The Front Seat with Nick Jackson
The Front Seat with Nick Jackson takes you inside the world of real roadside policing and criminal interdiction. Hosted by Nick Jackson, this podcast peels back The Interdiction Layer — exposing the behaviors, deception cues, and interview tactics that reveal the truth when seconds count.
Expect raw conversations about building rapport, spotting subtle behavioral shifts, and turning everyday stops into career-making cases. Weekly shows include solo Front Seat breakdowns, Border to Border interviews with proactive cops across the country, and deep-dive case studies from real-world interdiction work.
Whether you’re a new Law Enforcement Officer learning the craft or a seasoned pro sharpening your edge, this is where the layers of interdiction get peeled back — one stop at a time.
The Front Seat with Nick Jackson
Episode 7: Street Ready Canines: Training. Chaos. & Control.
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Description
🎙️ Welcome back to The Front Seat with Nick Jackson — where we take you inside the real world of highway interdiction, leadership, K9 operations, and decision-making when it matters most.
In this episode, Nick sits down with Josh, a seasoned K9 handler, trainer, and program builder who has worked across multiple metro Atlanta agencies helping shape modern K9 operations from the ground up.
This conversation goes far beyond dog work.
We break down what it really takes to build a street ready K9 program, train handlers for real world chaos instead of controlled environments, stay legally sharp during interdiction work, and make decisions that hold up both tactically and in court.
This is an honest conversation about professionalism, leadership, ego, training culture, and doing the job the right way.
🔥 Topics include:
• Building a street ready K9 program from the ground up
• Why realistic, chaotic training matters more than perfect reps
• Common mistakes young K9 handlers make
• Lessons from top K9 trainers and how those philosophies apply in real deployments
• Running multiple deployments while maintaining discipline and consistency
• Highway interdiction tactics and current drug trafficking trends
• Pairing K9 operations with traffic enforcement for cleaner investigations
• Applying case law like Illinois v. Caballas in real world stops
• Avoiding prolonged detention mistakes that destroy cases
• Roadside psychology, interview tactics, and reading criminal behavior
• Leadership, ego, and the mindset required to build strong teams
No shortcuts. No fluff. Just real conversation from people who have lived it.
👉 If you’re in law enforcement, K9 work, interdiction, or leadership and want honest conversations about how the job is really done, this episode delivers.
🎧 Listen on Apple, Spotify, and more:
Apple: https://apple.co/4oF9kYH
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/05vYAllpEGhFXXv2jKvZYc
Buzzsprout: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2550822
📲 Follow for more conversations on interdiction, leadership, policing, and real world tactics.
#PolicePodcast #K9Unit #HighwayInterdiction #LawEnforcement #PoliceTraining #K9Training #Interdiction #PoliceLeadership #CriminalInterdiction #TrafficStops #PolicePodcastClips
So most people think of canine work as just about the dog, you know, the bite, the search, the fine, but they don't know and they don't see what the system is on the back end, you know, the training, the decision making, the legal precision, and the chaos you have to deal with at 2 a.m. on the side of the road. Today's guest isn't about just running a dog. He's building programs, uh, training handlers uh across multiple agencies and sharpening how K9 works. Uh actually, he's getting stuff done on the streets the real way. So, brother, I just wanted to say, man, you know, like um what's a moment on the street where everything went sideways and your training either saved you or failed you.
SPEAKER_02Uh so early on, it was a huge wake-up moment for me. I'm currently running my second dog. My first dog was a single-purpose mountain law. Uh, had uh finished him out in his end of his career. When I first got my patrol dog, you know, went through the basic handler school, come out, we did um an operation where it was like the ICAC operations. Um basically we were the takedown team. So, you know, the undercovers, the agents are talking to the people and setting it up, and then basically we go in uh as the canine unit, we were going in and arresting the folks. And um, my dog was super early on, just graduated school, um, just had the basic training. Uh we come out, uh, ended up getting in a gnarly car chase with this guy, uh, crashes into a uh a residence. Um, he gets out of his car, takes off running, and it was just pure chaos, right? I mean, there was uh parts of the building falling, uh, people screaming, it was a wild car chase. The dog's never seen a sight picture before. You know, the dog's been used to the in the in the fields and stuff like that. Sent the dog for a bite, and uh, because that as he was taking off running, uh sent her for a bite and she didn't engage. Um and uh when you know when I selected the dog, you know, I purposely selected a an aggressive, more aggressive style dog uh for that reason. And um, you know, she she didn't engage, and it was it was a hundred percent me, it wasn't a dog, it was a hundred percent how we were training at the time. So the unit has evolved and and and changed, and it's forced me to you know seek out um different trainers, um, which which in turn changed my my outlook on canine, how I trained. When I took over the unit as the canine trainer, uh we completely train different now than we used to. And ever since then, you know, I she's had multiple street bites. Um she's she's been super productive. She's on the back end of her career now. Um so we're looking at uh a retirement date coming up, but I'm gonna get another patrol dog, and the next one will be the same way and build it up from how I built her.
SPEAKER_01And uh, and how is your dog, bro?
SPEAKER_02Uh she's good, she's good. So right now I'm running two dogs. So my time with her is a little uh separated. So I have a uh EOD dog I'm running right now with a floppy eared pointer, and then I have a uh a Malala uh Tessa, and she's my my assigned one right now. I'm running the EOD uh simply because the the handler got hurt during a canine training. Uh she tore her ACL. Um so she had to have surgery and all that stuff. So I took that dog. Um I didn't want the dog sitting at the house. It's a it's a it's a brand new dog, um, really good high drive dog. Um so I felt like it was my responsibility as a trainer um to not let that dog go to waste. So I I took her dog. Uh we swapped cars, we put a half kennel in her car, was always a full kennel, mine's a half kennel. Uh so we just put a divider in the kennel. So he rides on one side and my dog rides on the other side. So her entire time with me now is is split. So all the training and exercise is two of everything.
SPEAKER_01So yeah, man. So in that situation when your dog didn't engage, you know, how do you how did you feel? Like versus like what were you thinking versus what your training told you to do? Uh, because I know a lot of handlers, to include myself, been in some situations like that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So the crazy thing, man, is like I I took it personal. You know, like I I I I did a lot of homework with Selectner. I'm really close uh with our vendor. Uh he's he's my mentor of mine. So I contacted him. We we we troubleshooted it. And you know, I didn't realize start talking to other handlers. This is a common thing, especially with a new dog. You know, the first one, you know, I was always told the first one is always the first bite is always the uh the challenging one, right? So it just happened to be that her first one was was extra challenging. So like you know, I didn't realize at the time, like this it's a common thing, right? So ended up ended up going to later on, uh ended up going to uh a conference and got hooked up with Paul Ludwig. And Paul Ludwig's class, uh, you know, he basically sits down before we do any kind of training or whatever, and we go in a round circle, and basically handlers talk about what their their biggest fear is with the dog, and it was it was just eye-opening to see these are handlers from all over the country, and they're talking about you know the same thing. Well, they had failures or they had this or they had that. And so, like eye-opening to see, like, hey man, like this is like this isn't a me thing. And so it was more so like, hey, how do we overcome this? But it was a defining moment in my canine career for sure. Ended up building up my confidence with her. Um, then later after that, we ended up getting uh a street bite where the guy uh it was a stolen car, kind of the same situation, a car chase. We ended up pitting the car. Uh, a guy takes off running. I send her. She ended up biting him on the front leg area right above the knee. Um, he proceeds to just absolutely just beat her. Um, he was punching her and punching her over and over. She ended up letting go on his knee and drove in on his ankle, drove him to the ground and was was holding him onto the ground. And that was after that, I was like, yeah, we we did it. So I mean, I credit that to all the training, all the trainers that that that poured into her, poured into me, um, a vendor. Um, so after that, man, you know, we've we've been pretty consistent. We haven't had any failures except that first one.
SPEAKER_01For people hearing you for the first time, how do you go from handler to training other agencies and building programs? And at what point did you realize that you weren't just running a dog anymore?
