Q&A Show with Jeff Meyer

Hello, everybody. This is Jeff Meyer, and this is the Police Canine Training Podcast.

So I apologize. It's been a little while since I did a show. Just had a lot of stuff going on. It was the end of the year. It was a good time to take a little break from the show, get caught up on some other stuff, and then with the holidays, and then I moved to a new house, new town, everything. So with that, and then doing a lot of other training classes, it's just been real hectic. So good news is I'm back for the rest of the year, of course, and we've got a lot of shows coming up.

We're going to do a lot of different shows, a lot of different instructors. Quite a few of the instructors that are going to be at the Colorado Canine Conference are going to be coming on here real soon, talking about what they're up to and some of their training techniques. And speaking of that Colorado Canine Conference, check out coloradocanineconference.com. This is the second year we've done the conference here in Colorado. It's the last week of July.

And just like last year, the focus of this conference is critical skills that you use every day so it's not a place where you're going to be doing crazy stuff like you know jumping out of a helicopter or anything like that but we're going to have world-class instructors doing all the critical skills making your teams better and safer to be on the street and more effective you know if it's a detection dog but that's what the the whole the

whole conference is geared towards towards the stuff that we do every single day so i'm real excited about it's the last week of july go to coloradocanineconference.com. Two new things this year, there'll be probably more than that, but so far the two big things that are different. The keynote speaker is going to be Mike Kamisik from Sheepdog Guardian. So the first day you get a whole block of instruction from Sheepdog Guardian for a canine legal update class.

The other cool thing is that it's sponsored by one of the show sponsors also is Next Level Canine Academy out of Vegas with Tim Adams. So Next Level Canine Institute, I apologize, out of Vegas. So Tim Adams owns the Next Level Canine Institute. He's selling a lot of dogs. You've heard me talk about him before on the show. He's come up here to Denver several times and brought dogs and kind of a concierge service, a way to buy a dog.

So Tim is actually going to be at the seminar. He's the lead sponsor for the Colorado Canine Conference, and he's going to bring dogs. He'll have single-purpose and dual-purpose dogs for sale, for testing, to use in our instruction blocks, and kind of take a look at them. And if you need a dog, it'd be a great time to go to a seminar, test dogs. If you like one, you could take them home with you that day. So it'll be kind of a unique concept, and we're really looking forward to it.

So check out coloradocanineconference.com. And also, I want to thank one other sponsor, Ray Allen. Ray Allen's been a big, huge supporter of the show. And if you go to RayAllen.com, they have a lot of new stuff going on on Ray Allen. And they've updated different things. And I just clicked on it. And one of the products I really like from Ray Allen, it's called the Elusive Collar. So it's basically, it looks like an agitation collar.

But it also, you can put in your e-collar box, take it off the strap that it came with and put it in there. So you have basically a tactical collar with an e-collar built in. And then the e-collar is kind of shielded. Not that you have to hide it from the public, but it just kind of covers it all up. And it's one nice collar instead of having a few different collars for the same purpose of some guys have to have a tactical collar and then the e-collar on there too.

So it's not the collar that I would use for training a new dog. But once they're really dialed in with the power and everything, that elusive collar is an excellent product. So amongst hundreds and hundreds of other products. So check out RayAllen.com for all your canine needs.

So with that, let's jump over and do the show today. 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. So over the years, I get a lot of canine questions and, you know, which I'm really happy that I'm in a position that I can either answer myself or go through a lot of the different contacts I have and put people in touch with the people who need that, have the information of the questions that they're asking.

And so I've got some common questions that I've been asked several times. I've got a few email questions and I thought for the first show of the new year, it'd be fun just to go over a couple of these real quick. One of them is, it was a longer question, but it basically said they've listened to several of my shows and they have heard me refer to using cotton balls to motivate detector dogs and wanted to kind of know what I mean by that.

So basically what I'm talking about when I'm, when I'm using a cotton balls or something like that for a detector dog, especially like a bomb dog needs to search for a very long time and a drug dog needs to search through some really crappy environments. You know, like maybe if it's a search warrant and you got to go to somebody's basement and try and dig through, you know, all the other dog odor and everything else, it would be hard to do without some type of motivation.

