EP27: K9 Convo - OFC Dane Haugen

#dickinsonpdnd #offthecuff 
Oғғ ᴛʜᴇ Cᴜғғ Pᴏᴅᴄᴀsᴛ | Eᴘɪsᴏᴅᴇ #27

"K9 Convo" - OFC Dane Haugen

A year that felt “quieter” turned out to be the second-busiest in our department’s history—and that’s just the first surprise. We break down what the numbers really say: why call volume climbed as staffing improved, how proactive patrols nudged crashes down and warrants up, and the single most encouraging stat of the year—a sharp drop in domestic violence calls compared to the recent average. Not everything trended well, though. We dig into the rise in resisting and preventing arrest, the risks in those split-second moments, and why our mantra is comply now, contest later.

We also open the hood on how we’re getting better at the unglamorous work that wins cases. Report writing became a 2026 priority, with Draft One—Axon’s closed system that drafts from body-cam transcripts—helping officers save time while improving accuracy. Pair that with direct feedback from prosecutors and we’re already seeing cleaner narratives and fewer avoidable delays. Wellness got teeth this year, too. We set three sturdy legs—mental health check-ins, tighter cardiac screenings, and a department-backed financial literacy course with Ramsey Solution's "Financial Peace University"—so officers can make better decisions and build stronger lives at home.

Then there’s the story everyone’s been asking about: Officer Dane and K9 Frida. From jail corrections to rookie cop to field training officer, Dane leaned into discomfort until growth became a habit. His leap to K9 handler brought a Slovakian Malinois with endless drive and zero English into a 14-week training gauntlet. Together they learned the real craft of detection: reading breath changes, tail cadence, and head snaps; understanding residual odor; and certifying on fentanyl, meth, cocaine, heroin, and ecstasy. Frida works hard on the street and sits calm with kids at community events—the rare balance we need.

If you value candid insights into policing that go beyond headlines—data that surprises, systems that improve, and a handler who lets you see the messy middle—this one’s for you. Subscribe, share with a friend who loves K9 stories, and leave a review with the moment that stuck with you most.

Chapters

• 0:20 New Year, Goals, And Setup
• 1:49 Call Volume Surges Despite “Quieter” Feel
• 4:39 Domestic Violence Calls Drop Sharply
• 6:37 Search Warrants Rise With Tech-Driven Cases
• 9:25 Resisting Arrest And Officer Assault Trends
• 12:50 Professionalism As A Core 2026 Goal
• 15:25 Report Writing And Draft One AI
• 18:07 Wellness Push: Mental, Physical, Financial
• 21:05 Meet Officer Dane: Path To Policing
• 24:07 Jail To Street: What Changes
• 28:02 Field Training: Overwhelm To Growth
• 33:08 How DPD’s FTO Program Works
• 38:15 From FTO To SWAT And K9 Selection
• 41:55 K9 Frida: Selection, Home Check, First Meet
• 46:00 14 Weeks Of K9 School
• 49:13 What Frida Can Detect And How
• 52:40 Alerts, “False” Alerts, And Body Language
• 55:30 Life With A Working Dog
• 1:09:42 Frida Joins The Mic
• 1:12:42 Certification Clicks And Speed Cuffing

Transcript

DC Hanson: 0:19

All right, from Western North Dakota, the men and women in blue are coming back at you. We're straight off the cuff here with episode 27. Good morning, Lieutenant. Hey, top of the morning, T. How you doing? Doing great. First episode here of the new year, 2026. Yep. Coming in second month, early February here we are. But it's uh, yeah, we had a good, we actually had a good, a really good, uh, successful uh holiday season here in the department and kind of got some things settled here. It's always a little busy in the administration wing with new budgets and new things. So we put some pet projects um away a little bit this morning, and we're gonna kind of talk. We got a really special guest here, but before we'll kind of talk a little bit about some goals we got moving forward in this year, and we'll talk some crime trends from last year and just some different things. But you're a numbers guy, I'm a numbers guy, so I know that uh you know this time of year is always a little bit fun for us that we get to kind of see like a culmination of like the 25 year-end stats. Right. And you know, they were interesting. I think that we had kind of been feeling them and trending them in this direction, but we have a couple of interesting ones that we kind of wanted to share. Some of the ones that jumped out and stood out to us, if you want to kind of give like the over high-level overview though.

LT Hanel: 1:29

Yeah, so like the initial numbers that we're gonna be getting is just a really rough uh overview of of kind of how busy we were, just just to kind of get the temperature of what last year was compared to the year before. Um, the actual crime stats, so like the UCR and the and the NIBRS numbers, so the actual crime statistics, those are aren't due out until probably April or May. I think it's gonna be a little bit of a delay on that this year, actually. Um, but uh in terms of like how busy we are as a department and and for call volume and stuff was actually pretty surprising. I uh the sentiment from from the the troops last year was it seems like it was a little quieter in terms of calls and stuff like that. So when we started pulling up the numbers and we realized we were actually the second highest call volume in the department history, and and and the only outlier from that being 2018, uh which were uh well over 20,000. Um so it was it was surprising to kind of see that, even especially when they were saying it. So when we dig did the little bit of data mining on that, what initially stands out now is, and I think it's it's a causation correlation thing here, but since our staffing was uh drastically improved last year, we were pretty full staff, that gave some opportunity, some more opportunity for more self-initiated activity. So that's kind of what we're seeing in terms of why the our numbers now were uh 3.9% higher than last year, than 2024. Um, 28,162 calls for service.

DC Hanson: 2:48

Yeah, and that number jumped out at me. Um, you know, I I track every single week those numbers come in, so I get a kind of a temperature check at like how busy the week was. I was surprised to see them that big. I mean, now you and I even talked about that. You know, I asked, I knew we were gonna be close, busiest, you know, in in recency time, probably even ever, you know, when you think about the growing trend. But um, we did have that one year before kind of before COVID started to slow us down, but we're now fully on the ramp up. Exactly what you said, where you know our staffing levels have been better. We've you know, we've we've caught a trend and we've got we've got so many really good young officers that are really eager to do cop work. Yeah, you know, and one of the things um I know just just to kind of feed and to give the public this is you know, the the term law enforcement, it's it's very specific to like enforcing the law. And you know, I was reading an article where it talks about you know using the term cop work or using the term police work just because it encompasses so much more.

LT Hanel: 3:46

Yep.

DC Hanson: 3:47

You know, well, how many guests have we had on here where it's like, well, enforcing the law is 15, 20, 30 minutes out of your day, possibly. The rest of it, you're doing so many other things. You know, you're responding to mental health crises, you're going to schools, you're doing talks, yep. All kinds of stuff. And this group that we have is so eager to do all of it. And and you know, across the board when it comes to the self-initiated stuff, we're watching good trends. We're watching, you know, our warrants when they come out, they're getting served in timelier fashions. Our traffic stop numbers has helped us decrease some of our accidents that we've seen here in town. We're watching, you know, uh some of the proactivity levels inside of the schools are increasing. You know, our footprint, we're able to do a little bit more with our staff. But some of the really interesting stuff was like the one that jumped out at me the most, domestic violence. You know, when I ran these numbers and I shared this already with ULT, but um I figured we'd be down a little bit, calls for service-wise, and I didn't realize it would be to the to the degree of that.

LT Hanel: 4:49

Exactly. Right.

DC Hanson: 4:50

So what I did is I did, and this is just our calls for service. Again, this is not our state numbers are gonna be behind. Exactly. They're gonna be behind uh the state actually doesn't have anybody currently employed. You know, they lost their last employee doing it, so they may even be a you know, our year in book might be delayed because of that. But just to give a temperature on it, you know, in the past six years, last year was 20% lower than the average of the five before that. That's considerable when you look at a community our side and the fact that we were able to shave off, I mean, we almost shaved off nearly a hundred domestic violence incidences that we had to respond to. And you know, we've talked about on this podcast, and if you if you know somebody in law enforcement, they will share with you what is your least favorite calls to go to. They'll usually say, you know, something dealing with a child injury-wise or domestic violence. Right. You know, you're entering a situation where it's not on your territory, it's somebody else's home, it's very high emotions. High emotions, yeah, exactly. That's so so being able to take those away, and uh that was that was surprising, I guess. That was it, that was one that jumped out at me.

LT Hanel: 5:52

Yep. Who knows the causation behind that either? Uh I know that's gonna be one of the follow-up questions. I'm sure like the media is gonna be interested to be why such the drop. I I I'm not I'm not sure if uh you know the stressors of of COVID are finally starting to diminish. I mean, the the economy is starting to turn around uh considerably. So uh yeah, who knows exactly what uh what individual thing, but uh uh yeah, that that is a comforting sign to see.