SPEAKER_02So um, you know, I I I've always wanted to be a canine handler. Uh that's actually why I got into law enforcement. I my I followed in basically my dad's footsteps. My dad was a canine handler, the same agency that I'm in. I was going to uh college to be a lawyer. I wanted to be a real estate attorney. So I was in a pre-law major. He got his first dog, which was a Malinois. It was a bomb dog, had tracking and all that stuff on it. Um he asked me to do a ride-along. So I came and did a ride-along with him and just absolutely fell in love with it, right? Just we went and trained the dog, driving around, um, just to having that that interaction with the dog and being able to work with the dog, take it to work, all that kind of stuff. I fell in love with it. Uh went back to school, uh, changed my major the very next day, uh, criminology. Graduated criminology, came out, immediately got hired. Uh it I got hired at a sheriff's office in the county that I work in, worked there for a little bit. Always my sights were setting on I need to get to canine. I need to get to canine. So get getting around that time, my dad had the opportunity to go to Department of Energy to run bombdogs at Department of Energy. So I uh saw saw an opening where, hey, like, you know, that that that unit at the time was starting to age out, they were getting older. So I'm I made the transition to that agency, the the one that I'm at now. Uh and once I got there, I got hooked up with some of the proactive guys because my site was always set on being a canine, right? So I know in order to be a canine, like all the guys that were in that unit at the time were rock stars. They're out here pouring stats and just pulling stuff off the roads. Uh so I really started deep diving into interdiction training. Really got started with DUI enforcement first. Uh the DUI enforcement really helped me gain knowledge on like stopping cars, talking to people, being proactive, uh writing good reports, learning case law. So I got assigned to the traffic unit. I was in the traffic unit for six months. A canine spot came open at the time. I put in for it, uh, ended up getting it. Like I said, I was that dog's third handler. Uh that handler had moved on out of law enforcement. So I get that dog, uh, had a shortened handler school with that dog, worked that dog in the back end of its career. We ended up getting some really good cases. Um, he was a tracking dog too. We ended up finding a bunch of missing kids and and uh did some really good stuff with that dog. So then I had the opportunity at the time to get my next dog. So I kind of had some experience what I wanted. Um, I saw the things that I liked in the dog I had, and I saw some things I didn't like. So I had the opportunity to select a dog for myself. So we go to the vendor, we have a really, really good relationship with our vendor. He um he he he he's a mentor of mine, right? So he points me into the direction of Tessa, which is the dog I have now. So I get Tessa. Um during that time, this would have been in my second handler school. So he was able to uh work out my agency where we ended up doing a trainer course uh at that time because basically everybody in my my unit at the time was was phasing out. We really didn't have a trainer. We didn't, we were just, you know, we would go out into the field, do field work, we'd put out dope. We didn't really know the ins and outs of what we were doing, right? So I uh ended up going to the trainer school, ended up being 17 weeks. It was just at the time, it was just me and me and him. Um so we were able to do a lot of things differently with the dog I have now. We were able to experiment with training methods. Um, so she she's got a lot of things on her that that we're able to experiment with. So we were doing laser before laser became a thing, like laser directionals. Um, our e-collar work is was was different. We were able to experiment different ways, putting different kinds of uh proximity alerts on the tracking and stuff like that. So come out, uh had the trainer school, and I knew after my trainer school that I wanted to change my unit. We always had a the department always had a really good canine unit. I just wanted to push the boundaries. Uh I'm in all aspects of my life. I'm I'm very driven. I'm one of the people that I want, I want to be the best around, right? Uh I want my dog to be the best. I want the unit to be the best. And and and this is a passion of mine uh as far as canine work. So I started really pouring everything into it. I started changing things in the unit. So PT standards, we started PT in on canine trainings with cardio, PT and the dogs, uh, getting more tactical training as far as like CQB training, stuff like that, learning case laws, stuff, you know, really pouring in and just completely changing on how the unit operates, how we train, uh going to different conferences, stuff like that. I I wanted to be the best. So I wanted to do, I looked at the agencies around us, what they were doing. I looked at the agencies that I look up to, uh look up to the trainers that are around, see what they were doing, and really took in all their good ideas and just implemented it into ours.
SPEAKER_01Dude, that's awesome, man. You said a couple things. Uh, you know, that transition from going from being a DWI guy, you know, uh, that's how I started, right? You know, I started out writing tickets, and then I found out, oh, wait, there's other crime out here. And then I started going for DWIs, hitting that pretty hard, man. And it's it's it's it's ironic to see a lot of guys that get into proactive units and teams, they start out doing DWIs or some type of you know, other enforcement, and then their eyes kind of like get woken up to other elements of crime. So that's that's pretty awesome, man. And then the other thing you said was fitness. Like fitness, like in law enforcement, number one, that should be the utmost number one thing we should be maintaining because if I can't drag my partner, you know, out of a situation, or they can't drag me out of a situation, then we're already hurting and failing each other, right? So uh there's nothing more sad than to see any law enforcement officer who's not physically fit visually to do the job, right? You know, so obesity, overweight. That's one thing I've taken like pretty strong. I've been really trying to like focus on that, get back into my cardio. So, yeah, man, like that's something that's very important. But I really like the fact that you guys are motivating officers and starting off a program uh where you guys are incorporating the canine fitness uh on top of the handler fitness. Uh, I think that lacks in a lot of departments. My last department, bro, it was just like participation. Like, as long as you showed up and you participated, you know, it's like, and it's just like to this day, I look back and I'm like, how are we helping each other by just doing participation? Right? Uh we should be doing standards. We need standards. Uh, when we get in our class A's, there should be a precedence when we show up on a call, even in our class B's. Yeah, I just wish law enforcement would focus more on that, man, and not just the initial coming in, you know.
SPEAKER_02And that, and you know, that's that's I'm really big about presentation. If you ask anybody on my unit, they'll tell you. Presentation to me is literally everything. I st I I picked that up doing when I became a rookie. And you see how you people respond to you. You show up to a car, your uniform looks good, and your your car's clean. Uh, you just get a different mentality, you get a different response back from whoever you're talking to. Uh, I'm really big about presentation, especially with my unit. Uh I I want to I want the cars looking clean. I want uniforms matching. Uh so far as the vest on our dogs uh match up, match our uniforms. And you know, as far as the fitness, I'm a big fitness nerd. Um, I'm really big into you know staying in shape, jujitsu. Uh and that that goes to the dog too. Um I you know, I tell my unit all the time, like, you are the subject matter expert. You're the you're the person that that a cop is calling you to help them, right? So we do a lot of things with other agencies around the area. We'll we'll respond. Most of the time, we're the only dog in the Metro Atlanta area working on a on a Sunday, right? Um, just because how scheduling and stuff works. So, like, you know, another agency is calling you to help to do a track, to do something in the woods, maybe it's in the mountains in North Georgia, and you're expected and your dog's expected to perform. Uh, so I I want you physically in shape and being what you should be when you when somebody calls you, you should be that person, right? Uh and that goes with the dog too. With fitness with the dog is is everything. You know, search patterns, um, search lengths. Uh, if the dog doesn't have the endurance or the cardio, it's it you're not gonna get the same performance out of the dog. The dog might not stay on the bite as long. Uh the bite, the dog might not be as focused as long. Um, so I I'm I'm I'm really big about that, and I like to incorporate both of them together because it's also a bonding thing for our unit. So, you know, when we're working out before training, it that's that's a whole bonding experience where we all can get together. Bonding experience for the dogs, because the dogs are out together. Um, usually we're hiking, running, we're doing something, so all the dogs are out together, all the all the handlers are out together. Um, it just makes for a good good bonding experience too. So there's multiple aspects of it. Um but yeah, that's that's something I'm I'm really big about. And I think, I mean, cops in general, whether you're canine handler, whether you're a supervisor, whatever, traffic, whatever your assignment is, you should be in shape. Um, I fully believe that because I mean you're some your family, my family, we might need need somebody one day. And somebody that shows up, I want them to be tipped off. I want them to be able to drag somebody out of a out of a building or out of a car or something like that.
SPEAKER_01Man, like I I I want to be have a dependable partner, and I want to be a dependable partner. I do like the bonding aspect that you guys do out there, uh, you know, in the Georgia area where you guys don't go out as team, different teams and do that type of thing, man. I wish we could, we could do, we could probably do more of that here in the southwest. I'm not not giving us an excuse, but man, the heat is killer, man. Like hundred plus degree weather, I don't know if a lot of that, like we have to be up at 2, 3 in the morning to go do those hikes. Because uh shoot, man, some places down in the valley, bro, like it can get pretty hot, man, like before 10 o'clock. So yeah, it's that's one of those. But but yeah, not making an excuse at all, man. So for me, I was never a trainer. I was I've always been a handler. You know, what do you what do you think separates an individual who becomes a handler from someone who takes that next step to go over to the training aspect of the K9 program?
SPEAKER_02So I think the the the separation is learning to troubleshoot, right? Uh so it's one of the things that I picked up really quickly after after my trainer in school is no matter the dog's age, no matter what kind of dog you have, at some point, that dog is going to experience some environmental issue, it's gonna experience some engagement issue, it's gonna pick up some some random habit that you know we don't know where it came from. And the the the the purpose of the trainer is to correct those things, to basically be you're the coach of the team, right? So that's the way I way I look at it. When I set up training scenarios, uh when I train set up training events, I I look at it as I'm the I'm the coach of the team, right? So we're we we we brief before everything is in training. Uh so we the handlers sit down, they discuss what they what they're seeing during their weekly uh shift trainings and stuff like that, what they do on their what they do on their own. So they discuss if they had an engagement, if they had a track or they had something that was failed, uh, we brief that, and then training is kind of set around that. I also like to use real-world things. So if something happens around the country and it's a you know, it's a viral video or uh a failed engagement or something like that, I want my team to learn from it too. So we'll brief that, we'll talk, we'll discuss it, we'll talk about it, and then we I'll set them up into situations where their dog will perform a certain way in that in that scenario or that situation. I like I like to push the dogs to fail the same way as the the the the handlers, right? I I want you to fail in training because if I can get you to fail in training, and then we debrief it at the end, and I do that coaching, and I can coach you up and say, hey, look, this is what you did wrong, this is what you did right, and this is what you could do better, right? And the biggest thing is is in my unit is we drop the ego, right? So we're we're very blunt and very honest with each other, not in a disres disrespectful way, but more so like, hey man, like this is what I'm saying. We'll go around a circle and we'll all be honest with each other. Um, and I think that's one of the biggest things in this industry is if you know, in the canine industry as a whole, if we could drop the ego with each other, we would be so much further as as a profession um and as as the industry, right? So I I never I don't care where you got your dog from, I don't care, you know, your training methodology or anything like that. We're all on the same team. We're all trying to get to the same thing, we're all trying to better our dogs, better ourselves. I I don't like the ego stuff, man. We try to drop it, drop it immediately. And it it just it makes for better training when you do that, right? You know, I back to the original question. Yeah, I mean, I think you're the coach when the trainer, you you you kind of change from that role of being a player to more so a coach. And it might it's my job to better my my guys, better my team, better their dogs. And just by the experiences and training and and knowledge that I have, um, if I can push it off on them and they get better, then that's a win for me.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, man, that that's that's 100% accurate. And I like the fact that you mentioned pushing a dog to its failure, right? Because just like we as humans, we push ourselves to the failure. Boom. Now we know at the point when we're gonna start failing, right? Uh talk about, you know, drawing your weapon from your holster, right? Presentation, uh, getting track, getting your sights on target, you know, uh making sure you have a clear alignment, squeezing the trigger. The whole nine, right? Breaking that down, getting it to where it's it's you know, 100% like to the T, right? And then same thing for the dog, pushing that dog to building clearances and right, you know, you know where your dog is struggling at, and you work on that and you do boom and you start to see improvement in the dog. So that's very important, man. Pushing these dogs, uh, just like we do our ourselves as humans to our failures, I think is definitely uh something that we should continue to do. Uh, I don't think a lot of training groups have that. Cause uh I personally, uh I also rolling into egos, you mentioned egos. When we went to canine training, nobody cared how many loads I hit last week, you know, like no one cared. Like we're here for canine training. Like I had my my my butt screamed at hundreds of times. Like, what are you doing? Like, you know, like we had a different we had a different type of training, man. And uh I won't say his name, uh had a really good trainer, man, and he stayed in my butt. And it would be moments where, you know, I work in the Southwest, and being out in the Southwest, backup can be 30 to a couple hours, you know, depending on where you are. So I've had a lot of situations, canine wise and non-Kine wise, where I was out in the middle of nowhere and I had to depend on my training. And I would always hear my trainer's voice in my head screaming at me, what are you doing? I'm like, Oh, what am I doing? Right. And self-correcting, right? You know, it corrects yourself. So yeah, man, training is very important and pushing that stuff, man, and removing those egos, very important, man.