So what I like about doing a cotton ball is I just take the cotton balls, I put them with whatever target odor I'm going to work with, with my training aid, leave it in the, the, with the odor for several days, that cotton is going to absorb some of the odor from the, the training aid, but it's not going to introduce any of the odor, I'm sorry, any of the substance into it.

So if you went to a, do a drug search warrant and you put a cotton ball down just to get your dog to find it, reward him, then move them on to the harder areas, they can't ever accuse you of introducing the narcotics into the search area. It's just a cotton ball. So basically what I do is I just soak the odors with the, the. Whatever my target odor is. I'll keep some of my pocket and then I just play a game with my dog. They know usually that I have them.

And then if the dog's out searching, then I'll turn around and drop a couple, like in a trash can or somewhere, then come by as the dog's working, I'll direct him to it right when he starts to smell it right on the sniff. I'll mark it with my marker, pay him, play with him a little bit, and then put him right back to work. And all it does is just increases the dog's drives. It's that way they believe, you know, I'm really going to find something.

So the criticisms I've had is, well, then your dog's only looking for a cotton ball. Could be, but I've tested it many times. And if a dog can find a cotton ball, then when I turn around and he searches the dresser and there's a lot more dope in the dresser, the dog's certainly going to work that odor too. The other criticism is that, well, your dog will just start finding all cotton balls. Absolutely. Anything that you. An item to soak an odor with, you have to proof off of it.

So I do use a lot of cotton balls. I like the fact because the cotton definitely absorbs the odor. It seems like dogs are good at finding those with the odor and it's cotton's pretty organic. There's a lot of different cotton everywhere. So dogs shouldn't really pick up cotton, but they absolutely will pick up cotton balls if you don't proof them off it. So on a very, very regular basis, I buy a new bag of cotton balls, put it out for the dogs, let the dogs go buy it.

If they start to indicate on it, we let them work themselves out of it and extinguish it to where they're like, well, this blank cotton ball doesn't pay. So I need to go look for one that has odor on it. So the cotton ball trick is just a really easy way to keep your dog motivated. And the same with the bomb dogs. If you're doing a long search, I used them a lot. If we were doing our convention center or something, dog would be searching 10, 15 minutes, and then I'd drop one somewhere.

Or one of the other handlers, if they had them, they'd set one up and say, hey, go search that area. I've already searched it, but there's a cotton ball here or there. Or if we had a cover officer, one of our sergeants was a bomb sergeant and had worked a dog, so really understood the value of motivating the dog. And he would say, hey, give me a few cotton balls, and he would go out and drop them in the search areas and work it.

I'll tell you, in a real life deal, it works really well too, is I got called by a neighboring agency by a friend of mine who uses the same technique with his drug dog and knew that I did it with a bomb dog. And he called me during a critical situation where actually we had an officer who was down, they had a suspect who they believed maybe had a car bomb or at least something of that sort in the area, called me in the middle of it right when it was starting.

It's a neighboring agency, so I was able to get there pretty quick. And as I was getting there and getting out and putting my vest on. The handler who called me right away just grabbed some cotton balls out of the door of my car because he knows where I stored them, went over, threw a handful of cotton balls on a car that had nothing to do with the search area and told me, he's like, hey, there's a few cotton balls there. So it was such a chaotic scene when the dog came out of the car.

He was pretty amped up trying to figure out what all was going on just because it was a very unusual scene that that many cops and you can imagine the emotions going on and stuff took the dog over let him bang out those cotton balls then turned around went to down a little parking lot area dog found the suspect's car nailed it and then of course we left let the bomb squad handle it but that quick motivation definitely helped my dog so it was just a game to play with your dog and it

just is something works really well so again And if you do it, just make sure you proof off of cotton balls as well. Just one of those things. And I've done shows on motivating detector dogs, and I'd be happy to answer more questions and talk to you about it. If you have questions, just reach out to me. Next, I have a good question that I learned through experience. So basically the question is, I'll read it, is I'm reaching out regarding your expertise as a professional trainer.