DC Hanson: 6:14

Um it is and ultimately, you know, we we do report when it comes to crime trends, unfortunately, report sometimes on bad stuff. You know, last year we were had we were having a conversation uh early last year when we were talking about crime trends in the wrong direction. Exactly. We were talking about assaults on the rise, we're talking about aggravated assaults, we were talking about those things. So it's we don't necessarily have the answers. We're here just kind of providing this is this is what we know. You know, we don't have all the answers. But another one that jumped out at me, and uh this one makes perfect sense, and we can kind of explain this one is search warrants. You know, search warrants are something that the public uh, you know, they probably assume that we do to a certain degree. You take our numbers from five, six years ago, we were executing 75 to 85 search warrants roughly a year. You know, those are gonna be like on residences, homes, those could be on uh, you know, a a computer, electronic device, something like that. Well, the way of policing becoming so technologically heavy, and then just with some of the training that we've done with our staff and being able to kind of champion a call, and and and you know, we've had last year, it's Heroes Week. There's a couple of good examples of a patrol officer sinking their teeth into a call and running with it. Exactly. Um search warrants have become more of a norm for us to be able to execute and kind of take a crime to the next degree, which is a really good sign. But from six years ago, we executed a hundred more search warrants last year. That was amazing. Isn't that amazing? You know, like that you you think about competency of your staff and and and degree of the workload, and that was a that was an interesting staff that I just wanted to share.

LT Hanel: 7:51

And and I think and you alluded to a little bit with the electronics, it I think a lot of that is having to do electronics, so getting into phones for either ICAC investigations, you know, internet crimes against children, or even you mentioned Heroes Recognition Week. A lot of those cases unfortunately uh involved uh you know uh sexual abuse of a minor of some sort, which that actually that trend uh I I did I'm curious to see how those numbers pan out because it did seem like we had quite a few last last year. So those cases are very pivotal to make sure that we have everything in order. So yeah, we're we're we're cutting a lot of paper, a lot of search warrants off of that to make sure our ducks in a row so we get uh an accurate prosecution on it. And then you know we had that high incident uh drive-by shooting down in in uh Carroll's trailer court. That was uh a significant number of of search warrants being issued off of that call. But that culminated into I believe they already had a plea agreement uh off of one of the suspects there.

DC Hanson: 8:39

So that one's moving through the judicial system, and it's um you know, not all the times are cops gonna be in favor of you know some of the outcomes that we have, but that's that's the beauty of our system. You know, our job is to put together the strongest case we can, and then we hope for the best when it comes to the attorneys and the judges. And this case looks like it's gonna be very fruitful as far as public safety. Yep. You know, which is which is a very good news.

LT Hanel: 8:59

And and that goes back to big kudos to the initial work that was done by the initial responding officers and then the detectives that put a ton of hour, ton of hours uh initially into that, you know, the first couple days. Um all that that work is paying off and and uh where we're getting with the through the judicial system on that.

DC Hanson: 9:13

Yeah. I'm gonna let you chat on this one. Um we got one more. There was one other one that I that I had um I think you were tracking it and trending it, and and and we we know our suspicions were correlated when it came to this one, but I'll kind of let you chat about uh the next one, which is not great news, but right.

LT Hanel: 9:29

Yeah, so this involves all of the the resisting arrests, the preventing arrests, and and assaults on law enforcement officers. Uh we from admin, you know, we're going through the the the reports on a on a weekly basis on a Monday morning, seeing what happened over the weekend. And and that was a common theme when when we start to investigate these is or start to look at the media reports for the week. Yeah, there's there's a lot we're getting in scraps a lot, you know, and this isn't uh the height of the oil boom or anything like that, but there's still continues to be an upward trend of of of those cluster of of of charges. So either the the the assaults on a on a police officer, which which could either be it could range from something as as simple as you know, kicking, punching, pushing. Right. And thankfully we haven't had uh I think there was only one in there that I can remember where it was actually uh a significant injury of sort of of sorts from an officer. So thankfully um you know it didn't get to that extent, but nonetheless it's still it's still a felony level. You can't you can't can't hit a cop. I mean that's just you can't do that. Um and then there's the the preventing arrest, and we actually uh um so that's either uh like obstruction or and that that is kind of what what the you know resisting more or less is is kind of categorized as well as under under the century code is is called preventing arrest. And that can be a class A uh A misdemeanor or a Class C felony, depending on uh what type of crime you're actually obstructing or resisting on. Um so that's involved in that. And then there's a city uh code that we have, which is just basically called resisting an officer. And that's a it's a B misdemeanor, so it's a lower level of offense, and that's that's gonna be for your more of your kind of stagnant compliance where you you're really not actively resisting, but it's it's you're you're impeding the you know the investigation. It's it's taking a little bit more than than uh you know just verbal uh force to get a person into custody. Um so clustering all those together, and we've been seeing ever since they run the numbers in 2021, just an upward trend that uh that that definitely peaked last in in 2024 and and held about the same in 2025. Yeah.

DC Hanson: 11:26

You know, and and this was one uh a couple of years ago uh when I was the patrol lieutenant, and I I kind of highlighted this in the in the ear end book, and we talked about it was kind of the first year we saw it jumping in the wrong direction. And we're not here to give everybody the answers because I don't know that we truly have one thing, but some of it feels as if when a police officer arrives on a scene nowadays, there seems to be more of a tendency to want to resist authority. Right. And it it's making the job of our officers substantially longer and more difficult because it this adds in extra charges, extra paperwork, extra processes. Um, you know, I we we understand like supervisors get involved with this, and it just it it becomes it becomes an it becomes a a a drain on our resources of sorts to handle situations that in all reality it just doesn't need to be that way.

LT Hanel: 12:22

Exactly. Right. And and and we can see uh you know what we're seeing in our neighbors to the to the east here, you know, just just those moments where it comes for the time of the arrest, it it's a very dangerous time, you know, because the officer doesn't know what's what what that suspect is thinking. They don't they don't know if they're armed or not. And all of a sudden now we have resistive behavior of some sort, that immediately sends up the red flags, and and and we're you know those officers are being now being placed in a split second decision-making uh circumstance, which uh unfortunately sometimes cross-country uh doesn't pan out very good, right? Um so we we really just want to emphasize that if if you're being placed under arrest or detention or something like that, and you're giving a lawful command to do something, it it j just comply. You know, there are there's rem there's plenty of civil remedies after the fact. There's there's the entire court process to to fight whatever charge that you're arrested on. There's uh civil remedies if something is as simple as filing an officer complaint all the way up to you know a civil lawsuit and the departments can get uh can get if if we didn't follow protocol, that that could be a remedy there. That's the time and the place to argue that stuff, not not when it's time to get the handcuffs on.

DC Hanson: 13:26

Yeah, that's just it's and a lot of the times these these individuals that are doing this, they're maybe not in the right frame of mind. I mean, I I've told you countless times where I've had an officer complaint where the way that they remembered or translated the situation from their memory compared to what's been documented and and and the videos, it just they're totally off base from each other. So but it it kind of plays into so we have some goals. We have some goals for 2026, and in talking to our patrol lieutenant, one of the ones that jumped out at me, and I think it's perfect because it's one of those ones where we hold a lot of pride, and I know that the chief talked about this. Um he talked about this at our at our holiday party here just a couple of weeks ago, was he's had so many members of the public talk about our new officers, you know, our our guys with three years or less on the street, just how respectful they are, how professional they are, and we really think we have something in that, you know, in this uh beautiful version of like being a law enforcement officer, but being a cop and being having some compassion and some empathy. Absolutely. So even though we have a trend coming in the wrong direction, we're challenging our our patrol staff specifically with being professional at all times. Right. You know, just kind of this mantra of somebody may not be handing you respect, but your badge and your uniform demand of you to be respectful back to the community. Exactly. You know, that's that's one of the ones that uh I think it was a great idea, and I know this kind of came from the patrol division, and I give it the full stamp of approval. I think it's fantastic.

LT Hanel: 14:57

Right, right. It's it's uh kind of hearkening to the the Sun Tzu theory that the best fight is uh the best warrior is one that can you know solve an argument, win a fight without ever raising a finger, you know, just by by using words and and tactics like that. Because that's the shine of a true professional right there. And so yeah, that's if that's what they're coming up with, that's awesome because I think we're in the right trajectory in that in that respect.

DC Hanson: 15:18

Then we had another one, another department goal that I think um, you know, we've got some we've got some techniques and some tools maybe to help with this one. But that would be um I think if you were in the education system, they might be able to feel this. But some of our newest officers have maybe a little bit too much text typing abilities, maybe uh you could say, to where the report, the our you know, our report quality has taken a little bit of a dip, but we've been trying to bring it back up, and I think some of it is just you know, this day and age, like they don't do a lot of longhand essay type writing. You can't write a report with emojis. So so we have been working on this and they have been improving, they've been trending in the right direction. We've gotten that feedback from both our state's attorney and our city attorney, but we do have a very interesting tool that's coming in play here in a couple of months that I think will kind of take us to even another level.

LT Hanel: 16:10

Yep. And I think we alluded to it on a couple past episodes, but it's called Draft One. It's it's from Axon, it's the same company that does their tasers, their body cams, in car video interview groups. It's all under one ecosystem now, but uh one of the uh really interesting uh benefits from what they have is this integrated AI that they have uh that as soon as a body cam uh footage is uploaded for an officer, um it can basically, with a click of a button, uh, basically draft a report from what it's interpreting on on the body cam. Granted, there's uh a ton of guardrails in place. Um the officer has to go in and and delete uh nonsensical uh language of sorts, basically just ensure that that they are uh reviewing every word that that got written on their behalf. And and um so it's it's it's not the be-all end all, but it's gonna it's gonna drastically uh increase our I think it our accuracy, our um time from having to be in in the building the whole time and and and doing that. So I think it should be a big benefit.