SPEAKER_02Well, I mean, I think also it it impacts us personally too, right? Like, so you know, and I was part of it before I became the trainer when I had that first dog, you know, we we would set up training where the dogs didn't fail. And it was an ego thing for us, right? Like we wanted the win and we wanted to feel good about it, right? But what doesn't feel good is when you go out and you have that failure or you have, you know, an outcome that it is less desirable. Um Then that all comes from training. So like if you drop the ego as an industry and as a professional, we all get better. And I it was it was something that I that I noticed very quickly. Um that you know guys don't like to be uncomfortable. Nobody likes to be uncomfortable, right? But you've got to learn to be comfortable and being uncomfortable. So my guys are super, super uh they're they're super now comfortable with being uncomfortable. So I I push them. Every training is rough, every training is is hard, but I feel like it should be, right? Like training, training, that's where you should it should be hard. Because when you go out and to perform, you know, every day you you get your dog out, I tell my guys, hey, that's your Super Bowl, right? Like train like you're like it's your Super Bowl. Um, so I they're used to it now. You know, it's a running joke. There's a couple guys in my unit. Uh they said that they would, when they first got their dogs, they would go home and they would question whether they were in the right career field or not. And so because it was just it was just so hard. He's like, man, am I am I am I doing okay? Am I not? And they're all great, man. They're all I have a unit full of really good dudes, uh, really proactive guys. Um, and and and we all kind of balance each other uh really well. Uh I like to work the interstate, I stay on the interstate. I have handlers to do hotel, motel, gas station. Um, have have one guy that um makes a living on surface streets. Um so we all we're all kind of hit different aspects of it and we all balance these each other out really well. Um but yeah, man, I it it all comes from that training. Um we drop the ego and and and get to work, you know. When you deploy that dog, that's that's that's your Super Bowl.
SPEAKER_01Yep, it sure is, man. And uh yeah, man, that training that there's definitely moments in my basic canine course and even throughout the rest of my my K9 years, man. I went home and was like just gotten yelled at for like eight plus hours out of the day, and you know, the the instructor, he's red by the end of the day, man. So yeah, man. Um I'll tell you what, man, the the training I've had running a dog, especially a dual purpose dog, right? You start to learn that you have a you have a liability on the end of that leash. And just like a firearm, you're responsible for what the end of that tool uh does out in the field and the liability you have to uphold for the agency, right? So yeah, yeah, it's definitely, definitely stressful uh a lot, you know, uh especially for younger officers coming in and even more senior officers. I was I was pretty senior, you know, in my career at the time when I got my dog. So I've been on a job for a while, but grabbing a leash, holding a, you know, uh an animal, you know, a dog uh that has these, you know, pretty good abilities, you know, and trying to learn that on top of everything else. And then remembering policy and things of that nature, man. So yeah, dude.
SPEAKER_02Honestly, man, that's the uh the biggest challenge that I've seen as an as an industry right now, right? Like in our area, in my agency, you know, we're very young agency. Um, just after COVID and after all that stuff happened, you know, we lost a lot of experience. So my agency is super young. Um, my unit is very, very young. So selecting a handler that had, you know, two, three years of road experience, like I'm having to build them up on that side too. I'm having to build them up on, you know, they might be a proactive cop on the street, uh, but I'm having to build them up and exactly what you said, I'm not, you know, this is a very high liability position. You, this dog is going to physically bite somebody, right? You're using this dog to search, to find, and to bite somebody. Uh, it's it's it's a very big use of force. Um, so getting a new handler or new officer who's been on the street three years, catching them up with case law and what you can and can't do, and then teaching them detection work on a dog, and then on the other side, teaching them the apprehension work, it's it's a lot for them at one time. And I, you know, I I don't ever I don't ever lower my standards. I don't ever lower expectations. Uh, I expect the newest handler to perform the same way, uh, or you know, to have the same knowledge and skill base as as the senior handlers um across the board because it doesn't matter when somebody calls for help. It doesn't they're not asking, hey, it's not a McDonald's, they don't have an order form saying, hey, I want the guy with seven years of experience, right? They get what they get. So I want the the standard to be the standard across the board, right? Whoever shows up, it it that they are the dude, right? That it's the same, same standard. So yeah, that's been the biggest challenge, man, is is just catching everybody up. And then I think it's an industry thing. Um nobody wants to be a canine handler anymore either. Uh so in our agency, you know, we we we put out the posting. We're we're a fairly large agency, uh, put out the posting. We didn't have any candidates for the last talk, so we had to actually hire on the outside um and talking to people around the area. That's that's that's a common thing now. You know, they're uh both some of the largest agencies around us in Metro Atlanta are hiring on the outside to fill canine positions, so which is just crazy to me because when I first got into law enforcement, you know, everybody's trying to get into a special unit, everybody's trying to get into canine. You know, you sit on I've sat on many hiring boards and you hear the same thing every single time. I want to be on SWAT or I want to be a canine. And then it comes time to it, and we we're not getting applicants. So the the pool to select is is is that rookie cop. That's who who you're getting, the two, three years of experience. Whereas in the past, you know, it would be you know seven to ten years of experience. We just we're just not seeing that anymore.
SPEAKER_01I I can say that to somewhat of I can agree with you on that, right? Uh talking to some of the the guys I know and girls in canine man and and their in their agencies. Yeah, the it's not a long list of officers that are applying. Handful, handful of testing, handful of interviews, and then selection, right? Um, you know, when I first started law enforcement, just like you said, man, I wanted to be in SWAT or I wanted to be a canine. Like that was that was literally what I wanted to do as I progressed in my career. I got to see a lot of the canine works, and I was like, yeah, I want to do canine. And then it went hand in hand and worked in criminal interdiction. So yeah, man, like, but yeah, you you're right. You don't see a long list of applicants putting in. I would even almost say the same for SWAT. You got a handful of people that are physically able, you know, with the mindset of, I want to do SWAT, that go through their selection process, whatever that may be at the particular agencies. But yeah, you don't see these long lists, man. And I think getting that two, three-year officer and then making sure that they're up to par, all the legal standards, you know, policy, all the experiences that a more seasoned or veteran officer would typically have of putting in for a K9 role. Yeah, it's a lot, man. And then like talking about criminal interdiction, then trying to teach them criminal interdiction on top of that, you know. So it's it's definitely difficult, man.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, um, you know, and I I'm trying to catch up. Like I said, my unit's is is is fairly young, they're uh fairly new, fairly young. Um, so I'm trying to catch them up. And the best way to teach them is through experience, right? So if they don't have that experience, I know they get really annoyed with me. We all have a group chat. If I see something, um, you know, there's some kind of training value to a video, a body cam video or something like that, that this goes viral or or whatever, I send it out to them, I blast it to them. Like, hey, what do y'all think about this? And it's an immediate debrief on on that video. Um, and I do that. I know they get really annoyed by it because it could be one o'clock in the morning and all of a sudden you're getting this video and this group chat, right? Uh it's like, hey, check this out, right? Uh, but I do that because if if you don't have those experiences, then I'm gonna force you to see it, right? I'm I'm really big about visualization um and and and prepare preparing your mind. So if they can see that and they see what this officer did, and then we can debrief it, it's almost like they had that experience themselves. Um, so I'm trying to like cram. Basically, when you're cramming for a study and for a test, I'm trying to get them to cram at one time and I'm putting all this stuff in. Um all these different training values of of debriefs and video review. If I have something or another handler has something, I want the whole unit to experience. I want the whole unit to see, hey, here's the body cam, here's here's the how the dog performed, here's how we can get better. And the reason I do this is I'm just trying to cram experiences and catch people up, so to speak. Because we, you know, they they have two, three years on the road. Um, I I have a I'm really lucky. Uh my senior handler, he's he's been a dog handler for a long time. He he came from another agency. Um, we trained together for for a very long time. So he he kind of helps me out. Um, because he had he does have those experiences. He does have uh he has a really, really good dog. So he he kind of helps me be that informal leader in the in the in the in the unit and help bring up the new guys. Um he's done a really good job at it. But yeah, man, it's it's it's a it takes a village, takes it takes a village to get it up.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, it does, man. So I kind of want to like talk about the big misconceptions within canine work, right? And usually, you know, being a canine handler, it's usually, hey, can you bring your dog out and can you can you can you can your dog track? And it's like, well, yeah, my dog can track. And it's like, okay, and then they don't tell you that they've tracked all over the area looking for the suspects. They don't give you all the information, and then your dog's going in circles, right back to the starting point. Usually the uh that initial officer, man. What do you think are some of the big misconceptions, especially being from a trainer? What do you what do you see, especially doing like canine seminars and things of that nature in education for the public? What are some of the biggest misconceptions that you that you hear uh in relation to canine work?