I've worked a police dog for three years and recently received a new police dog. However, I have some concerns about his size. He's 15 months old and he weighs 41 pounds. The vendor we purchased him from and our vet believes he's fully grown, estimating he may gain an additional three to five pounds. Despite his size, he tested very well and has high drive. Given his current weight and projected size, do you foresee any issues or limitations due to his smaller stature?

We have not yet attended the Handler School, so I wanted to seek out your professional opinion whether this might pose any challenges in the field. So I liked this question a lot because I had to learn the hard way. Quite a few years back we were testing dogs in town and it was a vendor who had also brought up a bunch of dogs and got out a very small malinois probably about that same size.

And said you know you got to see this dog i looked at him said he's too small put him away we dug through the other dogs and we found a pretty nice dog nothing to complain about dog did fine on the street a neighboring agency who was a good friend of mine they were also selection tested dogs. He looked at the dog, said, let's test him. And that dog was one of the nicest police dogs I've ever seen. Once I saw it, when they bought him, they trained him.

We trained with him a little bit. And the dog's hunt was as good as you're ever going to see. His tenacity, everything was fantastic. When he bit, he didn't have a huge mouth, but he had really, really solid pressure. Could definitely generate pain compliance with his bite. Was he going to pile drive a 240 pound guy? Probably not. But his speed and the tenacity that he had over the years that he worked the streets, he did a fantastic job. Never had an issue because of his size.

It was never defeated because of his size. And like I said, his hunt and his tenacity was as good as I've seen. And every time I saw the dog, of course, my buddy had to remind me that I passed up the dog without even testing it. It was just pure ignorance on my part. And what makes me matter about that is over the years, even before that, quite a few times in my e-collar classes, I had seen some smaller dogs and they worked really well.

And I didn't have any problem with them. But for some reason, when I was ready to buy the dog for myself, all of a sudden it was like, no, he's too small. So the answer to that question is if the dog's got the right drives and he's suitable for police work, that smaller size is probably not going to be a hindrance. Any dog can be defeated in the right set of circumstances. And likely that size is probably going to be a benefit on many times.

You know, a smaller dog can get into places, their speed, their agility is a lot of times better. And of course their health stays a little bit better because they're not crushing all of their joints and everything. So it's, it's definitely something that I would look at the same with, just recently, I was with an agency and they were testing dogs and a smaller female male came out of the truck, tested really, really well.

And the handler immediately said, I won't work a female. that's ignorance that's just pure ignorance because you know are there are there fewer good female dogs than male dogs absolutely but there's some really nice female dogs out there that are working the street has single dual purpose dogs and there's absolutely no problem with them and so if you limit yourself to you know the color shape size i don't even like limiting myself

to a breed of course we all have breeds we like more than others but take the best dog you can get because good dogs are hard to find. So take the very best one you can get and make sure the dog is healthy and has the right drivers and character traits.

Worry about the cosmetic parts of it later. So obviously the caveat of this question is there is going to be a point where the dog's too small and a 40, 45 pound Malinois, that's probably the bottom end of it, I think, just because their mouths are going to be too small at that point or whatever. But if they bite well and they can generate the pain compliance that we're looking for and they can hunt and everything else, I wouldn't worry that much about size.

So great question. I appreciate you sending it in. And good luck with the dog.

I hope everything goes well. So another question I get, and I've got this question in lots of different ways, is the question I got was basically I have a 3-year-old Malinois and he will not stop barking in the car when I'm driving. When I get out of the car, he's quiet. When I get in and put the car in and drive, the dog starts spinning and barking and will not stop and gets worse when I talk on the radio or turn my overheads on.

So that's a really common problem in lots of different dog teams that I work with.

I'll tell you, I think one of the first solutions to that is I'm a big e-collar person. People who know me know that I teach e-collar and I'm an advocate for e-collar.

