did understand that because I was older and more mature. I understood. When guys would come up in the oil field, these new guys, they've got to be broken in. They have to understand what a hard do really is. They've got to earn their keep. And the big thing is I've got to know I can trust them and I can count.

And I knew that just from making money in the oil field. I understood that that was the concept. But it's basically that same method of thinking on steroids and what they're talking about, this new job. So I did expect that. Now, they really appreciated the fact that I was a professional in my specialty, right? I understood my job. Yeah. But I only understood the job and the aspect that I had been taught. Sure. Yeah. So the first thing they, you know, we had PT every morning as a

group. And, you know, I was pretty fresh. I hadn't been beat up yet. Yeah. And I hadn't all these, you know, all the things that are going to have, you know, have happened to me now. Sure. Happened to me. So I was a pretty fresh guy. I was in great shape. You know, I was kind of trying to show off in front of them in my brain. I thought that they would get them to, you know, appreciate me and accept me. And it didn't work out. Yeah. The next day they brought me to the MMA gym.

And they just took turns wearing me down. And then said, now, now we can go PT. Yeah. So it was just a lesson in checking your ego. And probably the most important lesson I ever learned in this job was, you know, there is no place for ego. You're either good at what you do or you're dead. And I lived by that, you know, that quote my entire career. And it's been very beneficial for me. Yeah. So at some point then, obviously, you got deployed. Mm-hmm. What was your first overseas trip?

Yeah, the first one was not a great one. so you can either go to combat you can go on a combat trip or you can go on what's called a J set which is where you go and you train the, But, you know, the special operations forces of other countries, you train them up and then, you know, they'll deploy. Or you're just, you really, what it's really utilized for is for us to gain a foothold in a certain area. Yeah.

Maybe a border away from something that is going on. Yeah. So I went to Jordan my first trip. But the good thing was, you know, I did get a lot of opportunity to speak my language, to integrate with the Middle Eastern culture. I did get a lot of experience with teaching guys in another language that probably aren't, you know, they just weren't very motivated to learn because Jordan has not been in a conflict in, well, a pretty long time.

But what I did get the opportunity to do there was go up to a portion of the country that was on the border with Syria. And we were pulling Syrians across the border and training them and then sending them back. And there was a bog cap, which is a boots on the ground cap at that point. So we could only have a certain number of operators across the border. But I was able to do cross-border ops with those guys.

So the second half of that deployment was much better. and it it taught me the value of going on these combat trips as opposed to these j sets because you know we are trainers we are force multipliers that's what we're designed to do but it's not the, enjoyable part of what we do yeah you know we still have we're still operators at the end of the day that's what we want to go do so yeah the first half of that trip was you know i'll be honest it really probably was the best case scenario

because it gave me the opportunity to learn, a lot of valuable lessons in dealing with that type of person. That part of the world, rituals are all very different and learning the language and understanding it. But the second hand, that deployment was much, much better. Going across the border, and at this time we were fighting ISIS, pretty much who I fought exclusively my entire career.

So, yeah, that, the second half of that deployment was pretty good, but I still wasn't a dog guy that trip. It actually took a couple of trips for me to become a dog guy. Yeah. So let's talk, how did, how did that happen? And, and what, what piqued your interest first with the dogs? Yeah, sure. Well, every single special forces group has got a kennel for that specific group, right? At their, you know, on their, basically on their compound or just next to their compound.

Yeah. And ours is no different. So when I was deployed, I was in Iraq at this point, we, this trip was pretty unique, but it was kind of similar to most of the ones I'd gone on. We've jumped around quite a bit. I was in Iraq and Syria for this trip and we're on a mission and there was a dog attached to the mission. And, you know, I was pretty, still pretty, still pretty fresh, I guess. I knew that we had dogs. I just didn't understand, you know,

the benefit of having them. Yeah, I'd see them at, you know, these demonstrations and stuff like that. And I, you know, to me, they just look like police dogs, really. Hidden guys in bite suits. And, and I, at that point, I had been through a direct action school course. So that's kind of what I was doing more of. I was really very focused on that type of mission set, that type of activity. That's what I wanted to be, a real professional. So that's what I was focused on.