DC Hanson: 17:08

You know, it's some people can be leery about it thinking that like, oh, it's like chat GPT writing a report. It's it's it's totally different from the chat GPT. It's really a closed source. Yep. It doesn't put anything in that's not in the transcript of what was talking about. So really when you think about it, it's it's a it's a system that takes the dictation of what was said during the interaction with the officer and the citizen, and it just compiles it in a police report format. Exactly. You know, and it's and it's we're looking at that as being a real time saver and equality.

LT Hanel: 17:40

Yep, exactly.

DC Hanson: 17:41

Then we got another couple of um, you know, we have some wellness initiatives. We're already getting long, but I want you to talk about one of them that you're spearheading that you kicked off here just this week because I think it's it just kind of shows not just you and and your your care that you have for for this job and this staff after 20 plus years, but also just kind of giving back um you know to some of these officers that are just getting started because you have a passion for this.

LT Hanel: 18:06

Oh, absolutely, yeah, it's right up my alley. It's kind of filling out the uh the stool per se for the wellness stool here that we've been trying to create over the last year or so uh at the department. We recognize uh you know, we as admin, we could probably just be doing a a a bit more on the on the wellness perspective. So uh the uh the the mental health awareness um was something that we kind of started uh last year. So we have uh we'll have a mandatory one-day um wellness checkup uh that we that we bring an in-house uh psychologist in in everybody's uh tasks to meet with them, and then there's there's follow-up care after that if the officers still want to. So that's the mental aspect. Uh the physical aspect we've been uh uh really shoring up our uh presumptive physicals, making sure our uh cardiac health was a big uh big pull on that. That was implemented last year, and we shored that up. And then the third leg is is the financial one. And and this is this is kind of what really piqued my interest a couple years ago. I've always been intending to get it in, I just never got to that point. But it's it's it's basically uh Financial Peace University uh through uh Dave Ramsey, the Ramsey uh uh clan down there in Tennessee. They offer a um nine-week uh it's basically a uh a class where where they they provide all the material, the videos, and then uh we just get together as as a group of of those officers that wanted to attend. This is uh funded by our our police association, so they they purchased the memberships. And uh so I jumped into the coordinator role on that, and we had our first uh our first kickoff meeting on Tuesday evening. So we'll have every Tuesday uh evenings through through the end of March uh learning the uh the principles for financial wellness. Um because our our line of work, especially uh us, the military, just our personality types, we're we're we we we like to spend hard, you know. We like like the like to party hard, right? Uh and and that uh can can get us in in into some some hot water. So um that uh having having these tools, especially this young, you know you were you mentioned the young crowd that we got now. Had I had all these this this knowledge that uh that FPU kind of uh um really emphasizes, had I had that, you know, 15, 20 years ago, I couldn't imagine where I'd be at now. So the the fact that we have this young crop of kids latching onto these financial principles uh early on in their careers, yeah, um it's it's really gonna be uh uh changing their family trees for sure for sure. So excited to be a part of that.

DC Hanson: 20:16

Yeah, and I mean I think the entire department owes you a big thank you. You know, I mean, like the fact that you saw this and you know, it wasn't like somebody necessarily came to you and said, hey, do this idea, but you kind of saw it and you wanted to make it your own and you're kind of filling in a gap. Um and it was really well attended. It was so I think that that's that that obviously shows that there was an appetite for this. So yeah, that's fantastic. Well, we've been chatting here for a little bit and we talked about it early. We've got a special guest, and then we may even have an extra special guest on the back end of this.

Speaker 3: 20:47

Let's go.

DC Hanson: 20:48

But uh yeah, we want to introduce. We've got Officer Dane Haugan here.

LT Hanel: 20:53

Dane Train.

DC Hanson: 20:54

So, Dane, we're gonna let you have an easy one right out of the gates. Just tell us a little bit about yourself, where you grew up, and uh, you know, so maybe some hobbies or things of yours.

OFC Haugen: 21:03

Uh well, I'm a hometown boy. I pretty much spent my whole time at Dickinson, North Dakota here. Um yeah, actually, my whole time almost. I uh ended up going to high school here, played a couple sports here, football, did basketball for a little bit, not really my favorite sport. Um, and then track I threw. Running's kind of overrated in my mind. But and then uh after that, I ended up attending uh DSU for a little bit. Okay. Um I'm not the most scholarly individual that is out there on the planet. So you're the one that we're talking about with these report writing issues? Yeah, probably. I've been known to get an email or two throughout the days, not the weeks. So yeah, yeah, my supervisors are always on me, like that doesn't make sense. And I was like, Yeah, I know, I don't know how to make it make sense. So I need some help on that end of things. But um, yeah, then I end up going to Lake Region to attempt to finish at least a two year degree. I mean, I believe I actually have the college credits to almost get a four year at this point. But while I was at Lake Region up there, COVID happened, and then everything that Ended up separating and uh classes were online. I'm more of like an in-class person, like that's just how I learn a little bit better. I can't do the online stuff, I got too many distractions, you know. It's like, oh, I got a PlayStation, oh, I got this, so I can just do all this stuff while I think I'm listening, you know. And it didn't really work out like that. But uh after that, I ended up going and working at the jail here in Dickinson for about two and two and a half years, I'd say roughly. And um after that, I mean I think I spent that whole time applying here at the Dickinson Police Department just when you guys had openings, but it was super competitive back then. You guys would have like one or two openings. You had a group of just great guys, and it was it was hard to sneak in, you know. Yeah, you know, which is good. I mean, first job that I've ever uh applied for and got turned down, so that was a huge learning point in my life, you know. Like you think everything just goes your way up until then. But um, hobby-wise, I like to hunt when I can. Um, used to be a big snowboarder, but uh my sports career didn't really do my joints nicely, so I try to stay away from them. I like to say I got the joints of a seven-year-old and a 26-year-old's body, it's not a good thing. So, but yeah, that's kind of a quick rundown of how we got to where I'm at right now. Nothing too crazy.

LT Hanel: 23:09

You mentioned uh Lake Region State College. Did you actually attend the the peace officer uh course there?

OFC Haugen: 23:13

No, I didn't. I was planning to, and then uh the whole COVID thing happened, and it kind of threw a wrench in the plan because now I'm back home, you know, with my parents. I'm trying to like keep up with college, and then I was just like, well, I could do the whole peace officer thing, and then I saw the jail had openings. Uh they always typically have openings, and I was like, what's a better way to learn how to deal with difficult people that cops deal with on the street all the time than to work out of jail?

LT Hanel: 23:35

And the reason I bring that up, it's a shameless plug for my alma mater. I was I'm a lake Lake Region State graduate, so they they have the peace officer training program up there. Um and and can you maybe highlight just the the different type of pipelines that if if people in your position like you were the different types of uh pipelines to be able to get into law enforcement in North Dakota?

OFC Haugen: 23:54

Yeah, yeah. So there's like you said, you have that peace officer course up there. Um that kind of helps you keep your options open at like the most. Like if I would say like you you don't know where you want to police yet, you want to see if policing's for you, like whole nine yards, like you can go ahead and go do that. And you can still keep up your post license afterwards by attending different courses and classes. So it's not that big of a deal while you make up your mind of like, do I want to be a big city cop? Do I want to be a small county cop? Do I want to be uh I still consider Dickinson a town? I don't really think it's a city. I've seen some cities, this this is nowhere near this, it's like one of their suburb neighborhoods, you know. Um, so there's that route, and then there's obviously the route where you apply for an agency and they send you to the academy. The incentive to that is you get paid the whole time, you know. That's that's the best part of ending up getting sent to an academy. And um, I always wanted to be a hometown cop. I thought about big city stuff for a while, but I love the community of Dickinson, and I'm just like, I'm probably not gonna stretch out too far to be honest, so I might as well just apply here and hopefully you guys can send me through it.

DC Hanson: 24:51

So yeah, and there's real pros and cons. You know, you and you highlighted those perfectly, you know, as far as like I like the way that you put if you go to Lake Region or you go get your post license, it leaves you free. You know, the one of the things that I always encourage, you know, new applicants when they're looking to get into policing, go do some ride-alongs, go experience because once you experience the difference between even just locally here, riding with the police department is vastly different than riding with the sheriff's office, is vastly different than jumping in a hybrid patrol car. You know, it's we all have a badge and we all have the same authorities in our jurisdictions, but our jobs are very much different from each other, and that's great advice. Thinking about this. Um, so you talked, you're from here, you played sports here. Um, people probably recognize your last name. People probably know know maybe your dad or see your dad because your dad is one of those guys where he's such a community figure, you see him around all the time, and he's he's such a great example of somebody who gives back to the community.

OFC Haugen: 25:46

Yeah, yep. Um, yeah, I I have no complaints over my childhood or who raised me, to be honest. I don't think I could ask for better parents when it comes down to that. Um yeah, like the last name, you know, my dad, Rick, he uh was in the National Guard for 20 years, uh 21, 22 years, just the way like the split ends up happening. Um went over to Iraq in early 2004, I believe, came back 2005, or it might be 2003 to 2004. I was like four years old. I I can't remember now. He tells me all the time, and it's just so um on top of that he was a social worker, so he gotta deal with. I like to say a lot of the same stuff we get to deal with. Yeah. Um, but mainly he's either calling us or we're calling him to show up somewhere and then he's like doing his best job or not. But throughout the National Guard, he kind of did a lot of community events um for them. I gotta do a lot of cool stuff growing up, gotta go to Louisiana, stuff like that, just for the National Guard, you know, and uh it was it was a blast. But uh yeah, and then now he participates in the city council meeting. So he's on planning and zoning. Planning and zoning. I'll let him know that you knew that too. Hopefully he watches this and just finds out that I can remember something other than when he explains the family tree every other holiday, and I'm just like, ah, that doesn't make sense to me.