This is not a problem you fix with an e-collar and the reason i don't fix it with an e-collar a regular e-collar is because your timing is never going to be right it's going to just generate inconsistent stimulation to the dog because you'll be able to stimulate him at times when he's barking and other times you're going to be too busy and not be able to do it, So it's not a good idea to start having that irregular stimulation based on

barking when it's convenient for you to stimulate the dog with the e-collar. So that inconsistent part of it is going to really cause you a lot of problems trying to fix it with an e-collar. So the flip side of that is a bark collar, if it's a quality bark collar, works really well for a lot of dogs.

And the interesting thing is is that the bark collar I've not had a problem with that conflicting with the e-collar so if you've got your dog properly e-collar trained then you worry well if I put a bark collar on him and he gets stimmed for that it's gonna mess up his training it I haven't had that problem so there's a lot of good bark collars out there I've seen a few bark collars that are also regular e-collars I'm not a big fan of that because I think there's a,

the one that I saw you had to do, you had to turn a switch on or off on the box to turn off the bark collar. I prefer maybe just to throw an e-collar, have it on like a already adjusted strap. So when you get in the car, you throw the e-collar on the dog. And then when you're getting ready to pull the dog out of the car, just out of habit, you can reach up and unbuckle it and drop it into the floor of the kennel and take your dog out.

That way it's, it's never, I don't want them on, I don't with the BART caller on on a deployment. But when he goes in the car, throw the bark collar on him, especially when you're doing training and stuff like that, it will definitely help you because when he's parked next to the cars and he's losing his mind, barking and going crazy, then when he gets out to do training, he's going to be so worn out from the barking.

And then of course, you know, when you're trying to talk on the radio, let dispatcher know something and the dog's losing his mind, it's not just an annoyance, it could be a safety issue. So the first thing that I usually use is a bark collar. The second one that I've had some good luck with is I just buy a bottle of Arrowhead water, something that has a squirt top on it. And on occasion, when the dog's barking, give the dog a quiet command, which you've already taught outside the car.

So get him barking and tell him quiet and reward him. So you should understand some type of quiet command. I've had a little bit of luck with some dogs that are, when they start that excessive, crazy barking, just reaching back and squirting them with the water and tell them to quiet. And then that'll usually the water, you know, on their face and stuff will get them shut up for a while while they figure it out. So I've had some luck with that and it's an alternative to a bark collar.

But my first, my first solution usually is a quality bark collar. Then maybe, you know, a water bottle where you're squirting them, but that, that can be hit and miss. And, you know, sometimes I also just tell them it's something you have to put up with. But again, I understand besides a safety thing, it can be annoying if you're doing it for all day, every day, listening to the damn dog bark. But, and finally, that's one of the things I'll kind of selection test.

You know, when I, when I'm looking at a dog, sometimes you get the idea of the dog's just an excessive barker. And if I can look at another one, that's a little more quiet, I'll take that dog for, for all those reasons. So good question. I appreciate it. And then the last question, I get it in a lot of different ways.

And it's basically, you know, I'm a new handler. And what's some advice you would give to a new handler, you know, as they're starting out their canine career? This could be a show or two shows, and I could have experts on there. It could be hours and hours. But I gave it some thought and just kind of put together a few of my top suggestions that I always give new handlers. You know, if you're a newer handler or if you're a trainer and you've got a

new handler, don't use my list. come with your own list, but be ready for that question because I love that question. It tells me that the handler is generally interested in learning new things and getting better at what they're doing. So generally the first thing I always tell handlers, you know, when they're new is always keep learning. I learn all the time. As an example, you know, I did a show about a month and a half ago with Eric Good on the bark fence. Never used it before.

Something that I'm definitely learning about. Can't wait to start using it. Definitely a different technique than I've used before. Open-minded enough to sit down, listen to it, how it works, try it, figure out, you know, if it's something I want to add into my training. And I could easily sit back and say, no, I've done this for a long time. Everything I do works. I'm not going to ask, you know, more questions and keep expanding.