But as you get older and you gain a little more seniority, you start to understand the assets that you have at your disposal. And I think that a lot of that comes when you start getting banged up a little bit and you're not Superman anymore. You're on the bed. So you really do rely on these assets because you've, you know, the major success comes from utilizing them properly.

So, you know, you always want to sharpen your own skills, but you got to understand the assets at your disposal and understand what they can do for you. Yeah. And, and it's all part of being a team and a bigger picture, something much bigger yourself. So the dog was no different to me when I went on that trip and I really started understanding Understanding how that dog operated within a cell or within an assault force. Yeah.

Within, you know, a dismounted movement. You know, the dog's always at the front. The dog is your first line of defense against IEDs, against enemy combatants that are hidden. Yeah. I always wanted to be at the front of everything. I wanted to be first in the door. Yeah. I wanted to be first off the bird.

You know, I wanted to be first on the X. And it's a constant thing. Competition with the guys to the left and righty, but it's designed that way for a reason. You're constantly trying to be the best that you can be. And it seemed like you could really continue doing that, but also get to the front much quicker if you had a dog. So that was, and then I understood that dogs never went on J sets. They only went on combat missions. So I said, man, this is a no brainer.

This is what I'd like to do. So after that trip, I went to the dog kennels, and I basically just tried out for a job as a handler. And, you know, that happens pretty regularly. But in some of these groups, some guys try to go there to take a break. That was the opposite of what I was trying to do. I just wanted to go to combat. We call them combat tickets because, you know, they are your quickest way to get to the fight because they are such nonsense.

So I went there and basically tried out. And my knowledge prior to the military, having worked with hunting dogs and sporting dogs quite a bit, really aided in my success there. So that's how I got involved with the dog program. And from there, you know, I never left until the end of my career. So your first assignment was a handler of a multipurpose dog, a bomb dog, basically. And did you have to give up your other job at that time so you weren't doing

that stuff anymore? You're now just full-time canine? Yeah, that's a good question, man. And it's, you know, you'd think that that would be the case, but it's really just an additional responsibility now. So I've got to, I've got to continue maintaining my proficiency as a Green Beret, both language, physical requirements, your shooting requirements, your tactical requirements. But now I've also got to maintain the proficiency of this ambulance.

And so it's just an additional responsibility, which is why when I became kennel master, you know, I realized the selection of guys was going to really aid in my success. Sure. And the program success overall. You know, I need a super, I really need a responsible guy who's more senior than most people who's been there. He's been to countries. He's got a great reputation as a hard worker. Yeah. And not someone who's going to, you know, duck work.

Yeah. Duck deployments or anything like that. So, no, I mean, it's just added responsibility. You don't even get an identifier for it. Most others, so in the regular Army, if you're a dog handler, that's your MOS, right? Well, my MOS was still Special Forces Weapon Sergeant. I just had to make pain the dog. And these MPCs, yeah, they did three things for us. They were explosive detectors. They track any personnel, and then they obviously bite them.

Yeah. So they accept you in the program. And then what was the training? They assign you a dog, I assume. And then how long was that training? Yeah, I believe it was about eight weeks, if I remember correctly. We would go to VLK, Von Lick Kennels, and in Peru, Indiana. They had the contract at the time that I went through. You know, we get the dogs that day. Our kennel masters all go to selection. And they were sourcing dogs from Ranger Battalion and Special Forces in the

Army. So we had Ranger Battalion guys there and Green Berets there. Yeah. So I get my, you know, my first dog was just a blonde male. Yeah. He was an older dog, and we selected three dogs that class. It was myself and two other handlers. And, you know, they try to pair the dog to the handler. Yeah. So, and I definitely appreciated that. And as a kennel master, tried to carry on that tradition because it is super successful if you can do that properly. Yeah.