SPEAKER_02So I think one of the biggest misconceptions, I see this a lot, um, especially with with other agencies that call us, you know, they they've stopped the car and you know, they they smell drugs in the car or they they suspect drugs are in the car, they've already searched the car, uh, and they get out there and you know they're you pull up, and it's actually pretty frustrating. It's a canine handler, you pull up and they're already, you know, in the car, all the doors are open, the trunk hood is open and everything, they're climbing in. Um, and you know, you get out of the car and they're like, hey, like we just want the dog to show us where the we think it's a trap, we want the dog to show us. I'm like, hey man, that's that's not how that works, right? Like odor's odor. Um that odor's gonna come out the escape point. Like he's he's not a magical dog, she's not a magical dog. They're not gonna go straight to the trap and be like, hey, scratch at it, be like, hey, open this right here, right? Um, so I think, and it it's nobody's fault. Uh they just don't they don't understand um that uh canine is just gonna go to the source, uh the where the wherever the odor is prevalent coming out, whether that's a door seam. So we teach all our dogs just to check door seams, check underneath. Um so as soon as they catch the odor, man, they're they're gonna alert. We have passive alert dogs, so they sit. Uh the pointer stares, um, does what pointers do and points. Um, but they uh they they don't they're not gonna go to the trap and tell you where the trap's at. They're gonna sit outside the car where they catch the first odor and turn around and say, hey, pay me, right? They're not they're not they're not gonna open the trap for you.
SPEAKER_01Yes, man. I I've had many occasions where we'll take our dogs out, uh like post-stop, and we'll run our dogs on the car, and the dogs are banging it on one point of the vehicle, but the actual concealment's on another, right? And then putting the dog in a car, like you say, like we'll talk about a floor compartment, for example. That odor is coming up, it's it's coming out of the back. That odor is strong, especially when it's loaded down. Talk about threshold, several hundred kilos. That odor is coming from everywhere. It's overwhelming for the dog. The dog is going to show you the positive alert, but this is where, like you said, officers are trying to, they they just believe the dog can pinpoint the trap. And and and then you know, you know what happens, man. After the stop's over, uh, that dog is trash, man. That handler is trash. It's like, no, the the handler and the dog's not trash. Not in a lot of cases. It's just you don't understand how canines and their nose actually operate. And we when you start talking about threshold.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, we, you know, that one of the things, especially as as when I after the trainer school and I became the trainer, my goal was to educate not only the handlers, uh, but educate my my department, right? Um, so we we've gotten the department pretty squared away where they understand now uh the ins and outs of of what we do. The biggest challenge that that I had originally came from, and misconceptions really came from command staff, right? We have a really good command staff, super supportive of proactive policing, but they at the time uh they just didn't understand canine work. And we went away from using our patrol dogs to track uh like missing kids and and uh elderly and stuff like that. And the reason why is because hey, we have these these apprehension dogs and they bite people, right? Um, so you look at case law like Melgar versus Green, uh you have an apprehension dog that's tracking somebody who did not commit a crime, who you know you is a runaway kid, dog bites them. Well, now guess who's liable? The agency's liable now, right? So we went away from using our patrol dogs to to track those things, missing kids, elderly. We have a lot of retirement homes and stuff around the area. So we have a lot of uh a lot of elderly people go walk away, they they go they go missing a lot, right? So the first thing is uh the supervisors want to check that box, right? Like, hey, we need to get a dog out here. Um you're trying to check that box. So it was a misconception at the time when we would tell them no, right? I sent it out to the to the to the whole unit, like, hey, we're we're no longer tracking missing kids. Um, and it, you know, I had to show that case law to to supervisors and to command staff because at the time it just looked, hey, like it looks like you're lazy, right? Like, no, they're calling you, like, hey, we need you to do this. I'm not doing that. I'll come out there, I'll drive around, uh, I'll help you zone patrol, I'll do what you need me to do, but I'm not gonna put my dog on the ground. And it initially it looked like we were trying to be lazy until you start sliding that case law in front of people and like, hey, you you're gonna be liable for this, right? So the way to combat that is, you know, we have a single purpose EOD dog. Um, and that was our community dog that we would put out into the community because I don't I don't put our patrol dogs in into schools and stuff like that. Um, so this was our community dog. So I I put tracking on him. Um so now he's a passive tracking dog. So now we we do have that capability and we do have that ability, but before that, you know, we were calling other agencies that might have had a bloodhound or or did have the passive dogs. Um and in the same way the other agencies, you know, other agencies in the area might not have the same view that we do. Uh, but you know, we'll get canine call-outs all the time from a neighboring agency, you know, for a missing kid. And you know, if if we don't have the floppy ear available or in service, like, you know, we got to tell them no. Um, and you hate to do that because you know, if somebody's calling for help, you don't want to do that, but at the same time, like I don't want that agency liable just as much as I don't want us liable. Um, so just trying to keep the program in service and and and um moving forward, uh it that was one of the biggest misconceptions that I had I had to face. Um, and that came from my own command staff. Now they understand. Um, they they're super supportive of us. I couldn't ask for for for a better support system. Um, and they understand now, but it it took a while to to get that across to them.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And you talked about administrators and made me kind of think a little bit. And whether you've dealt with it, whether you you're dealing with it now, or you know people that are going through it. What's your take on administrators? Like, hey, we gave you a tool, we gave you a dog. Why haven't you found any drugs yet? Right? Uh, why are your deployments low? Like, and you know, on a lot of cases, you have to understand from a traffic stop example, right? You still have to, you know, be able to have reasonable suspicion. In some cases, maybe have another officer there so you can deploy your dog because you can't stop the enforcement action to just go run your dog. So agencies that are stat driven, because we gave you a tool and now you're not in their minds, they're not using it, or you're not producing. Any recommendations you can give to officers out there that may be new in the canine world?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so I mean, so I I feel that pretty pretty extensively, right? So, like my agency is a very proactive agency. Um, the the command staff is very supportive. Uh, they want you to be proactive. Um, I feel the internal pressure uh to perform, right? And for my guys to perform. Uh, we're we're a small, we're larger Metro Atlanta agency, but we're we're smaller in the terms of manpower, like we're really short, um just probably like everybody else's, right? So we're a smaller, we're very dense and compact city, so we're 16 square miles, right? So with we with the amount of dogs we have, I feel the internal pressure of like, hey, I every day I gotta show that the reason why we have this amount of dog amount of dogs that we have, or um, you know, because canine is a big investment, right? Like for the for the department and for the administrators, like it it's it, it's it's a big expensive big expense with vet bills and maintenance and care, training hours, stuff like that. So for me, it's like I want to show my command staff a return of investment. This is what you're paying for, all that kind of stuff. So I feel that internal pressure. Um, but early on, uh, you know, I really got to sit down uh with my command staff and basically show them like, hey, this is this is what we are doing, right? Here's what training looks like inviting them out to training, uh getting them involved in in the unit, right? And once the unit starts, you you as a trainer, I internalize uh performance and standards within the in the in the within inside the unit. So once they do start producing and once they do start getting results, I mean they speak for themselves, right? Um so every every month I print out monthly reports for my command staff, and it shows like, hey, this is what the dogs are doing, right? So like, yeah, you might have got you know X amount of drug arrest, but here's the amount of times the dog's getting out, here's what the dog did do. Um, here's here's the amount of uh apprehensions that we have that didn't require the dog to bite somebody. It was just the dog found somebody and they gave up to canine. Um, and those you can't put a price on on those results, right? Because that might have saved somebody's life, um, might have saved uh the dog might have found somebody where that person might have hiding in kudzu or in the woods and you know potentially could have been shot, um, or you know, a situation might have been bad for the officer. So you can't put a price on that. Um, so when results come like up like that, and and command staff can sit there and they can watch the body cameras and and see what these dogs are doing, um, then I think it changes the game. Um yeah, it's it's I I felt that internal pressure myself, and I still feel it, right? That it's just because how I am, I'm a very driven person. Um, I don't ever want anybody to say anything was just handed to me, right? So I've always, and that's from day one. Um, so every day I come out, I want to to prove myself. I want the unit to prove themselves, um, and and show the hey, this is why we have the dogs, and this is why it's a good resource to have.