But I think one of the reasons I've been successful in this business is that I've always had that open-minded idea that I want to learn about how people train. See for myself if I like it or don't. See what the, you know, their own results. One of the caveats is, you know, if you're kind of a student of canine and you've got people who are out there training, make sure at times you can see either their own dog or dogs they've trained with their techniques.

So that way you can actually see it. Because I think we've all seen the expert who talks a big game, but then when you watch their own dog, they don't look quite as good as they talk or the training they put out or they refuse to show you a dog they've trained. So, you know, back it up with, you know, by seeing their own dogs, but learn the techniques, hear them out, and don't just, a lot of people are very dismissive right off the bat.

So if you, you know, been through one canine academy and then you are happy with things are, and then when somebody starts talking about how things are done a different way and right away your answer is, nope, doesn't work, that's not how I do it. You're in a box and you're never going to really grow out of that little brand new handler box. So keep learning all the time, have that open mind. And I'll add some note, train with other people. So don't be in just one training group.

As often as possible, as often as practical, make sure you're out training with different people, different agencies, you know, in the area, go to seminars, both working dog ones, classroom ones, just meet as many handlers. And it doesn't have to be the instructors that have, you know. Different classes they're doing or whatever, We're just a handler who's working the street down the highway from you.

You know, talk to them, see what they're seeing as far as their dope finds and see what's going on with, you know, the patrol stuff or bomb stuff and gun stuff and talk to them about that, how they're training, see their dogs, spend some time training with their training aides and doing some of their scenarios and trade it back to them, have them come to your agency. But make sure you're not being insular and only training with your own training

group. It's vitally important to always train with other things.

Other other people and other other training venues so and then also I always say you know when you're training and when it's possible with the dog watch the little things so when you watch all the little things with the dog and almost are a little bit nitpicky with them when it's possible all the times when you're deploying and doing demos and doing other stuff and the dog gets away with things hopefully it kind of balances out so what I'm talking about is like if you tell

your dog to down and he goes into down position, but he pushes up and his elbows aren't on the ground. If you're just doing basic obedience, you know, make that a little game that, you know, he knows you've got a toy and that you're going to throw the toy, release him and throw the toy when he goes to a down, then he's got to put his elbows down and he's got to really be stable in a down, not completely launched up.

Real little thing, you know, and I'll, when I'm doing classes, is a lot of times e-collar classes, I'll tell the handle, you'll put your dog in a down. They will and the dog will be in about 80% of a down, but his elbows are up, which tells me he's so spring loaded that at any minute he's going to jump up. Down is down and a little bit relaxed, not turned off, but just a little bit relaxed all the way down. So that's just one example of that. When you're looking for the little things,

work on all those little small things when you can. And then when you're working real stuff, you know, the dog is going to get away with things. Another little thing that I really see a lot of handlers not spend the time with is that if your dog needs a little bit of motivation, you've done some bite work or muzzle work or any type of patrol stuff, safe, hide, doesn't matter.

When you're pulling the dog away from the decoy, I always want that dog to believe at any minute I'm going to pull this leash out of dad's hands and get back there. So I don't really, I'm not a big fan of people when they walk up, the dog's doing whatever, he's biting or muzzle fighting or whatever, leash the dog up and then the dog knows, okay, game's over and they turn around, they're ready to walk to the car.

Spend that time to have that dog believe, you know, I can still pull back and get back in that fight. So it's one of those little things that gets that mindset of that dog to think, oh, I'm going to pull dad back and keep going back and forth, back and forth. and spend a little time going back to the car. And every time the dog turns around, pulls you, go a step or two back towards where the decoy was.

And you're going to get a dog with a whole lot more drive. And when they come back out of the car, they're more excited. So those are two examples, but I'm sure you can think of quite a few more of just watching all the little things. And then another real important thing is you have to be sincere to your dog. If I see a handler and they walk over and they kind of slap the side of the dog's head and say, good boy. The dog knows it's bullshit, but we all know it is. And you just can't lie to

a dog. Dogs do not like liars. It's better not to even praise your dog. If you can't be sincere, when your dog does something good, if you're not genuinely happy that you just trained the dog, he's doing something different, and you can really show the dog the appreciation of what he did, you're not going to be successful. The dog has to understand that you have sincerity in your praise and that you're actually excited.