Yeah, my first dog was just a blonde male from Hungary. And I remember the second day I got him, I started e-collar conditioning, which is taboo. They don't even teach you e-collar stuff there. But I knew how to do it, and I did it in my spare time. But it's about an eight-week course. And probably the biggest mistake I made with that dog was just making him a super cool, very obedient dog.

Because I had all this time on my hands. you know we're just they they tell you we're going to work these dogs incrementally you know like you train dogs yeah and introduce tasks new tasks to them uh very slowly and methodically and we're going to go until you know we're going to put them up before they get bored obviously so i had not been exposed to that much downtime ever in my career i mean you can only do so many push-ups sit-ups and there's not much to do there's

not much to do in that part of indiana No, not at all, man. So, you know, I made that dog. I spent a lot of time with him. And that was probably the worst thing I could have done for myself and that dog. Because you definitely need a certain level of independence when you're searching for explosives in austere, very stressful environments. So I learned another lesson. But about eight weeks, man.

And after I got back with that dog, I deployed about three weeks after I got back with him. And where was your first deployment with the dog? That deployment was, oh, man. That one was Cecilia. It was a decent trip. He did fine. The biggest problem that I had with him, you know, he obviously was extremely bite-heavy. That's another mistake I think I made with him. You know, I worked three dogs in my time as a handler there. And they progressively got less and less dependent on me.

Sure, yeah. The obedience became less and less of a focus. Obedience to handler became less of a focus and obedience to odor just became peril. Sure. Yep. Because I, you know, I do need a dog to be extremely independent. I also need him to work with me. Yeah. To a certain extent. I don't need him to see me as an object in the way of him getting what he wants. I need him to see me as a catalyst, you know, in the way of reaching his goals and objectives.

Yeah. So when he understands that, listen, buddy, I know you want this ball, tug, pipe, whatever it is, but here's what I need you to do in order to get it. You know, when he understands that concept, we're off to the races. And that dog, you know, he understood that, but anytime he, he, he encountered real adversity, he'd constantly look back to me and get a little sticky. And boy, that's not, that's not what you want to see. No, no, not there or in police work, but it happens. No, it happens.

And, you know, it's just a lesson learned, but probably every young handler needs to know. But if I can, if I can head that off of the curb by anyone who's listening to this, you know, that's what I would tell them. Yes, your dog needs obedience. He needs good handling skills, but man, obedience to odor should supersede obedience to handler 100%. Yeah.

Yeah. And I think, I think you and I saw some of that even at the, at the Colorado conference where you could tell some of the dogs just had way too much obedience or too much e-collar work on them. And that was, that was the top of the dog's ticket as, as to what, you know, doing all the directional stuff as opposed to going to odor. I saw several of the dogs. Oh, sure, sure. And it's an easy mistake for young guys to make too, you know, because you're all gung-ho about it. I mean, it happens.

But, you know, in the military, especially in special operations, we make a lot of mistakes and we rectify them because we're training around the clock. It's different from a lot of the law enforcement, LE teams, because they have so much more stuff that is required of them. So a lot of the mistakes they are going to make, man, I've already made.

So one thing that I'm very passionate about doing is articulating those things to them every chance I get in the chance that they don't have to waste their time in Houston.

And I think in the environment from what I've been around and some of the military people that I've talked to, I was not in the military, but when I talk to people that have your experience, one of the things that it seems like is a big part of all of those, especially the special forces teams, is throwing the mistakes out there, not covering them up, talking about them, and training or fixing those mistakes as opposed to acting like it didn't happen or keep it to yourself.