DC Hanson: 26:58

So I remember some. But but no, I think I think that there was obviously something in you. And then even when you say you were you wanted, you know, you even said out of your own words, you wanted to be a hometown cop. And there had to have been some of that from you know watching your dad give back through the National Guard, give back to the social worker piece. But it's interesting to me. So I was I was not that. I did not want to be a hometown cop. I got a guy to my right, he definitely did, and then what was about it? What was about uh you know wanting that, I guess.

OFC Haugen: 27:23

Well, naturally, I've always been kind of like a I'm like a homebody or whatever. Somebody easily gets homesick. Like it took a it took a huge step for me to even go to Lake Region, like you know, to get out of my comfort zone. It needed to happen, but um I just like the small town stuff. I mean, you can there's so many opportunities here on top of all that. Like people don't think about it. Like, are we as busy or does it feel like we're as busy? You guys said earlier that we are. To me, it doesn't feel like we've been that busy at all, to be honest. Um, but I mean I was also gone for half the year, but um everybody here's just been kind of nice. Everybody around here is kind of like nice, and they're they're very respectful towards law enforcement. I mean, they're always down to help. I mean, you know, the community's great around here. There's hard there are hardly any disgruntled individuals. Yeah.

DC Hanson: 28:06

I'm looking for the right word. Um, that's a huge plug for us when we when we talk. You know, we've had several very fortunate people that wanted the lateral into us. And I don't know that there's a better plug for us to put out there when it comes to that. That's really what we hit. You can police in any part of this country, but the way the citizens, it's different for us. And we we talk, you know, yeah, we have these um resisting officer um situations, they're on the rise for us. But you know, we're trying to get in front of it. We're really trying to be just transparent about what we have going on. This is not the same type of policing that you see on Fox News or that we see when these people come to us. Um I mean, you have a shift mate that had come from a situation that could not be any more black and white from us. So it's like we do have it really well here. So I think, yeah, just to kind of highlight and just to go back to what you say 100% like Dickens in the community in large, very good to us. Oh yeah. No complaints on that end of things. So you were a sports guy. So growing up, football was kind of your thing?

OFC Haugen: 29:10

Football was definitely my most favorite thing. Um and then track was my second, but I kind of used that as an excuse to lift and get stronger for football. Yeah. You know, it was never like my favorite thing on the planet because you know you're just out with your boys messing around. But football was definitely my bread and butter when it comes to sports.

DC Hanson: 29:27

So growing up, you're an athlete, community service type staff, you jump into the jail. We now hire you. What was the when was the year and date to that?

OFC Haugen: 29:37

It was winter months. When you guys hired me? Well, my official hiring was August 22nd, 2022. But then you know, you spent I spent like a month on the road and then went to the academy.

DC Hanson: 29:46

Yeah, right to the academy. Yeah. Hardest parts post-academy. You're coming back. What did what was what was Dane's struggle? So you're coming from an athletic background, you're coming from a community service background, you had some time in the jail. How was what was field training like for Dane?

OFC Haugen: 30:01

It's overwhelming. Um and you're gonna be overwhelmed, and you're also gonna want to be overwhelmed because you're not gonna have to learn how to deal with problems. I didn't look at it that way, you know. Um, still young. I'm still young now, I'm 26, but I'm like even younger now. That's almost four years ago now. We're talking. So mine is three years of me. I was 23, 22 years old. Yeah. Um but you feel in over your head sometimes because you do have intense situations. Um I remember one night my favorite story is um we once had a corporal here, he was my FTO, and the first night I asked him, I was just like, in like the movies, do you just like you know, like run around, break in boards, point guns at people? And he's just like, no, like hardly ever. 30 minutes later, right? We get a call down at Harview Camp, and uh I get there and everybody has their guns out, and like everybody has rifles and everything, and we're like 75 yards away from the gun, and my FTO looks at me, he's like, dude, get your gun out. And I'm like, he just told me we don't always do that. Like he's like, no, get it out now. And I'm just like, okay, okay, you know, so it's a lot of stuff like that, and you'll be put in a lot of hard situations, you know, and uh just to really like test your mettle or your bravery, I should say, you know. So that was it's kind of that, and then like people always say it, like uh I don't want to call it like a power thing, but the badge has some merit behind it, you know. So like learning that you can control situations to have the safest outcome, that was hard because I feel like I've never done that my whole life other than a jail, and those are people that have always been already been accused of a crime, I should say, you know. So it's like, yeah, they have to do what we say, but it's now I get to process what happens before that. And that was kind of like the hard part because they're like, well, tell them to stop moving around. Like, can I do that? Like I can make them do that, like stop putting your hands in your pockets, stuff like that. So it's like learning how to be comfortable with telling people what to do and what not to do in the right situation was kind of hard.

LT Hanel: 31:52

And actually, maybe even take a step back a little bit further, even before we got here. And so you mentioned the jail, and I think uh maybe only Taylor Peters is the only only other officer that we've had on the podcast here before that was uh straight from the jail here, too. Um so obviously Southwest Multi County Correctional Center up here. Um can you maybe just go into that a little bit of exactly what uh what the the the difference, the dichotomy between being a correction officer and being a being an actual police officer and and and just just how a jail environment is drastically different.

OFC Haugen: 32:19

Uh stale air is is the number one thing I would say. That was always the toughest. No, no, yeah. Everything's different. I mean, other than I get to deal with the same people you guys bring in. But I have to be more personable with the people because I deal with them day in and day out, you know, like learning how to be personal, personal with those individuals. Like as an officer, you arrest them, you take them to jail. Oftentimes you forget about it. You go type the report and you're done. Yeah. Well, I got to see them every day, you know, and some of them they like to fight, you know. So now you're you have to fight them one day and the next day you have to go be like, hey man, you're ready for breakfast. Yeah, so it's like I uh a lot of stories in the country, just corrections officers getting too comfortable with like inmates and stuff like that. And that's exactly why, because you spend 12 hours a day, if not more, with these individuals all the time. But um, you have a lot more freedom as a cop than you do have a correctional officer. I don't think you can proactively correctional officer. I'm not 100% sure if that'd be a thing or not, but uh yeah, but as a cop, like you're out there looking for stuff, doing stuff all the time. And the corrections officer, you're on a schedule, and you're just this is what we do right now, this is what we do in 20 minutes, and then you know you guys had uh you guys had a ridiculously productive shift when I was there, and they were on my flop, and it was like every five minutes. Yeah, I'm just like I receive one person, and I was really good at I try to get you guys in and out as soon as possible. I like receive one person, they'll be like, Yeah, there's there's three more in the drive up, and I'm just like, what in God's green earth?

DC Hanson: 33:41

You know, it is comical because I I actually poked fun at uh Lieutenant Stockey when we ran numbers. I so I went back six years, and that might be the one you're talking about. So I go I go back six years, and uh he thought his arrest numbers this year for his patrol division were high, and I go back to that one, and it was yeah, we we were we were we were now we made several other mistakes that we we would have we had to correct later on in the back end of things, but yeah, very productive shift.

OFC Haugen: 34:05

Oh yeah, kept kept me busy, and I actually I really appreciated that. So sometimes you're you're it's you have those days where you're just like I don't I don't want to play this game today, you know?

DC Hanson: 34:15

Like and that's the interesting piece about you know, you talk about being a cop to a correction officer, you have a little bit of freedom, you know, like you're talking about maybe going out proactively do things. You have a you have a choice when you come in to shift, sure, you're gonna get your call since you're gonna have to go clean, you're gonna get the situation where you know you're gonna get a gun call and you're gonna have to go do it. But you also can make a decision because of the way that our kind of city dynamic works. If Dane wants to go spend some time maybe with his canine partner and just go interact with different elementary kids, you have that luxury. You don't really have that in the jail. You know what I mean? Like you're really kind of set in stone on what your day is gonna look like. Yeah. Now I'm gonna fast forward, and and I and I mean this, I and I hope you kind of take it this way, but I I want to see. So you're in FTO. Give me a high-level overview. FTO, you said you know, you it took a little bit of time, understanding, like I liked how you described the power of the badge, understanding that there's a way in game, how much authority to assert and how much, you know, what do you feel comfortable with in that? But FTO in general. How did you feel? How comfortable did you feel copying while going through FTO?

OFC Haugen: 35:26

Never. Yeah. Now I don't think there was a single time, even I like you get a pat on the back every once in a while. Um but never never felt comfortable. And that was a huge component that shaped me to be the cop I am now. Yeah. It's because I was never comfortable and never taught to be. You should never be comfortable in this job. That's that's a big takeaway. Like you should never, if you're if you're comfortable, you hear it all the time, go find a new job. Yeah.