And we get a lot of handlers that, you know, they like the position because they don't have to do accident reports. They, you know, get out of some other duties that a patrol officer would have and having a dog is cool, but they're not really that dog handler. They're not the dog handler that when the dog does something new, you know, they don't get excited.

And good dog handlers, you know, even if it's not your dog, when, you know, when you're helping train another dog and the dog does some little step, good dog handlers and real dog handlers, you feel it. It's like, oh, wow, that worked great. You know, and you're happy. And when you're generally happy and you tell the dog, hey, I'm happy. Thank you. Good job.

The dog knows it. And when you're just trying to walk through the motions because you really don't care how good the dog does or doesn't, it's never going to work that good. You'll get through it, but the dog's never going to be that great and you're never going to be that great.

So really check yourself, you know, is this something you really want to do for a long time because the handlers that are insincere i've seen some stick around for a long time two three dogs and their dogs are always medium at best never the the best dogs because that praise and that sincerity is not there and you just cannot lie to a dog about it so. Finally, be honest about your dog's performance in real-life deployments.

So if you're out and you've got your training group and then one night you're out and you do a patrol deal and the dog fails to engage somebody, that's where you go back and you talk to the people in your training group. Hey, these are everything that happened.

Let's diagnose why it happened. And quite often the dogs, you know, if they don't engage or they miss, you know, dope on the street or something like that, handlers have too much pride and they don't want to admit that, hey, my dog had an issue, so I need to work on it. So what should I do here with, you know, this is what happened.

So you have to be honest with your, you know, what happened on the street and people who know me and have listened to this show even for a short time know that, you know, I will absolutely admit I've had failures. Everybody who's done this for a long time has had failures, both with your own dogs and the people you've trained. It happens. It's a dog. And the only way that we can fix those is to be very, very honest and almost critical about all the stuff your dog does in real deployment.

So we can replicate it and figure out if there's a training scar or we missed something in training that we need just to go back and expose the dog to. So be honest with your performance and be honest with your dog's praise.

So that's going to wrap up these questions i like doing these shows if you have more questions, i've got a few more questions that i'll probably do another show here pretty quick but if you have some good questions you know just reach out to me send them in and if you like this format we'll do it on a regular basis so thanks everybody and be safe. All right, so that's going to wrap up the question and answer show. I wanted to talk about a couple of more advertisers that we have going on.

CATS, canine record keeping software, that's Bob Eden's canine software. You hear me talk about it a lot. CATS is the original canine, online canine record keeping software. Whenever I read stuff on social media posts about who uses what, what comes to mind, and what you see all the comments is, is that Cats is highly customizable. So what's cool is that even though it's an out-of-the-box solution for your canine record keeping, you can customize it to be very, very specific to your own needs.

So check out catsonline.net for Cats canine software. Also, Canine Services down in New Mexico, Kevin Sheldahl's down there doing all kinds of training. You name a type of dog you want to train, and Kevin can do it and has done it. He sells some dogs down there, does a ton of training. So he'll do seminars in your area, come out and do an audit, or you can go down there and train with him.

So Canine Services in New Mexico, and it's Kevin Sheldahl. His website is k-9services.com, or just give Kevin a call at 505-250-4576. Finally, I want to talk about my friends John and Becky Johnson at acek9.com. Excellent product. You have to have a heat alarm in your car. It'd be ridiculous to be driving around and not have one. If it's a budget issue, there's plenty of 501c3s that'll help you buy the proper equipment.

But your dogs have to have a heat alarm. besides the heat alarm they have no canine left behind to make sure the dog has exited the car before you shut your car off for the end of the shift they have different options they have a co2 detector they have a door popper so excellent product and it's a cellular so talk to your phone so acek9.com for all of your heat alarm needs thanks everybody we'll be back real. Music.