And I think, is that kind of what you saw too? Oh, sure. I mean, you know, something we do after every single training iteration, whether it's cleaning a weapon or taking down, you know, a vehicle from a helicopter, something that's very simple or very, very complex is we do an AAR, after action review. I don't care if it's, we've been working since four that morning and now it's four the next morning. We're going to do an AAR before anybody does anything.

Yeah. Then that's just ingrained in you. It's just something you expect and it's something that you look forward to because that's where you rectify.

Deficiencies you know they're going to be sustains and improves and all of that focus on the sustains and understand why you did what you did well but man the improves you really have to rectify and it clears the air at the end of a operation too that way there's no hard feelings and that's what i try to stress that to a lot of handlers especially after a you know area search or something the SWAT guys were good about doing it after barricades

and stuff but there's a lot of times we do a quick area search and and i'd always want to gather a bit around let's talk about what what we just did, even when it's non-eventful. I think it's just a good idea to make sure that the air is completely clear and end that operation before you start another one.

Oh, 100%, man. And I'll be honest, and I don't know how much of this still happens today, but one of the best ways to clear the air is if anyone's got a problem with each other, man, there's an octagon with that. There's a couple gloves that you can put on. That helped us quite a bit. Oh, I'm sure. There's no ego in what you do. Again, you can't have that. You have to be very open. You know, you can be very good at what you do, and that's one thing.

But the second you get, you know, you allow that to hinder your training and your desire to be better at it, then, you know, you deserve to be off the team. So you did several deployments with a few different dogs. Were the deployments, how long were they usually when you were overseas with the dog? So most of our deployments are six months. Yeah. They can be as short as four months, but they're normally about six months.

And how stressful is that for the dog at that time? Because I know that the living conditions for both you and the dog are obviously not ideal. So for the dog, does that create a lot of stress? Did you see a diminished performance out of the dog the first time you were over there? No, no. So what we do a lot of times is the first few weeks in country,

And this is what I had happen to me. My kennel master came with me, you know, and I tried to do the same with my guys or send a very experienced guy with them. If your first few weeks in country, you know, the dogs used to long for the ride. Dogs only know the comfort that we show them. And anxiety trickles down leash, right? So if I'm comfortable, he's comfortable. And if it's uncomfortable, then we're going to get comfortable being uncomfortable.

You know yeah that's just part of the job that's something we practice so much in training you know the more you sweat and bleed in training the less you're going to bleed in combat so, we would we'd condition the dogs to a lot of things those first two weeks a lot of it was conditioning their bodies to the heat you know the dry air the different surfaces are going to be on so conditioning their pads conditioning them to working at night all the times reverse cycle And I'd say probably 85%

of what we did over there was at night under nods. So that's a big difference too. The dog's got to get really good at working with you in limited visibility. Now they can still see pretty decently, but you know, your ability to see under nods is greatly diminished. But yeah, we would condition them to it. And I'll be honest, man, the dogs love appointments because you're working with

them every single day and they're living with you. You know, it's when you bring them back home that it's probably the most stressful because you put them in a kennel and then you take a month of vacation. Yeah. So they, you know, the work tempo, the off tempo that they've been accustomed to just ceases overnight. Yeah. Not only that, but now they're basically in solitary confinement and they lose you. Yeah. Who they've been with for six months around the clock.

So that's pretty stressful for them. And we do a lot of things to mitigate that stress for them. But, you know, the biggest things are if you can, if you can predict, and that's why we need senior guys that have experience to become dog handlers, because they know what that dog's about to get exposed to. Yeah. So we're going to rectify that in training prior to sending the dog overseas.

We're going to try to imitate or emulate every single combat scenario for that dog, just like we do for ourselves. And a lot of that comes before we deploy by attaching to the guys we've got to deploy with when they're ramping up all their mission training and stuff. So a lot of times that gets mitigated. But man, I'll tell you, some dog handlers are better than others. Yep. Yeah. And, you know, your ability to read your dog's behavior, not only when he's working, but when he's not working.