DC Hanson: 35:50

And and no, I I I love the way that you answer that because I would I I would have would not have put those words in your mouth, but that's that's fantastic. And the reason I say that is because it did not take long from you to successfully complete FTO and you start progressing now on your own, and you're doing solo police work for it to be like this massive polar shift in an officer, you know, that we've seen. Very few people I've I've watched do this. Um, you know, one of them that I had trained that I attribute similar qualities to this would have been uh Corporal Evan Kinto. Struggles a bit during FTO, just you know what I mean, that they have it, but it's just there's not a lot there that's growing at a at a pace, but then all of a sudden, like things start to click and things start to click well, and you're starting to feel more comf confident and comfortable in your uniform, which then starts coming out and it starts coming out fast. And you did so much growing in that first six months that post let's call it post-FTO time. Take that six months of Dane and then look back at it, like look at how far you progressed in that time.

OFC Haugen: 36:56

Yeah, yeah. And hit landmarks and dreams that I didn't think I would ever I wouldn't even imagine that I would have hit in the time frame that I am now a three-year cop. Yeah, you know, and what do you attribute that to? Oh man. It could be so many things. Um FTO, you know, like you know you never it's like you learn a lot, but you learn too much, and then like sometimes it's like you just learn too much and like nothing makes sense, you know. And then once you come out of FTO, it's like all right, you have I always tell recruits they have one of two choices when you get out of it. You go out and you get yourself in uncomfortable situations, you do your job, you look proactively, you do everything, you do a little bit of anything that you can possibly can, and mainly capitalize on the stuff that you're uncomfortable doing. And that will just make you a better cop as it is. So I would like traffic stops always made me uncomfortable when I was on FTO. I get out of FTO and I would do five to ten traffic stops a day, if not more sometimes, and just get out there, interact, you deal with so many difficult people. You never know who's gonna be in that driver's seat, difficult situations, uh DUIs, you know, and then I never knew how to chase we call Chasey Warren's around here. So I'm like, I'm uncomfortable doing it, but I want to do it because I know all these people from the jail, you know. So then I'm like, well, I'm super uncomfortable doing it, but I'm just gonna do it. You know, in the safest way I can. So it's like I attribute that whole thing is just putting yourself in situations that make you uncomfortable and that are gonna force growth at the end of the day. Because if you capitalize on all the good things you that you're good at, like, yeah, that might get better, but nothing else is gonna get better.

DC Hanson: 38:29

Yeah, you stay too niche, you know what I mean? Like you may have a specialty, you may have a specialty, you might be like the you know the best traffic guy that we have, but bring you to a domestic call and your partners get frustrated because, you know what I mean, like you just don't seem to it doesn't seem to flow very well. So like what you're talking about is twofold, right? One, you're finding areas that maybe you want to strengthen in your career field, and then the other one is you're jumping into the deep end and you're forcing yourself to do it. And I think that's great advice, that's absolutely perfect advice for for new cops. When we talk about it all the time, it takes you takes you what, probably nine months to 12 months before you're handling your own call load realistically, but then there's probably another 12 months in all reality before you even know what the heck you're doing, or before you start getting good at this job. So it's like you really got to wait for that time frame. But by waiting for that time frame, doing it in the way that you force the uncomfortableness, it'll pay off. You know what I mean? Like iron sharpens iron, and just putting yourself into the fire, I think that that's great advice to give to somebody. Let's talk about the last couple of years that you've been with us, and you because you said you hit some milestone, you hit some goals that you didn't even think of that you were gonna hit. What have you been able to do and accomplish here in your short time so far?

OFC Haugen: 39:44

Oh man, I want to I would start off with like the most random one because I mean I I'm 6'3, I weigh about 240, 250 now, so I'm just I'm a dude, um, or classified as a dude to a lot of people. I shouldn't call myself a dude, that's a little self-centered because there's some times where I'm not a dude, you know. Um but I'd say like the most random one was being a field training officer. Um that was always a goal, but that was like a goal that I thought was gonna be like a five to ten year goal, because I mean you're just always learning so much in this job. Uh so that actually got moved up to being close to a year and a half, little over a year, that I ended up going to FTO school, and I believe at a year and a half I had my first trainee, which turned out to be the best blessing on the face of the planet, even though it was the most frustrating thing that I have done my entire life. Yeah, you know, um, next to canine. But at least, you know, you can play with a dog at the end of the day, you can't. Yeah. You don't want to play with your dog. No, no. Not at all. Yeah. Go get the sometimes you just want to say go fetch and drive off. You can't. Uh so that that one was that one was weird for me because that was a goal that I had. I just didn't imagine it would happen so fast. But you know, people come and go, uh, find different jobs, can't do things anymore, and sometimes you just have to do things to try to fill in a spot. Rise to the occasion, yeah. Like the most important slot at an apartment, I would say, is a field training officer. Like hands down, and not saying I'm great at it. There's a lot of great FTOs out there. It's just we need those, and you need to apply yourself to do it so that you can train the next your backup officers to do the best they can.

DC Hanson: 41:19

Um you know, one of the most important qualities that a field training officer can even have is passion to want to do it. I mean, I really do believe that that um you may have all the knowledge in the world, but if you don't have a passion to want to give it to somebody in the way that they can ingest it, because what you said earlier is you said you're getting so much information and sometimes it's not sticking. Well, whose job is that to make it stick? That's the field training officer, you know. So when you talk about adult education, you even said you don't do well when it comes to sitting behind a screen or virtual learning. You had to get your hands in it, and it's like some people that might not be their thing. You know, maybe somebody is, okay, I just need to watch it, now I'm gonna go do it. So it's you're having to find out all these individuals are wired differently. You're trying to figure out what makes this person tick and how do I give them all of this information.

LT Hanel: 42:07

And and actually, I wonder if you can do us a favor here, because I'm trying to think of prior guess. I don't think anybody's really actually explained our FTO process here. Do you can you take a couple minutes here and just kind of work it through how we how we do our FTO here at DPD?

OFC Haugen: 42:19

Yeah, yeah. I mean, um, we have a first is it is it two weeks with you? Yep, I mean two week onwards. Um where you kind of like cover like the baselines, your policies, uh, your taser stuff. Get tased if you're cool. I'd say don't don't skip out on it if you want to be a good one. Nobody has to let you live it down. Um, you know, like the just like the very basics, your firearm qualifications, and then getting that limited license because you need it. So you can be on the street policing in uniform with a firearm and all that stuff. Um after that, typically people go to the academy. Sometimes they spend like a week or two with their primary FTO or like a week or two riding along and just observing before then. Um, but then you go to the academy and then you come back and that's where it really begins. Right? So like as an FTO, like my number one motto is if there's a caller available, we take it. Because there's only one way you're gonna learn. And I know like some people can learn by reading stuff on the computer, but I'm gonna tell you right now, reading stuff on the computer, like there's no I believe formally there is no college degree on the face of this planet or computer learning software that will be able to teach you street cred, street cred. 100% um how to deal with people in and out. Nothing's ever gonna go planned. I think I had one thing go planned in my entire career, and that was Richard 10, and somehow that went planned, and the last thing I thought that was gonna go planned. Um, but nothing ever goes to plan. So you you can't just soak up a book and then get out there and be the world's best cop. That's not a thing. So we get you out there, we get you hands on. Um it's a lot of we'll say phase two is a lot of I call it me. I'm like a dad and they're like a four-year-old. There you go. Yep. You know, I'm uh kind of like just pulling them along and being like, no, we're gonna do this. Like we're gonna we're gonna I don't care if you don't like it, we're doing it, you know, you need to get used to it, just that exposure. Um and I'm guiding them through things, I'm helping them learn, answering questions when it comes up, and you have to be severely patient, and so do they, which is a lot of times people miss out when they're on FTO, is just that patience. It's gonna take you a while. Uh it's never gonna be easy.

LT Hanel: 44:20

And you're covering a lot of like high frequency, low risk stuff during this phase, right?

OFC Haugen: 44:24

Yep, yep. If I wouldn't say if you're lucky, um I don't know. I had my share fair of interesting events uh while I was on FTO, so that probably attributed to how I am now.

DC Hanson: 44:34

You know, the fortunate piece of that, like you know, we've seen several officers that have gotten I call it lucky too, but when you get lucky and you you almost get thrown to the fire and get some of those low frequency, high-risk events. If you take it the right way and realize that this isn't the entire job, but you get to you're almost force-fed so much information that you just can't get. There's only so much you can do virtually, or so much you can do through, you know, strategically planning it. But you're 100% right. And I remember your FTO, you get to experience a lot of unique situations that you maybe even haven't gotten to redo yet. Oh, not even close.

OFC Haugen: 45:10

I will never I hopefully I shouldn't say never. I shouldn't have to chase somebody around on New Year's Eve who's swinging an axe everywhere and then cat calling us from his balcony. That you know, like that was that was funny, you know. I was just like, does this happen all the time? And Sergeant Frederick just like, no, something wrong with him. But I mean like, and I have to attribute stuff to them because they're like, not only is your FTO a great resource on FTO, like you're learning from so many other people. And I was I was very grateful and uh thankful to have five to ten year cops like fully in stock around this department because they're also a part of the FTO process, yeah. You know, and they know more than if they were still around, they'd know more than me. I'd be asking them questions and guiding my whatever trainee I get next through it, you know. Um but yeah, so that's like that first four weeks. Sometimes these phases take longer and onstead. Generalized 12-week program. Yep, it never goes that way. Some people finish at 10, they just have the greatest gift on this planet to just consume knowledge, never forget what they're doing, and just work through things, which I'm jealous of, you know. Um, but like sometimes it takes 12, sometimes it takes 14. We have our remedial phases, you know, um, sometimes it takes twenty. It just depends. Like, as long as you're applying yourself and you're trying to learn and you're showing that effort, like it's we're not just gonna be like go bye, you know. Well said.