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, man. I'll tell you this, man. My last agency, bro, like they were, they were, they were decent. They were moderate, right? Uh in terms of, you know, administrators looking at your deployments and looking at what you were doing for calls for service. But uh, we had to help out other field offices. And one of the things we would run into is we would hear administrators, man, if we had a dog down here, we could, we could find more drugs. We can get drugs all out of the out of the communities. And then what would happen? We would deploy down there. We would go work with the patrol officers. We back them up on stops and then they call for canines. We get there and they're like, hey, man, can you run your dog on the car? It's like, yeah, hey, did you ask for consent? Uh no. And you go over there, hey, uh, can I search your car? Yeah, sure. Go ahead. Come on, let's go search. And the officer's like, you don't want to run your dog? No, we got consent. And the problem we were running into in a lot of the cases, man, officers were just too scared to ask five words. Can I search your car? And it's not that hard. It's just that officers don't have the confidence, right? They're scared of failing. Uh, they're scared of getting the no. And in terms, they call for a canine, right? Uh, but when you look at the legal aspect side of it, like the courts are gonna know, well, if you had real suspicion, why didn't you just ask for consent, right? Why were you waiting there seven, eight minutes, right? We'll throw Rodriguez out there. Why did you wait seven, eight minutes to get the dog, right? Uh, but obviously the Rodriguez case, he did ask for consent. But I just wanted to like throw that timing out there. So I wish more officers would just ask for consent uh versus just let me get a canine, let me get a canine, because the canine handlers get annoyed. And then I hear officers all the time because they reached out. Yeah, I can't get my canine handler to respond. They called me on the phone. I told them what I had, and then they told me I didn't have enough reasonable suspicion. Now I understand some department policies, not a lot, but some. I have run into officers that, you know, give me, hey, my department policy says, you know, as the canine handler, I have to make sure that the officer or deputy, whatever, has reasonable suspicion. And I kind of think about that. I'm like, well, when you look at lay testimony, right? When an officer goes to testify on their training experience, what they saw, what they heard, how they felt, the officer, the actual contact officer, the one whose matters, how can another officer in this example, the canine handler, tell the other officer, you don't have enough reasonable suspicion. I'm not gonna run my dog. Do you guys deal with that?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so I actually changed that um for for basically for that reason, right? So you I remember before I got a dog when I was on traffic, you call for a dog, they get out, and they immediately come up to you, hey, what you got? You know, and you have to basically do your report right there in front of them. Like, hey, this is you know, this is what I saw. This is you know, all this is a reason for the stop, all that stuff. You're already giving them the report right there, right? I stopped doing In that and I tell my guys, like, hey, and it goes back to that training of the department, right? So we we teach a lot of like roll call trainings. We'll go to the shift, and and especially like the the handlers that are assigned to certain rotations. Like, I I tell them, like, hey, go to your rotations during your shift trainings, tell them like you know case laws in particular that pertain to to uh interdiction and and canine call outs and stuff like that. Get them comfortable with calling you and their knowledge. That way, when you show up, you don't have to have that conversation. Uh so it goes back to investing in in into your department, right? And going back. I don't tell my guys to do that. And the reason why is you get out, um, and if they extended that stop and you choose to run the dog, but you have the knowledge that they extended the stop, now you're liable for that in that whole civil suit and all that kind of stuff, right? Um, and also it just I don't like to put the officer on the on the spot with body cameras and stuff like that, um, because you're you're speaking, you got a new officer who might be calling you, and they're speaking to uh you know a canine handler who they might may or may not look up to. So they might be nervous, they might not give you the right information or all the information, and it's just something for a defense attorney to use against that person, right? Um, so and and also we we in our court system we got attacked for a long time um about extensions of stop. Um so that conversation too uh could be perceived uh as as an extension of the stop. If I'm sitting there having a conversation with a with officer X who's telling me, yeah, I saw this and this and this and this, and we're just we're just talking. Um it could be used against us. We we saw stuff like that. So I I had a particular stop um several years ago. Uh ended up being uh a it was a it was a whisper stop for our task force. Uh they followed this guy up to Kentucky. Um he saw, you know, he was carrying, he was basically carrying a load back. He was a big time dealer in the area. They followed him into a Home Depot, saw him doing uh the deal in Home Depot. They already knew, like, hey, this guy's loaded, we do the traffic stop. I had a uh ticket book at the time. So I'm riding the ticket, I'm waiting for another unit to come out there so I can run my dog because there was uh two or three people in the car. Uh that person, the officer gets there, I hand my ticket book over to the person to go run my dog. And we had a motion to suppress for that, and we lost it because 14 seconds from me handing the ticket book to them, even though you know, so it changed the game, it changed how I do things. Um, so now I I do things with uh with a traffic officer or a person on a ship that's just really into interdiction and is a safe person and knows case law and knows those things and wants to get better. Those are the people I work with. Um and and I learned through those failures and through those mistakes uh of how to get better. So every court case, everything, um, I'm I'm constantly like, hey, all right, what did we do wrong? It's kind of like the debriefs from from training, right? Like, hey, what did I do wrong here? And how can I make this better, or how can I make this harder for the defense attorney in the future? Um, so yeah, I went away from the the going up to the the handler asking questions, and it throws people off, especially in in other agencies. So if somebody calls us for mutual aid assist and maybe it's for you know a sniff on the interstate in a different county, I we we just go up and we just run it. Um it it you it's up to you as the officer requesting it for uh for us at least, it's up to you to to have that ARS because you're gonna have to put that in the report and why you waited for us to get there. I'm just there to work the dog, man. Um, so yeah, I I I tell my I I I really stress my guys like, hey, like that's on them. Um, but it we also really pour into education into our department. So our guys are pretty good now. Uh if they call us, that it it's you know, they've already gone through all the steps, they've already gone through the consent, they've already gone through everything. Um, and now it's you're you're just combating that prolonging of the stop.
SPEAKER_01Yes, man, 100%. And I I say this to people that I train and and everything, man. If you are called to the to the scene to deploy your dog, just roll up and run your dog. You can ask all those hoop de wa questions afterward. Uh, what was your RS? You know, what was your PC? If that's if you're a senior handler, you're just trying to maybe guide a younger officer, you can ask all of that secondary. But every second, like you said, that you take and you're talking and you're asking all these questions, it is an extension of the stop. Rodriguez versus US is a good example of this, man. The 78 minutes, you know, to talk about the time that the offer, the canine handler came to got there. The court said that that was okay. It wasn't an issue. The issue was, you know, the primary officer, you know. So that's what we have to understand the that at the end of the day, it's not going to be on the canine handler unless you start interjecting yourself and now you're assisting in the extension of the stop. But if you just roll up and run your dog and then ask all those questions later, you're you're actually helping the other officer. You're screwing the officer by actually doing that. And Rodriguez versus US is a good example of that. Throwing Illinois versus Cabellas, right? You know, deploying the dog while the mission of the stop is still, you know, in transaction. I always advocate for that. You know, if possible, if you're a canine handler and you got you, you have a nearby proactive officer on a stop, and you maybe they've been there a couple extra minutes, you roll by just to go do a you know, code for check on them, just do a check on sea welfare check, and you get there and you'll start listening to the story. You're like, hey, that sounds good. I'm just gonna go run my dog. You don't even need it, you know what I mean? Because you're not extending the stop, right? That officer is working on that. And and again, this just goes back to where I just wish more officers would just slow down and think about what they're doing uh as a handler when they're rolling up and they're asking this officer 21 questions before they just go get their leash, get their dog, and just run the daggone car. Uh it's just really, it's just really mind-boggling.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and I mean you gotta put yourself in the shoes. We've all been that rookie cop, right? So like you you're that rookie cop who made that stop, and now all of a sudden a canine handler is coming up and you're you're on trial already, right? You already got to, hey, this is you know, you you're you're having to walk them A to Z. And uh they're if they know that they're gonna get the 10th degree when that officer comes out there and they're gonna get grilled and and and have to write the report right there, then they're likely not gonna call you again, right? So like, or be be hesitant to call you. So I want my guys to to to get as much work as possible. Um, and we're there to to assist before we're there to assist these guys. Um, we're not there to take cases, we're not there to to make them feel inferior or not want to call us or anything like that. So like that's just another part of it, man. Like, I like I don't want I don't want the the handler to show up to pull up and be interviewing the officer on scene, right? Like it's just it's just not it's just not a good look, man.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, no, it's not, man. So I want to talk about some of your your learning from some of your trainers. I know we had talked before, and I apologize if I mess anyone's name up, but you had some some experienced guys, Paul Ludwig, Ricky Rivera, and Mike Nesbeth. Uh, you know, what did you learn from each one of those guys, man? And you know, how did they change you today on what you try to implement to newer handlers coming in behind you?