You've got to understand how to communicate with him and how he's communicating with you. You know, a good ability to do that is going to lead to much more success. And a dog is just a reflection of the work that that handler's put into them. So if my dog's got a deficiency, I'm going to focus on rectifying that deficiency. It's just nonstop with these guys because we expose them to so much craziness. But, you know, there's three things that make a performance dog.

And I've told you this in that class, it's genetics, training, and nutrition. Having the proper genetics and having an environmentally sound base to work from.

Is everything yep and exposing them properly to all these new environmental situations, that they'll find themselves in is very very important you know my dog's first bite was was on a guy that who was dead you know he'd been shot and he had a suicide vest or a suicide belt on yeah and we had to render those things safe and my goal was to grab that guy because a lot of those times one of those situations they booby trap their vests so my idea was to grab that guy,

because we couldn't really see yeah you know from waist down he was on an objective, grab that guy with a dog and pull as hard as i could with a 30-foot leash yeah you know probably a lot of better ways to get that cat, but before my eod guy was going to get blown out yeah that's what the dog's there for right so yeah. A lot of deficiencies were rectified that night. I'll just leave it at that when it comes to putting teeth on skin because the dog had no clue.

Dead prey is one thing. Putting teeth on flesh is another. He'd always been hammered for doing that, real world. And now I'm encouraging him to try to do that. So a lot of confusion. But again, I had to take a step back and realize that that was my fault. You know, there's two things that you can encounter, three things in training. Meaning there's a misunderstanding and that's my fault. If the dog misunderstands what I'm asking him to do, I've got to rectify that as a trainer.

If the dog understands what I'm asking him to do and is refusing to do it, that's disobedience. We've got to rectify that. And then he can understand and he can perform the task to standard. But yeah. So let me jump in. I got a question on that. Sure. I do a lot of classes like advanced patrol dog classes. And one of the things I try to set up scenarios where I'm going to expose the handler to making a really bad decision, not a bad decision, a hard decision about their dog.

So I'll do one where maybe I have a cover officer down and they need to get rid of the dog, hopefully send him towards the gunfire and grab their cover officer. Something where, you know, we talk about it, but then until they have a scenario where there's a lot of stuff going on. And what I find, and we can talk about it and all the guys say, yeah, I'm ready for that.

But then when you put them under some stress, it's not unusual that for a second or a quick second, the handler's first reaction sometimes is to shield their dog or do something. And I get it to a point, but it's a mental mindset, obviously. Obviously, how much training and I mean, you have a whole different world you're living in there. And I mean, I get it. But did that ever come into play where you had somebody who was a little hesitant?

On sending their dog down range because obviously when you sent your dog to the suicide guy, your expectation was pretty high that they're both going to blow up yeah you know if it wouldn't have been if it wouldn't have been necessary for the continuation of that mission i'd have never done it but yeah there's certain times you can mark and bypass that threat there's certain times where you have to fix it and that was one of those times and i understand exactly what you're

asking i would say that in our world and it's something that i speak with law enforcement a lot about you You know, I work with SWAT teams quite a bit more on SOPs and tactics and shooting and move communicate type stuff. But our world's a little different. You know, we can be extremely aggressive over there because we're not going after American citizens. Yeah. So even when it, you know, the situation arises where I should, I could shield my dog or my fellow soldier.

The first thing I've got to do is neutralize that. that's the easiest way to insulate anybody is to kill the thing that's trying to kill them sure so we have that mindset we we practice that yeah i just didn't know if that's i mean sometimes people become you know i've seen really good handlers that were you know really really good cops and sometimes in the back of their mind they still have a little bit too much dog lover in them if that makes sense and oh

sure it does and some handlers are that way too and we have to rectify by that training and no different than what you do. It's got to be made very, very clear to them that the dog is a tool, you know. Now, we don't take our dogs home with us at the end of the day, but on deployment, that dog's living with you, you know. So some guys, and again, I look for those guys, I select those types of guys, that are going to look at the dog as a tool.