DC Hanson: 46:32

That that's exactly what you said is is really what so good for people to hear is as long as you're progressing, it may not be going as fast as what ideally the program takes, but as long as we're watching skills start to culminate and move on in the right direction. We we've had individuals that have been on FTO. I mean, just last year we had an individual that had been with us for like 15 months before they finally got cut free from training, but we kept seeing progression. And now look at them, and it's it's similar to kind of a Dane thing. It's like now all of a sudden like things are clicking and we're and we're working in the right direction. But yeah, well said. Phase three.

OFC Haugen: 47:09

Phase three, that was a that one's always like kind of like the toughest one uh to kind of explain because it's it's not like I'm holding your hand through it, but I'm not giving you every answer on the face of the planet. Now I'm teaching you how to use your resources and who to reach out to. I always like tell people this is where you learn how to work your way up the chain of command, or like ask people questions if you don't know the answer. Or like this is where I really like to see that what we always tell people is your number one thing is scene safety, no matter where you're going. If people are calling us, it's gotta be safe. Okay, because we won't not only for us, but more specifically for other individuals, because we see those things play out in other places all the time. It's not it's not just about us, it's it's about everybody within even I don't know, like a mile radius, because if there's a firearm involved, like the bullets don't just stop after you shoot at your target, you know. There's a lot of other things that go on, but it's like I'm side by side with them, I'm guiding them kind of like I'm shining the spotlight where to go. I guess is probably the best way that I could explain that. And uh, but they are starting to work through things on their own, hopefully, and they're working their way up the chain of command. I like to remove myself as their first point of reference for a question because number one, that makes them get uncomfortable and have to learn it themselves, you know, and then it's also if you don't want to do it, it's mildly embarrassing to call like your corporal or like the senior officer and be like, Well, I don't know what to do. And they're like, What's Dane telling you? Nothing. Just scrolling TikTok over there. Like, I want them to figure it out. It's kind of like my way of like pushing a bird out of the bird's nest a little bit, you know, and just like watching and see if they can fly or not.

DC Hanson: 48:46

And that's like the most important part to me. So, but you know, it's important in this phase. It this is the phase really where you watch so much of that falling forward. As long as it's not a safety issue, Dane's gonna let the recruit make the wrong decision. You know, ultimately, if they're coming up with a solution and it's wrong, there's gonna be times where Dane's gonna allow that to happen as long as it's not a safety issue. You know what I mean? Like we're not we're not gonna have some kind of a lawsuit or something like that. But yeah, the decision that we can make that we know we can fix on the back end, Dane's gonna let them make it because they're gonna learn from that much more efficiently than they're gonna learn from you interjecting and constantly giving the handout. And and that's a tricky game. It's tricky because, and this is where I struggled with probably the most, Mikey, when it when I was an FTO back in the day, is you know, I loved your analogy of like the dad with the four-year-old because like that was that was how I would train. It's like you see this mistake coming up, you watch the mistake happening, and you're like, nope, not gonna happen. Yeah, let's just do it this way. But there's some helicopters. Yeah, there's some guys that are so good at that. And it was, you know, I would just my patience was never as good as what some of you guys had when it came to FTO, but yeah, that was that was forced patience, and then now I got all the patience in the world from K9 School and everything.

OFC Haugen: 50:00

But yeah, yeah, it's it was a gift in that form, I guess. And I learned a lot while being in FTO too, but no, exactly. It's it's fall forward. That's like the number one motto you hear around here. If you're gonna fall, fall forward. Yeah, sometimes you can fall backwards very seldomly, and sometimes you know, like there's just things that happen. You can't control everything. You're human at the end of the day. You're gonna have moments where you fall backwards, but you just gotta get back up and you gotta go forward again. Yeah, and hopefully trip forward next time. That's perfect.

DC Hanson: 50:30

No, you've done a great job um explaining it the FTO, and I know that we had another we have another um event that happened in between what I want to jump to, which is a pin you're wearing. Jumping on the SWAT team was a big event. But it would be a disservice if we don't jump in, because I want to spend some time on this. It was about last year at this time that we had a selection process. So I want you to talk a little bit about the selection process and what we're talking about, and ultimately, what did your year last year look like?

OFC Haugen: 50:56

Uh for SWAT in general getting on it. Talking about canine now. Oh, canine. Okay, all right. I tried to blaze past SWAT and that didn't work. Man. You know, honestly, it was one thing I always dreamed about doing, but I didn't know when it was gonna happen or not, because we just lost Norman, I believe. Yes. And um, he retired. Didn't lose him, sorry. Uh but he had retired, and eventually it was like a year later that I believe that's when the opening came out for K9. Uh something I always dreamed about. So I was like, Well, even if you know I'm only a two, two and a half year cop at this point, like might as well shoot my shot and get my name out there because who knows in five years if Kahlo retires, then I can uh put my name in and again and hopefully get it. But uh Yeah, that was it was an interesting process. I mean it's kind of like getting a job here, um, but you're kind of trying to flaunt your skills a little bit more that you've earned while you're here. So we had that, I believe it was I can't even remember at this point. Was there one interview?

DC Hanson: 51:57

Yeah, we had one interview. I want to say it was with uh Jaden Peters, who was our canine coordinator. Yep. And myself and chief were in the room chatting with all the applicants.

OFC Haugen: 52:05

Yep, and it's kind of you guys were just asking all these questions like this is a huge workload, and I'm just like, Well I I would like to believe I knew. You know, and it's it's not as easy as owning a dog, obviously. And I thought I knew that before, but I guess I just had to learn it again. Um, but yeah, we had that whole process, and uh it took you, I think, a while. Like you have a little bit of a home visit to see what the home life is like. And at the time I lived with a friend of mine, and he had a fenced in yard and everything, and I was just like, it doesn't work here. And just go ahead somewhere else, and we can figure it out from there. And um, so there's that. And then after a while, they kind of it took maybe a month, I don't know, for the final selection, I believe. Unless I'm missing it. It might not have been that long.

DC Hanson: 52:47

I think it took about a month before we made our selection with the canine. Correct. And then you got so let's talk. So, yeah, so from that from that point, we made our selection that we we liked the progression with Dane, and you did a good job talking, like it was it was a lot. It was letters of interest, who wants to do this, and then we talk about why. You know, what what do you like about this spot? Do you understand the demands of it? You mentioned the home visit, and that one might be interesting for people, but uh I'm sitting next to two guys, one that had a canine, and then another one that has a canine. Why would a home visit, you know, like when you think about that, you're like, wow, is that seems intrusive, but what what would be important about a home visit for the canine coordinator to come into your house?

OFC Haugen: 53:26

Number one, these are very, very expensive forms of police equipment, and that's how it's that's how it's phrased out there in the courts and everything. Is my furry companion? Yeah, at the end of the day, she's still department-issued equipment. Um, but I mean, what $16,000 for the dog, I believe? It was it was somewhere up there. Like I'm responsible for that. And the canine coordinator has to make sure that I'm going to be able to be able to provide the needs. And on top of that, she's in Malinois, and they have their own whole set of problems. You know, you think you think you can get a fence tall enough? No, no, there's no fence out there that's tall enough. You might need like one of those raptor enclosures from drastically. There you go.

DC Hanson: 54:03

We need to invest in some of those.

OFC Haugen: 54:04

Yeah, exactly. There's another 20,000, right? It's just uh but yeah, so that's like super important that you're gonna be able to provide. You're gonna have a yard to run the energy out. Thankfully, I live kind of out in the country now, so I got a field, you know, but yeah, um, just be able to provide for that dog, make their life comfortable because they're expensive, make sure I can provide. I'm not gonna have like, I'm not gonna be putting her in a closet somewhere, you know, and just make sure she's all maintained and ready for work every single day.

DC Hanson: 54:30

Yeah. And and so you you before I get to this, actually, so you get married up with your partner, and it's Frida. So you get married up for Frida. What did that look like? Your first time putting your eyes on your new carry McCannine partner. What did that look like? Oh god, I was terrified.