SPEAKER_02So I uh I got hooked up with Ricky uh Rivera at a at a seminar. Um he was teaching he was he he's from California. He came over here to do a uh seminar for Georgia Police Canine Foundation, and it was numerous trainers there. He wasn't the only one. Um, but you know, I I went to his station with my dog, and our training values aligned. Um so he the way he trains a dog is through really a lot of positive reinforcement through operate conditioning, stuff like that, which is the basis of how you know I train dogs. So we already had that understanding of of training. And Ricky's one of those dudes that you know him and uh just Spectrum Canine in general out in California doing really good things, but he he wants to push you to failure too, right? He he wants to expose you. Um and we just just picking up training stuff through him and how he trained. Um I stayed at his station pretty much that entire seminar, right? Like doing the same thing over and over just because like I was getting the most out of it, right? Like I was skipping other other uh training stations and stuff just to stay with Ricky. Um and you know, through that time, like you know, he he started putting out uh his podcast and he was guest on podcasts, and I was I was listening to those podcasts, you know, at work, right? Um and I was picking up different things. Um and then through the through the course of it, Ricky and I became friends, and you know, we we we started communicating through Instagram and stuff like that. And any anytime he's over here or on this side of the country, you know, I go to. He did a seminar for for Sled in South Carolina. I I drove over there. Um I just the way he trains a dog, and it's helped me, right? So he he does he does uh how he trains is through slowing down um through a unit basis. So I've changed the way we do so on patrol callouts, the way we do patrol calls, right? Like I give everybody an assignment. Like if you're gonna go deploy your dog, like, hey, you're lethal, hey, you're less lethal, you're gonna go hands-on. Uh, when the dog bites, I'm gonna take the dog off this way, and you're gonna put the guy in handcuffs, right? So everybody already has a job. And I learned that through Ricky and through through scenario training with Ricky, and it's really helped us, and we've seen it real world experience with apprehensions and with bites. You give people assignments beforehand, and they're you're gonna take them out of the red. They're not gonna be, what do I do next? Right. Um, and I learned that through training with Ricky. Um, Ricky's really big into scenario training. Um, and I kind of changed our training into more of scenario based, right? It was more we did scenarios in the past, but it was more so like a coaching scenario. Um, basically putting the dog in in certain situations, but now we've made it kind of how Ricky does his thing, where it's a whole scenario, right? Like you're gonna have to figure out are there cameras on scene, uh, if we're doing this building search, have you tried to contact the the business owner? Like you're going through those whole things because in canine training, we're we're not only training the dog, but we're training the handler too, right? And that's something that I picked up from Ricky is yeah, he's training that dog, and there's specific things for for the dog, but you're training the handler on how to respond to that incident and giving them that the handler, the sight picture just like you are the dog, right? Um, yeah, so ri Ricky's helped our training out a lot. Um, and anytime he's over on this this area, the side of the country, man, I'm jumping on it, right? Like it's really good. I was able to get my unit over to him. Um, and as far as Paul, uh Paul's the same way. Uh I I got you know, I got a chance to go to Paul's class in um at ATK9 in Indiana, and that it it it pushed me and my dog uh to failure. Um we you know I got to discuss with him, hey, like my dog had this failed engagement. Um, you know, what do I need to do? And that entire week, you know, he's he's pushing you, and you're doing crazy things with this dog that you probably would never do in real life, right? Like you're jumping off roofs into uh water, like it's like a flooded village and stuff up there. Like you're doing just crazy things, um, but you're you're pushing the boundaries of your dog, and that's something that I really picked up from him. Um so combining the things I learned from rookie and come and putting in uh you know Paul's idea of forcing failures and forcing uh that just putting your dog and and the handler through extreme circumstances um kind of changed the game for me, right? It kind of changed the game for the unit and how we train and what we do. And Mike Nesbith, man, he's he's he's just a goon in the suit, man. Watching him catch a dog is just is just crazy, right? Like we don't realize as handlers, we don't realize that man, you're if you're decoying and you're you're catching the dog in a suit, man, you're you're you're the trainer for the dog. The handler's not doing anything. Like you're teaching that dog how to properly drive in, how to how to grip, um, how to grip fight, like you're you're how to enter into the bite. Like the the decoy is teaching the dog all that stuff, right? So I think we as handlers and trainers get so caught into um just standing in a field and just doing the back tricep bites or just doing the basic bites, right? And watching how Mike moves in a in a suit and how he forces the dog to engage certain ways and and just being athletic as a decoy kind of change how how we decoy too. And um then just putting everything together, man, it's just it's like I said, it takes a village. Um, but those three guys, man, they they they they've uh they've contributed a lot to our training, whether they know it or not, they've they've contributed a lot.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, man, you and and that's good too. And it and it's and it's actually important, but let me ask you this how do you guys safely introduce chaos without losing control of the actual the dog or the training itself?
SPEAKER_02So we build up. Um so I kind of have a general idea. Like during training, we talk about or throughout the week, we talk about like, hey, the handler might approach me or text me and be like, hey, I want to work on this, right? Um so I kind of already have an idea of a scenario that I want to do in advance. Um, but just like just like humans, we just don't get thrown into the fire, right? Like the dog's gotta warm up, it's gotta, you know, it's gotta come out of this kin old stretch, gotta do all that stuff, right? So like I'll I'll lead up to it. So we'll we might do like a a bite that's gonna mimic that scenario. So if it's a uh a passive bite, we might do start with that field work with a passive unit or passive uh decoy. Um and that way the dog goes and gets that initial bite and we can work up to it, and then towards the end, man, it's it's all out chaos. Uh, we've been introducing flashbangs uh in our trainings, we've been introducing uh multiple decoys, we've been introducing we just it just a bunch of stuff, man. I try to get the dogs as much much uh look as possible, much sight pictures as possible. Um yeah, man, we we ease up to it, and towards the end of training, man, it's it's it it all chaos, all bets are off at that point.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's good, dude. I mean, when we talked kind of like offline a little bit, and you talked about like what you do on a day-to-day, right? So, how do you maintain consistency when you're running multiple deployments back to back on a shift? How do you transition your dog from going from a dope search to a track? Um, you know, and then you're running two dogs. Like, how do you transition?
SPEAKER_02So, I mean, I it it starts in training, right? So, like I'm really big on those scenarios. When we do bite scenarios, we'll immediately go do uh a dope search, right? Um, my guys they joke around, I have a thing called surprise bite work. So you could be doing you know a an odor search on a car, and then all of a sudden a decoy comes out with with a sleeve or with a hidden sleeve or something like that, like that, right? Um, so I and I do it not so much to mess with the guys, but so the dog can transition its mind really quickly, right? Um, because that does happen. Like we, you know, we might have three or four odor deployments a night, and then you might have that one track. So I want that dog able to transition really well. Um it also comes down to dog selection too, like selecting the right dog for that. Like some dogs, um we've had and we've had them in our unit before where they just can't transition their mind like that. Um so it comes down to like really good dog selection. Um, and again, our our vendor does does us wonders with that, right? Gives us really, really, really good dogs. Um, but yeah, man, it it comes down to training. Uh for me, it's you know, I'm running two dogs right now. So I have an uh explosive dog, and then I have my dog. Um so it's also me transitioning my mind too, right? So I might have to go do an explosive suite at a council meeting or a concert or something like that. And then on the flip side, there might be you know a patrol call that comes out next, and so I gotta flip my mind. Um so yeah, man, it it it for me, everything comes down to training. Everything, right? Like you're preparing, you're giving your mind sight pictures, you're giving the dog sight pictures, um, and and it's it's just preparing for the Super Bowl, man. That's what is what it is for me.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it is, man. It's always about preparation, man. If you prepare, by the time the storm comes, it's calm, you know, and that's why, you know, law enforcement guys, special operators, SWAT guys, like interdiction guys, like when the time comes, like it's it's our time to shine because like we've trained for this. Uh, we know what's getting ready to go down. So I kind of want to transition, man, kind of talk to you about, you know, your proactiveness, man. You work in criminal interdiction work. So, what's one of the biggest factors that you look for or that you see on a regular basis or throughout your career during a traffic stop uh when you know something is bigger is going on? Your reason suspicion is shooting through the roof. What's some of the biggest factors you usually see?