You know, when I deployed, it may have been the wrong mindset, but the mindset that I had was that, My job is to make sure that this dog potentially doesn't come home so that every single human being does. So I'm going to put him in harm's way over a human being every chance that I get. I'm not going to do that unnecessarily. No. But that's the name of the game. That's a job that we're there to accomplish.

Yeah. And the reason I ask that is because we have those conversations when I'm training handlers too. And when it's chalk talk, everybody's like, yeah, no problem. But then it seems like, you know, sometimes when we're just doing scenarios, now we're not exposed to the real stuff like you guys are, but just doing those scenarios, sometimes when you put the stress on them, I see some of that hesitancy. And I just, I assumed humans being humans, it probably would happen sometimes over there.

Although I get you have a different selection process and all that.

But I was just curious if you had a way that you would come up with kind of training through some of that hesitancy, if you ever saw it, that would relate to civilian military or civilian police. Yeah. Well, I mean, it's really no different from – I'd never been shot at before I did that job, right? So you never know what you're going to do until it happens. Yeah. So I would equate that the same way. We train a lot for it. Yeah. We simulate it in training quite a bit.

So now when we have the opportunity to release a dog in a questionable situation, but it's always the right answer to launch that dog, I think that if you get enough training reps in, that that's going to be your first reaction because that's what you've been trained to do time and time and time again. But again, man, my hat goes off to the law enforcement community because I tell them all day, every day, your job is much more difficult than what,

you know, I'm not getting sued by these guys over there. Yeah. I'm not going after American citizens. We do breacher training, right? Yeah. Blowing doors. The amount of explosive, I want to blow that door through the entire building. Yeah. Sometimes, sometimes not, but it's just a different, it's a different job. and a different look, but it's something I always enjoy still working with law enforcement to rectify.

Yeah. Yeah. But at the end, the reason I asked those types of questions, I think there's obviously a lot of differences, but the mindset, I think, you know, cops, a lot of times, not I shouldn't say a lot of times, but I've found cops who talk the talk, but they don't have the warrior mindset behind them when it's, when it really happens.

And I'm sure it's the same with some soldiers too. I just haven't been in that environment, but it seems, you know, I preach all the time about doing more scenario training and it seems like that's kind of, you're on that same page that, you know, stressful scenarios where you're putting the hand on the dog under stress should mitigate some of those when, when the real day happens. Yeah. You just got to be comfortable being uncomfortable. I'll go back to that

all the time. That's what I, you know, it's just what I kept telling myself. And then when you start Start feeling sorry for yourself. Those little thoughts of doubt start creeping in, you know, and you want to feel sorry. I haven't slept and I haven't eaten. You got to understand the enemy doesn't care about any of that. Yeah, exactly. He'll kill you whether you're well-rested or well-slept. And at some point, every single time I train, you know, it's something that's beating into our heads.

Somewhere in the world, somebody is training to kill you. You better start training harder than they are because the first opportunity they get, they're going to take you out. Yep. Just like the crooks here are doing the same thing. That's exactly right. So with the deployments, you did several of those with a few different dogs. And then at what point did you become the kennel master? And what prompted you to want to do that assignment? Well, nothing prompted me to want to do it.

I was voluntold. Oh, okay. I would have maintained being a handler. And I was a green suit trainer as well. Well, a green suit trainer is just, I was obviously still active duty army and a handler, but I was the trainer that worked. So every kennel has a civilian trainer by contract. Yeah. And I was the green suit trainer that worked with that guy because he may or may not have any military experience.

He could just be an adult trainer. And we're really only required to have them so that we can go and maybe ask them questions every once in a while. But you definitely want a green suit trainer. So that's what I was doing. And I was working with the guys every day, setting up training for them. And, you know, that was a pretty challenging part of my career. We had a kennel master who in that position had to bow out.