OFC Haugen: 54:45

There's just there's just something in those eyes uh the first time I saw her. She's just like staring at me with her head sideways, and then everybody else's dog is barking, and Frida's just staring at me with her head sideways, and then she just starts biting at the cage, and everybody else's dog's just barking, and I'm like, oh no. Um it was super nerve-wracking. I mean, I got sent to Minnesota by myself to go pick up this super, super duper expensive police equipment, and it got worse too. Um, I don't even know if I told Jaden this, but he might be mad. No, he won't. It was it was kind of funny. Frida slipped her collar as soon as he handed me the leash. Okay. That's gotta be nerve-wracking. Yeah, and then she saw a car for the first time, so we just laid on the ground, so I went and just picked her up and put her in the bag of my car. It's like, oh, and then the main canine guy that uh like um buys them and like distributes them or or sells them was like looking over at me, and he's like, You're gonna be a fun one to have in class. And I was like, Listen, man, you just handed me the leash. Like, this can't be my fault. Like he's like, It is though, and I'm like, I guess. All right, but uh super nerve-wracking. I mean, she doesn't know anything, she's like a feral hyena at this point. She ain't gonna listen. She smelled awful, um, you know, because they just they just flew over, and it was it was I had to fight a rock out of her mouth on the side of the interstate because they took her out to the bathroom, and I didn't know she scooped one up into her mouth, and it was pretty big, probably not that big. But she was holding it because they're smart, and uh, I had to put my hazards on because they're just her grinding. And I pull over, and there I am on the side of the interstate with like this brand new dog and a headlock, and I'm like trying to get the rock out of nowhere. Yeah, I'm bleeding everywhere, and I'm trying to get this rock out of this dog's mouth that is just not working. You know, I'm like, I don't know what I'm doing right now.

DC Hanson: 56:25

I did I do remember that story. I remember hearing uh from Jayden, he's like, hey, Dane's got the canine, he's on his way back, he's already been bit, and I'm like, Well, we got a good dog, I guess.

LT Hanel: 56:34

Because at this she's how old, and where did she come from again?

OFC Haugen: 56:39

Uh she's almost due, she'll be two the 27th.

LT Hanel: 56:41

And at this and at the time that you picked her up, she was how old one.

OFC Haugen: 56:44

One just turned one. So she was uh a little, she's still a little spitfire, but take that times ten with no training. Yeah, just terrifying. And like I like put her in the kennel when I got home, and I was like, I need like four hours away from you, or I'm gonna lose my mind. I'm like, I don't even know what to do. You know, and I'd go let her out, and she would climb up on like a cabinet somewhere and just stare at me, and I'm like, get off of there. Well, she doesn't know what off or anything means at this point, so she's still just staring at me. Like, oh gosh. Like, call Jayden or an exorcist. Yeah, yeah, right. It's like animal control. Uh but yeah, no, it's uh it's quite the process getting the dog for the first time.

DC Hanson: 57:23

And and I think Mikey had said it, but you you you mentioned it to the listeners too. You said that she flew over. So she's not an American citizen.

OFC Haugen: 57:30

No, she's uh native Slovakian. Okay, some from Slovakia all the way overseas. That's where they are bred through very selective genetic breeding. I didn't I ended up breeding up on it just for fun and um and to improve my knowledge on things when people ask questions. And it is highly selective breeding and testing that these dogs go through before they get sent over here or chosen. Well, number one sent over here, number two chosen. Yeah.

DC Hanson: 57:55

So yeah, because there's a process, you know, you talk about the investment. You know, before you had gone over there, we actually sent Jayden over there. We wanted him to, as our canine coordinator, you know, he's had a couple of canines now. We wanted him to kind of put his expertise and he wanted to really evaluate the different animals. Then we also allowed the kennel to have a choice too. It's like, hey, which you know, this is what we would like to see in the canine. We really wanted to find a blend. We had it in Kalo, and it's not easy to find, but we have it in Kahlo, and if we have it in Friday, we want a blend where they can do the police work, but then on National Night Out or Skate with a Cop, we want them to be able to interact with the public also. And it's so much trickier than people understand to have a dog with that kind of temperament. And uh yeah, we've been super lucky because I remember the first time I met Frida, and we're in the we're in the lobby of our public safety center here, and you mentioned her smell. That was one of the first things I thought of like, holy smokes, this thing smells like a homeless person. But there was when he when he talks about her, and you say the exorcism thing, jumping on things, there wasn't one second of the time when I saw her where she did not jump in in and around or all over like all the couches, and she was you go like, wow, this dog has an insane amount of energy and oh yeah, literally does not know a word, didn't know her name at the time.

Speaker 3: 59:18

You know.

DC Hanson: 59:19

And uh, I think that was like probably a week or two before you took off to Minnesota then to spend how long did you spend with her in Minnesota getting trained? 14 weeks. 14 weeks in a hotel room with this with this creature. Oh, that was a nightmare. So from that 14 weeks though, okay, so what are some stuff that you do, and then what also on the back end of it, what type of creature did you bring home after four weeks or 14 weeks, sorry.

OFC Haugen: 59:44

She's still at her spunk, but uh completely different. Now we're on. Come like because you you're you're over there and you're day in and day out, like you're doing, you're doing different things. Um actually things that in the lieu of in lieu of tracking, which is a whole different beast when you're learning how to track, like that is still working on it. Who knows when I'm gonna figure out how 100% how to handle that leash or whatever, so I don't have to set Frida and disruptor from a job, because that's a huge thing. Like everything else is actually kind of really easy for the most part, like surprisingly easy, like getting them to learn scents and all of that, which is like the first two weeks, is you're there's like learning the scent. They're going up to these boxes, finding the box at the scent, you know, like you just reward them immediately as soon as they smell whatever's the only object in the room, and then you reward them, and now they're on that scent. Now they like you just do it a couple more times, and now they're like I go to this and I smell this, I get a toy, I get a toy. Pavlov's theory, him. Yeah, exactly. And then it's way simpler than I thought it was. That first time I walked in that room, I they're just like, just let her go up and then give her her release command and give her some food. And I was like, is it that easy though? Like, are you sure about this? And like, yeah, we'll show you. We uh whatever, dude. These are people that had like three or four dogs, so they're just like new people. But yeah, it's uh Monday through Friday for the most part, and I mean the days range from anywhere from like 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. to our longest days. Sometimes we do 8 a.m. to like 10 p.m. And the later time would be like nighttime tracking because it's important to get all of your training in at different times of the day because the different times of the day changes the sense of everything or the weather does, and like hold it's nine yards, like everything it changes everything. There'll never be a weather temperature or something that might upset Frida or like might disrupt her smell or something like that. So you're always training in those different environments out there, and that's super important just because Frido works your schedule.

DC Hanson: 1:01:36

And you know, like what do we ask of our patrol officers to do, you know, like even for a long time, we asked you to push extra nights, or we asked you to do two to twos as a canine guide, you know, to get some extra coverage. But she's not an eight to five bankers outwards type of dog. I mean, like this dog is having to come to work when you come to work. So yeah, that's it's a it's an interesting concept. I didn't realize that you guys had done that much, you know, uh as far as like controlling the elements and stuff.

OFC Haugen: 1:02:03

Yeah, I think it was something a little bit I I don't know if they did it in the past, but like we really kind of pushed forward towards the end, especially when everybody was figuring everything out a little more so, because everything up to then is like fine-tuning, you know. And uh I obviously had the most difficult dog in the class, so because I'm me and my one die. Yeah.

LT Hanel: 1:02:39

And you said uh different kind of scents. Uh is specifically what kind of sense is she trained on?

OFC Haugen: 1:02:43

So from when it comes to any form of narcotics, it's cocaine, methamphetamine, fentanyl, which is the newest one. Uh they finally found a way to successfully train that on dogs without chance of overdose. A lot of things people don't know is dogs can overdose and significantly easier than humans can. Yeah. It's because of the size disparage. But then uh we got ecstasy and heroin. So those are the five that she is officially trained on. And then uh other scents include disturbances in the grass while tracking, because that's how they find out tracking, disturbances in that area, or human odor when it comes to discarding of evidence. They smell the most recent human odor in the area if an object's been ditched and they go and they find it. That's how that works.

LT Hanel: 1:03:23

And and how does that um when you're handling the dog, just maybe kind of walk through the what are you looking for when you're running a dog around a vehicle or even like tracking and stuff like that, trying to find an article and so they what are you looking for in the dog?

OFC Haugen: 1:03:35

So a lot of people uh they they believe that like a sit or like a bark or like this is like that go for signal. It's actually like way, way different. It's you're never gonna really have that. Like that's that's perfect scenario. Um great nose, perfect conditions for like an odor to escape anywhere. Um then they'll sit if they can find the source and get as close to the source they can, they'll give their final alert. But you're not just looking for that. There's a lot of different things that go on from how her breathing changes from her normal like sniffing to like all of a sudden she's gonna sound like a little piggy when she's picking up on something, you know. And then her body language, like the way her tail works when I do dope work with her, like known hides and stuff like that. Watching how her tail works when she's getting closer to the odor, because that'll change, or the way her head snaps when she's just like, Oh wait, it's back here. I'm back here, we're going back here. You know, like stuff like that. So it's you you're looking at everything. You can't talk to them, but you can read their body language, or still something I'm still fresh and new. Like I still got I got a lot of stuff to work on naturally, but like this is my first time, so hopefully we're gonna get better from here.

LT Hanel: 1:04:48

So yeah, yeah, and it's it's um just uh and that's getting to know your dog, right? And and and their different quirks and behaviors. So it's it's not like in you know, you saw see some of the videos out there, and you know, the dog jumps up, oh you alerted there or he didn't alert, or um yeah, it's it's it's taking the totality of what they're doing, what you and what's the baseline from them, and and and seeing what what's out of characteristic for it. And it there's I mean, is it is there a possibility, and I I'm trying to lead you down a road here. Um so you get an alert on a vehicle, you search and you end up not finding anything. And a lot of people said, you know, a lot of people say, Oh, the dog false alerted and all that stuff. Is it really a false alert?