SPEAKER_02So I uh you know, I started just to revisit, I started with with DUI enforcement, right? Like I was on the traffic unit and that's that's what I was doing. And I tell all the new guys who come up um and want to get into interdiction or want to get into proactive policing, I I tell them like, hey man, like starting doing DUI enforcement, right? The reason why, uh, because target selection. It taught me when you're doing DUI, you're doing interdiction, right? Like you're you're setting up in a certain spot, you're setting, you know, you gotta learn traffic patterns, what's normal, what's not normal. Like you're doing interdiction, they just don't realize it. Um you're learning to talk to people, right? So you go up to that window, you're you're learning to to extract the information that you need out of there. Um, you're learning to have a conversation, and then you're doing the steps to to get your evidence for the DUI with through standardized fields and all that kind of stuff. You had a you have a standardized way of which you you're doing it to get your evidence, and then the report side on the back end, right? So I tell I tell all the new guys who who want to get into interdiction or see the the work we're doing, like, hey man, start start starting DUI enforcement, right? So I was I was lucky with doing that first. It taught me all those things that that that uh that I just discussed. And you know, I I'm really big about the interstate. So we have uh 75 runs uh through our county, but our through my jurisdiction is a uh an interstate off of uh uh 75, right? So it goes up north towards North Carolina. Um and I sit on the interstate because you know you get a lot of Atlanta's a source, source city, right? So we get a lot of things going up 575 that goes up towards the casinos in uh North Carolina. We don't really have any we don't have any casinos in Georgia. Uh so a lot of those people make those trips up to North Carolina. Um so I sit on the interstate, uh, sit on the north side uh mainly, and you know, I it that that DUI enforcement taught me target selection. Um so I'm able to, you know, things I picked up from from different interdiction classes, uh the the behavior, the driving behavior, um, the pre-stop indicators, all that kind of stuff, and just being able to talk to somebody, man, that that's the biggest thing. And I that's something I tell the other new guys, man, like just learn to talk to people, right? Like be comfortable, you don't have to go up to the car and be the robot, right? Like I'll go up to the car and have the same conversation or same same demeanor that I'm having with you right now, right? Like you get more out of it. Um, and then when you know I I still experience that increased anxiety and that increased behavior and stuff, we wear a different uniform. Uh we were we wear greens, whereas our patrol officers wear blues. Um so they're already experiencing a different level of like, hey, this guy's not a normal cop, right? And you know, we had the ghost letter cars and all that kind of stuff. So they already have that increased level of anxiety. Um, so I you know, I just over time, man, it's just you you learn what's was normal and what's not normal. And um I it all goes back to for me, it all goes back to traffic, all goes back to DUI enforcement. Um, I think you pick up the best habits there.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, man, and I want to say this too. Like when a lot of people who hear the term target selection, you talked about target selection in the realm of DUI, right? Fell in a maintain lane, leaving the roadway, fell in the signal, uh slow rolling a stop sign, right? These are all factors that we look for in a DUI driver, which we put the term target selection. That is someone who we would suspect, reasonably believe would be under the influence, especially when all that's transpiring at the wee hours of the night between 10 a.m. and maybe 6 a.m. uh on a Friday, Saturday night. That's target selection. That's why guys and girls that are out there in law enforcement, man, and when they're knocking down a lot of DUIs, they're targeting vehicles that are exhibiting these types of behaviors. So when you hear the term, you know, target selection, for those people that are listening or watching, like understand that we're not targeting someone because of their race. We're not targeting someone because of the color car they're driving, we're not targeting their vehicle because it's plated out of California. Uh, we're targeting the vehicle because how the vehicle is physically maneuvering in the presence, or once it comes into contact of a of a vehicle like yours. Ghost marking, you're wearing a different uniform, you're sitting perpendicular in a median, they know you're not running LIDAR and speed, they know you're working criminal enforcement, uh, that you may have canine markings on the side of the car. And your normal people, your normal locals, they see you, they know you're not out there writing tickets, they know you're looking for criminals. They are reacting by they see you, they shift lanes, they reduce speed, they pass you, they go back to speeding. That's just what it is, right? Somebody who's involved in high-level criminal activity, they do the whole opposite. They don't want to speed, right? Because they know if you're speeding and you got 10 kilos in the car, you're giving them probable cause to stop you. So I just wanted to clarify, and I know you know, but for the people that are listening and watching, uh, and even for my my my my friends, my favorite, the defense attorneys, oh, look, they're talking about target selection. No, we're talking about target selection of operation of a vehicle and how that vehicle. Is operating once it comes into contact with law enforcement. No different from how a vehicle is operating when it's uh potentially under the influence uh as they're you know carelessly driving, uh, so to speak. So yeah, I just want to make sure we uh we clarify that just for the people listening in. And even the newer officers, administrators, you're like, oh, I talk about target suction or targeting vehicles. No, we're targeting behavior, and then we are looking for independent reasonable suspicion and probable cause. And anyone who's been in my class, I always advocate if you're gonna work criminal interdiction, find probable cause. Listen, yes, Delaware v. Prouse, you only need reasonable suspicion to stop a car. However, I always just air a little extra, have the probable cause, man. It's just it's just such a cleaner stop, and it makes your case easier in court.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's a running running joke in the department. Uh so we'll do like uh our department has to do like a we call it a watch log, right? So like at the end of every shift, like any arrest or anything go on it and all the charges and stuff. So you might have, you know, trafficking and all these charges, and then it'll be like a window tent charge or a tag light violation. And it's people like, what are you doing? It's like, hey man, it's it's part of it, it's part of the game.
SPEAKER_01I mean, it is 100%. I've stopped people for the most minorist violations, right? Having an expired expiration validation sticker on a tag, but you run the tag and the tag is valid. Okay, but the law clearly says in subsection B, you have to have a valid and display valid expiration sticker. And again, you know, I get it. It's the defense attorney's a job to get their client off. But yes, I stop a vehicle that, you know, I don't always stop every vehicle that has an expired tag. If I did that, man, we would be busy just as law enforcement, just looking for every vehicle that's sped, you know, like you wouldn't have time to respond to every call. And this is why they give us discretion in our enforcement. So I definitely like to say that, man. And with you working in Atlanta, let me ask you this. Uh, from your time working, law enforcement, your time working, criminal interdiction, K9, uh, have you seen any changes in your area in the last few years on how trafficking is operated from the low end all the way to the high end, man? What have you guys seen?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, um, so as far as like trends, I mean, and we're really big in our area with meth and stuff like that. Uh, we're seeing a lot of fentanyl. Um, fentanyl is just it almost everything, almost every stop we have now is is some kind of especially larger uh quantities, is gonna be a lot of fentanyl. Uh we're seeing different colors of fentanyl. So we we've been getting a lot of purple fentanyl in our area. Um but yeah, man, I uh as far as like like trends and stuff, we don't we don't want to get a lot of like uh electro electronic compartments or you know, we we get one here and there. Um most of our stuff is is you know gonna be in a bag in the backseat or you know, something like that. Um we don't we don't see in just in in my area particularly, we're not seeing a lot of those sophisticated traps. I'm not saying they're not there, we're just not we're not seeing them on a regular basis. But yeah, man, we're the biggest thing that we're seeing as far as trends is just the this fentanyl stuff, man. We're uh we're getting killed with it as far as like quantities of it. Um and it's it's it's in everything. So we're we're getting drug, you know, our our crime lab coming back with you might have meth, um, but there's gonna be fentanyl in the meth. So we're we're seeing it uh take over pretty much everything.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, man, that fentanyl stuff out there, it is definitely bad, man. We don't we're not seeing as many of the colors, and I think that's just because of our close proximity to the border. We're seeing it at its purest form in the bricks, and then as it's making its way to other, you know, source cities uh like Atlanta, Oklahoma City. Yeah, I can see it being broken down and in coloration changing and things like that. But yeah, it's always kind of different and cool to hear like what you guys are experiencing over there, right? You know, different trends because the trends we see here on the southwest, they're just a little bit different. You know, I just uh went out, taught a class out in Brazleton not too long ago. And some of the compartments that they brought up, they're just different compartments, and right, and not to talk about the compartments themselves, but it even goes into how the compartment is built. A lot of the compartments that you guys see on the east coast, right? If there's any modification under the vehicle, it's typically going to be in some form of a black or an OD green color spray paint or paint to cover up or mask any of the modifications, right? Here in the southwest, we see spray on mud because if we came out here, which we have seen, cars that come from the east coast with an East Coast electronic uh linear actuator style compartment that come out here and they're you know black spray paint and they'll stand out to us. And then vice versa, a car coming from the southwest to you guys, you see spray on mud, you should probably be going, Well, what is that there for? And why is there no mud anywhere else? So yeah, it's definitely uh always good to talk about different trends when I bring people on in different parts of the region because it's just different, it really is.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, we're seeing as far as like compartments and stuff, man. I'm I'm I'm seeing a lot of more so like hood stuff. Like we're getting a lot of magnet boxes and hoods, uh, we're getting a lot of uh like air box traps. Um that's that's something that I've seen on the within the last year, right? Like uh just the increase of uh that and that's something that we've been pushing off to um you know, patrol shifts and stuff. Like, hey, when you're searching these cars, like search the hoods, right? Like I I a lot of times I see guys when they search cars, they're searching common areas of the cars, glove compartments, under seats, trunk. They never open up the hood. Um, so that's one thing that we've been pushing out extensively. Like, hey man, like this is this is something, right? Like we're seeing a lot, a lot, a lot of uh engine compartment traps, um, as far as compartments with airbox compartments, stuff like that, magnet boxes in the hood. Guys just aren't checking them, man. Um, we found guns and hoods, we found uh all kinds of things. So like I I would say, yeah, man, open the hood.