And I had to just, you know, normally the next senior guy is going to take over or they're going to take a guy who has not zero idea about how to run a dog and what it takes. You know, they'll take him from a leadership position at group and they'll put them over you guys. So you really don't want that for the program. You know, it's definitely more beneficial for that guy to understand the mission of the dog. Yeah.

So for those reasons, you know, I cared about the guys that were, I took over as the kennel master and it was, it was the least fun that I had at the kennels for sure. But all it became was really insulating my guys from, you know, ridiculousness that comes down the pipe. But also, you know, doing a lot of the administrative stuff, setting those guys up for success, seeing which guys want to make a career out of it, you know, helping those guys do that best I could.

But really had the opportunity to start selecting the right guys to be handlers. And that was usually beneficial for the program, I think, overall. And I imagine that limited your ability to go over into combat at that time because you're probably busy doing. Yeah, I was done, man. And I was, you know, I was an E7 doing an E8 position. And all that means is, you know, basically you're filling the slot of the next rank up. Yeah. So you're still getting paid, which the next rank down.

But, you know, it's an increase in responsibility, not an increase in pay. Yeah. But, you know, we're very short staffed, especially now. We were then probably even worse now. So it happened pretty often. Sure. But no, yeah, going overseas was done unless I could sneak away, you know, to go with a guy for a week or two and get him, you know, ready to go overseas when he goes. But, you know, I was only able to do that one time and it wasn't, it wasn't enough for sure for me. Yeah.

From, from there, that's where I actually exited the military. Cause that's when I got in, you know, the accident that ended my career. Yeah. So I think, yeah. Yeah. I think actually, you know, we've done a lot of talk about this stuff.

So I want to talk to you about resiliency and mindset too. And I think that'll be an excellent part two of this show. So I think with that, we're going to go ahead and end this show talking and switch over. So listen for the show next week and we're going to talk more about resiliency and some mindset because Ian's got a hell of a story to talk about that.

So, let's wrap this up for today, Ian, and we will be back next week talking about this accident and kind of what your mindset was and what's got you through that. Yeah, man. Sounds great. Thanks for having me, and I look forward to continuing the discussion next week. Absolutely. All right. That's going to wrap up part one of this show with Ian. We'll be back next week and do part two, start talking about some resiliency.

He's been through some pretty hard times very recently and talk about his mental mindset, how he got through some of it. So should be another really good show. Let's wrap up today though, talking about Ray Allen. You hear me talk about them a lot. Ray Allen's an excellent canine product company. Everywhere I go, I see different brands of products. And, you know, Ray Allen's always in that mix. I was just recently teaching a class and I saw quite a few different bite suits.

And the cool thing about Ray Allen is that you can see a Ray Allen bite suit. Sometimes you could tell there was one there that we were giving the guy a hard time about because it was probably 20 years old. The suit still held up and it actually was functioning better than some of the newer suits because they're just so well-made. So for bite suits and leashes, muzzles, everything you need for anything for your partner, check out Ray Allen.

They're an excellent company. Their shipping is fantastic. And when you go to their website, they always have what's new, and they're always putting out new products. So Ray Allen Manufacturing for all your canine needs. And then also, if you're looking for a class or you want someone to come do an audit of your unit or you want to go to New Mexico and go to a class. Kevin Sheldahl runs a company called Canine Services.

You've heard me talk to Kevin on my podcast. You know he's a wealth of knowledge. And his company, Canine Services, does a tremendous amount of training down in the Albuquerque area. But he also can come to you. He can do audits. He can do reviews of your unit. He can also provide expert witness services. Pretty much anything canine-related, Kevin can help you with between doing classes there in New Mexico or doing seminars for you. So check out canineservices.com, and it's k-9services.com.

Or you could just call Kevin. That's sometimes the easiest way to get a hold of him. His number is 505-250-4576, and that's Kevin Sheldahl with Canine Services. Thanks, everybody. Have a safe week. Music.