OFC Haugen: 1:05:25

No, actually, um we got a lot of people in town that regularly use and they regularly use in their vehicles, and a lot of these older vehicles that they have have those old seats that just hold every odor, you know, like you can probably smell the McDonald's and the cigarette from 1990 off of their seat if you really wanted to. You know, so it's like when they're when they use in the vehicle or they just used in the vehicle sometime that day, like there is lingering residue and odor that will stay in the vehicle. So there are gonna be times where the dog's just like, No, it's here, I know it's here. Like, but you're sticking your nose into a chair, and then I'll be like, I'll ask them. Like, hey man, do you have you used recently or had anybody here? Well, I had this guy in here. Oh, okay. Yep. I'm like, that makes sense. I was like, you know who they are.

LT Hanel: 1:06:07

So the the the dogs and you mentioned like uh even for a human, you like the McDonald's from nineteen- I love that. Uh but a dog's nose is is exponentially more powerful than than humans. And uh I've I've heard stuff that you uh like a blade of grass. If you snap a a blade of grass, it to a dog, it's it's like us smelling, you know, like like uh um you know everybody mowing their lawn all at once, but it's just from that one blade of grass. It's it's uh crazy how those dogs can work.

DC Hanson: 1:06:34

I found it uh I mean I'm not a canine guy, you know, and I've just I've gotten to have some on my shift, so I get to see the some of the crossover. But the way that you were describing learning your canine and watching her work, what is the training hours? What outside of your 14 weeks when you're always with her, you obviously had to really get to know Frida then.

OFC Haugen: 1:06:52

Yeah.

DC Hanson: 1:06:53

But just on a on a day-to-day basis, because she lives with you, you know, she's this is a tool that you're comprised of. Like, what is what does it look like being a canine handler? Are you are you know is she a dog when you're off work? Are you doing training type stuff? How often do you train at work? Things like that.

OFC Haugen: 1:07:09

It kind of depends when it comes to the off-work thing. I um if I'm gonna do it off work, I rely on like uh some of the other handlers in the area to be like, hey, we're doing this today. Do you want to come out and like do this? Um but a lot of times at home I kind of just let her be a dog and we'll run around in circles in the yard for like 12 hours, and she has a favorite frisbee that she likes to play fetch with. So we got that. But uh training hours-wise, I mean I try to fit in something you know, once or twice a week. Because dogs can burn out just like humans if you do too much. So you have to find like that happy medium that keeps them sharp, that keeps them going, and you're not working them too hard because even though shit seems like she has infinite energy, you don't want her to get bored of what she's doing or having like this this is lame. But uh yeah, at home, I try to let her be a dog when I can. The big disparity between how I let her know what's going on and what's not is if she's loading into the back of my truck, we're going to play. If we're at a park somewhere or somewhere she hasn't been before to expose her to different areas, because that's important. Um she's getting a squad car, it's time to work. And they know the difference. And people people don't give them enough credit, but they know, you know, like when she was getting fixed recently, every time I take her outside, she'd jump up and like hit the side of her squad car. Like, I want to go to work. Yeah, she's like, I want to go to work, you're boring me. And I'm like, You're actually boring me because we had to go through this, but whatever, you know. Uh but yeah, so it's it's a lot of time in and out. I mean, I have to run her twice a day, probably, if not more. Sometimes she's got too much energy, yeah. You know, she'll tear stuff apart, and yeah, it's it's a lot more of a workload than most people think it to be.

DC Hanson: 1:08:39

Yeah. Yeah, it's just you know, like I I find that interesting, you know, it's like I'm a I'm a pet owner, I have dogs, but it's just it's a different, it's it's such a different relationship, and you can see that if you've ever interacted, you know, with a canine handler and their canine, that the bond that you have with those dogs and those canine handlers, it's it's just something really special and really unique, and it's it's uh yeah, it's very cool, I guess. And I think I think now, if any, there might be the best time for us um to possibly introduce our new guest and let you guys kind of finish the interview together.

LT Hanel: 1:09:13

Yeah, we'll see if she sits sits for us here. We'll yeah, so hang tight, we'll be right back.

DC Hanson: 1:09:42

All right, well, I alluded to it earlier that we had an extra special guest. And Dane, you were great, and this has been an excellent one. We've been talking about Miss Frida, and she's sitting so nice for us, like she's ready to talk right into the microphone. But Dane, welcome your your furry companion here to the podcast.

OFC Haugen: 1:10:00

Well, this is uh this is canine Frida. And when I say her name, you'll see her just really lock in because she's just like something about to happen. Um I don't know why she's in like that. That's that's a new one. She's got her hand up on the table. She's she's ready for this interview. We need to leave that, honey. That's we can have that later. I know.

LT Hanel: 1:10:16

We tried to do this with with Kalo. I know the first episode. It was uh it was a no-go. So she's she's she's doing amazingly well here.

DC Hanson: 1:10:22

So that's good. But so overall, we've talked about your training, we've talked about some stuff, but how about this? Uh, you know, as a and as an actual dog roommate, how has she been? Has she wrecked some things of yours? Is she been uh is she a good partner? She's looking at you very intently right now, like you better answer, right?

OFC Haugen: 1:10:41

She she really wants her toy, but you know, she's also been known to outlash, depending on what words I say. Not a bite dog thing, somebody, you know, like that, or else I would have been injured by now, but uh believe it. But uh she right away we had a rough turnabout for us being roommates of Frida. I know you're all anxious. Um the first couple of weeks were a nightmare of having her as a roommate up in that hotel. Like she would she would just bark all the time. Bark bark as soon as she got in the kennel. She wasn't a very vocal dog until she'd get in the kennel, and then it was like a nightmare. She's like, let me out of here, let me out of here. Leave it. Yeah, I know. That's it.

DC Hanson: 1:11:27

You know, but but but even um, you know, we think about like some of the dogs that we've had, and like how about this? Um she can't talk about, but share, share, share a couple of success stories. You know, she's been she's been on patrol work now for just a little over six months, I would say. What are we coming up on? Like seven-ish months or so. She's been maybe a little bit more that she's been live for us working. Um share a couple of success stories. It can be as simple as like you guys did a fantastic job at National Night Out last year, which was really early in her time, and she did so good. Um, but what what are some success stories for you as a uh as a partner with her?

OFC Haugen: 1:12:02

You know, the best one was like K9 School. It might have been the most frustrating thing that I've done in my entire life, honestly, in the FTL. Leave it. Yeah, I know. You really want it right now. You're all nervous. But uh leave it, honey.

LT Hanel: 1:12:21

We might just have to go to speed cuffing here, i dunno. Yeah, no, yeah, that's all right.

DC Hanson: 1:12:24

She's very anxious, but I think I think people could get at least a glimpse at the beginning of this. I mean, this is a weird environment for her to be in.

OFC Haugen: 1:12:30

It is super.

DC Hanson: 1:12:32

I mean, she's still very young, but we've gotten such good feedback from her and just you know, her temperament. We talked about it as far as being able to kind of do both things and work both avenues. And uh it's been fantastic, Dane. It's been great having you on. It was great to kind of have the that moment where she was sitting there waiting for you to give that answer. That was perfect, Dane. I know, right?

OFC Haugen: 1:12:52

But I mean, quickly, Frida. Hey. Yeah. All right, there we go. Now we're calm down. Good. I can give one quick one. Um the school's frustrating and nothing made sense up until like week eight. Then everything clicked. And then all of a sudden she's like, speed, like we crushed every room at certification in like 30 seconds. Our first one went awful, and then the second one, she's just like, I'm locked in. I think, you know, yeah, perfect scores, everything.

DC Hanson: 1:13:20

Just like Dane. You said it, you know, you had a little bit of a clunky field trading, and all of a sudden, boom, locked in and things are going. She's perfect.

LT Hanel: 1:13:27

They they say the dogs turn into the handler, or the handlers turn into the dog one of the two. Either way in the middle.

DC Hanson: 1:13:34

Well, awesome. Dane, just because it of things we'll skip our last question, we're gonna jump right into speedcuffing so we can let Frida go back to being her dog self.

LT Hanel: 1:13:42

All right, so speedcuffing, basically just 30 seconds. We're gonna rattle off a couple questions, a couple interests, just uh yeah, you gotta it's gonna be double tough here with the having to fight her, but all right, here we go. 30 seconds, here we go.

DC Hanson: 1:13:53

What's your favorite, oop, what's your favorite vacation destination? Jamaica. Best cop movie of all time. Oof. Uh and a watch. What's the name of a Star Wars creature on Hoth that the police department here incorporated into our messaging during our 2022 Snowmaggeddon? Tom Tom. What is the preparatory command for deploying a flashbang? Bang out. What is the name of the scent that patrol canines can detect from humans under stress?

LT Hanel: 1:14:20

Fear scent. Yep, same thing.

DC Hanson: 1:14:22

There we go. Dane, fantastic having you on. And uh, this was another great episode, so I appreciate it, Dane. Appreciate you and me educate my friend Frida. Yeah, proud of you buddy. Gets to enjoy my struggles. Heck yeah. Thank you a lot.

LT Hanel: 1:14:33

Have a good one buddy