SPEAKER_01I'm gonna add to that, and I'm gonna say this right here: a lot of compartments, floor compartments, uh, exhaust tunnel compartments, bumper compartments, frame rail compartments, all it takes when you start getting experience, it'll take a few minutes. More experienced officers, we can get on the ground with a flashlight, look under a vehicle, and spot a lot of these modifications. So, along with opening up the hood, if more officers would get on the ground and just look up, man, oh man, could a lot of more compartments come out here? And listen, why do you think that they modify these vehicles from the underneath the vehicle from lifting up the hood? Because 90% of officers in this country don't do it. They go in the car, they look in the glove box, they look in the center console. They might even go one layer deep and move the cup holder to look down into the center console. Known common trap. They may check inside the door handles, a known common local user trap. They're gonna check the trunk, check the bags, and then they're on to the next one. And they never looked underneath the hood, they never looked underneath the car. Magnet boxes. Uh, I got a buddy out in Oklahoma, man, and he's like, he's a local guy, but he hits a decent amount of dope. And a lot of the dope he hits is magnet boxes. And all he does is he gets on the ground. Every single car he searched, he he always pops the hood as well. But he hits so many magnet boxes because you know, so many people don't get on the ground in this career and they're so worried about their uniform or hey, I work for uh an agency, they don't pay for uniforms, I can't get my uniform messed up. Man, you can go buy a mat, a 36 by 36 mat on Amazon for under 30 bucks. There is no excuse why officers should not be popping the hood and getting on the ground and checking underneath these vehicles, man. Uh, a lot of stuff is getting missed around the country for something simple. If you're gonna search a vehicle, search it. If you ain't gonna search it properly, don't waste your time uh because you're gonna keep getting user amounts, man, and you're gonna miss the big stuff. All right. So I kind of want to ask you this, man, for new canine handlers, give me some or give the newer canine handlers some advice on what they should be doing in their first one to three years as a handler, what they should be focusing on, and what's some failures that you can give them so that they don't have to go through these failures? What are some some positives that they need to build? And then what again, what are some failures that they should avoid? And what's some failures that you can give them? And what's some failures that you can give them uh so that they don't have to go through these failures? And what's some failures that you can give them so that they don't have to go through these failures? What are some some positives that they need to build? And then what again, what are some failures that they should avoid? Trying to be a becoming better handler, you know, in this job.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so I mean, I say you first get that dog. Uh it's important to build the bond, right? And when I when I say the bond, I don't I don't mean, you know, cuddling with your dog at nighttime. I don't mean any of that. Um, but I I I do mean like you you you gotta build up that trust with the dog, the dog's gotta trust you. Um and you you learn your dog. A lot of times guys just aren't building that bond with the dog, and then you're adding a lot of you know, you don't have that basis or that foundation, and you go to correct that dog, and now there's just conflict between you and the dog, right? So I think building a bond with your dog is is the most important thing. Um, because you can't I I tell my guys is you gotta look at your dog like a bank account, right? Like eventually you're gonna have to withdraw from that bank account with a correction, right? You better have enough deposits in there um to make sure that you don't bankrupt your bank account, right? So build the bond with your dog um and push the limits, man. Like don't try to win on everything, right? Like we we we're as as as type A people, we want to win all the time, right? But sometimes you win and you're lost, right? So put push the boundaries, um, but see see what you what you can get out of your dog by hard training. Um and you and just push in the limits, man. Um we get so complacent, we get so, you know, it's I I I've been there, I've done it. Like you go get can training, and it's the same thing every every week. You put out the same hides, same place, same kind of places, uh, you use the same cars, you use the same venues. Um man, get out of the comfort zone. Uh use different things, go go talk to different people, talk to different trainers, experience different things. Um, I one of the biggest things that that helped us is we go train with different units, man. We go train with different departments around an area. And you know, it's not always from the same vendor, it's not always from the same training methodology. Uh, but again, it's it's that drop in the ego, right? And drop the ego uh and realize that we're all here to to to better ourselves, to better our unit, to better our dogs, um, and and to better our community, man. That's what we're we're all on the same team. Um, so we started branching out and and training with different people, training with different mindsets and picking up things. Um, you know, I'm not asking you to take their training methodology and change your training methodology, nothing like that, man, but just building the network, building the relationships. Um, and you might pick up something, right? Like I've picked up things from different departments, uh, different people that I've trained with that that might have been different from my training methodology. Um but you know, it those those those networking that uh those those bonds that I've created with outside of my unit have have helped me and helped my guys. Um so yeah, man, drop the drop the ego, push the limit, um, build the bond with your dog and expect to fail, right? Like you're gonna like you're gonna have a missed track. Like you're gonna track and not find a person, right? Or you're gonna you're gonna miss uh an odor in a car, or you're gonna you might have a failed bite engagement, right? But don't let that define you as a as a team um and realize that this is an organic thing that that changes, right? Like your your dog is going to, as it gets more mature and it gets more sight pictures and it gets more experiences, it's gonna change. And so do you are as a handler, and just enjoy the process, man. Like I think guys, um, and I've seen it, guys get a new dog and they expect that dog that's maybe two, three years old to perform like a dog that's six or seven, that's been on the street, that's had those experiences, right? Like, understand that you come out of canine school, it's basically like the same way when you came out of police academy, right? You didn't understand all the interdiction stuff, you didn't understand um the ins and outs of of CQB and all this stuff. Like you pick that up over time. The dog's the same way. Like, you gotta when the dog comes out of handler school, you gotta realize that dog just graduated police academy. Now you've got to put it through FTO, you gotta you gotta go through all these things, and you do that by training, right? And build on the dog. Don't expect the dog to be a veteran when it's coming out of of rookie minicamp, right? Um, so yeah, and I I like I said, the biggest thing I any advice I give to anybody is just just ego, man. Just just drop the ego. Um, like I said in the beginning, man, if we as an industry could drop the ego, uh, we would be so much further along.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, man, 100%, dude. And uh the egos, man, and you talked about it a lot. I didn't want to go down the rabbit hole of the egos, but you you definitely brought it up a lot. And I can personally tell you, man, the egos that that we're seeing right now at the time that this is being filmed is just insane, man. And guys and girls just can't put their egos to the side, especially in the criminal interdiction world. As you know, it's a very small world. There's the, you know, we call ourselves the one percenters of that law enforcement that that truly do it, right, right, to a full-time level or even a part-time level, but at a high degree. And man, the egos, man, they they definitely get in the way of a lot of folks. And I think that just hurts a lot of the community, uh, especially for newer officers that are trying to get into criminal interdiction, you know. You know, when I first got into criminal interdiction, right, uh, not even full-time, but just when I started to do the work, to work into getting into a team, man. And I had an ego problem, right? I was chasing the load and trying to get the biggest loads and and the biggest, you know, seizures. And, you know, and then when I did hit them, yeah, I was, you know, like kind of gloating about it. And I have some senior people in my life, in my career that I look up to in the interdiction world that kind of checked me. They were like, hey, look, like the goal isn't to like scream out about your selfie shot. The goal is to, you know, educate the community, bring each other up. You know, yes, you made the stop, but who helped you with evidence? Who helped you do the tow inventory? You know, who helped you transport the suspect? You didn't do it all yourself. You had a team that was with you. So I had some really good mentors, man, that uh really made me take a step back and look at some of my seizures. And yeah, man, I'm I'm very, you know, excited for the seizures because one, you know, if it was a illicit current or illicit uh drug, I got that stuff off of the street, right? If it was, you know, illicit currency, you know, cool. We took that from a criminal entity, a criminal organization, and we we that's where we're really hurting them at, anyways. I did a little bit of a mind shift change, but you know, uh it says a lot and it takes a lot to be able to even admit those, you know, failures of, hey, I had an ego problem at one point, right? Uh, and then I got checked. And I'm glad I did before I came over to the instructor. Well, man. And yeah, man, it's it's not about the seizure, it's about, you know, your team and understanding that you weren't the only one to do all the work. Yes, you may have made that initial stop and contact, and that's great. Uh, you might have known when to deploy your doc. That's great. But at the end of the day, there's other hands in the pots that uh assisted with that, those particular stops, man. So that's what I want to leave on the topic of ego. I wasn't gonna say anything, but I was like, man, you know what? Let me say my spill. So you said it like three or four times on this one, bro. So I was like, all right, this is a sign. Let me let me let me put my two cents on it, man. All right, brother. So at the end of your career, you working in the Georgia area, doing interstate uh work, doing some local and inner city stuff as well, training dogs. Uh, what is something that you want to leave, you know, at the end of your law enforcement career on that K9 program and even or that proactive team or unit that you that you're on? Uh, what's something that you want to leave everybody with, man, at the end of your career?
SPEAKER_02So my goal uh was always to leave it better than I got it, right? Um, so it it wasn't any, you know, there was a lot of things that we needed to improve on, but I mean the unit was always, you know, the guys that came before me really set a foundation, man. Um, you know, and yeah, I changed things, but I wouldn't be where I am without them. Um, like I said, my dad was part of that unit at the time. Um, you know, we had some really good trainers, we had some really good handlers. Uh, we had some guys that, man, they were just just studs and enforcement, man. They could find drugs on a nun. So, like, you know, they really set this the foundation and the standard. Um, so but when I took it, man, I I wanted to leave it better than I found it, right? Um, I have a huge passion for for canine work, um, and in turn with with interdiction, right? Like, I I I came to love interdiction because I want my dog to succeed. I want my dog to win, right? So, in order to do that, like I realized like, hey man, like this is the pathway, right? Like, I I got into interdiction and learning interdiction to get a dog, and then once I got the dog, it was now I'm investing in interdiction for my dog, so my dog would win, right? Um, so yeah, man, like I I've I've passed over a lot of promotions, I've passed over a lot of things to come out of canine. Um, but I want to look back at the end of my career and say, hey man, I did it the right way. I enjoyed my career. Um, you know, I see a lot of guys um get out of of canine, go back into, you know, they might go supervision, they might do something else, and they're trying to get back into canine. They missed the canine work, right? Like I never wanted to, for me personally, like this is why I got into it. I never wanted to get out and be in and regret it, right? Like it's that's actually something I picked up from Paul Ludwig. Um, you know, when I was taking Paul's class, you know, he worked at Metro DC, and he told me, he's like, hey man, like I passed over a lot of promotions and I had to watch my friends that I came up with become majors and captains and chiefs and stuff like that. And he goes, but I don't regret it, right? And so I kind of kept that mindset my my entire career. And you know, I've been lucky to be placed in leadership positions and stuff within canine. Um, but yeah, man, like I at the end of my career, I want I want people to know that like I did things the right way, um, that I had a passion for this, and I want to leave it way better than I found it, and then the next guy do the same thing. So it's always progressing, right? We're never finished, we're never done. Um, there's always room to improve, and there's always room to get better. And um, I want to I want to leave that that is as far as a legacy, I want that to be, you know, I want people to say, hey, like uh it was done the right way.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's definitely what it's about, man. Doing its job the right way, legally, ethically, and you know, keeping these programs safe, man, especially with the policies, you know, that are in place, making sure our policies are up to date, that they're matching the laws and stuff that are coming out regularly, you know, because I get canine uh monthly brief updates on case law. So that's all important, man. Josh, thank you for coming on the show, man. Uh, it's been a pleasure, bro. This was awesome, man, having you on. You have a lot of experience. Definitely gonna look forward to having you back in the future. A lot of topics we could get two more hours into, man. Yeah, dude. I really appreciate having you on here.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, man. I appreciate you having me. It's an honor to be here. Like I said, I've been following you for a while. So it's uh it's an honor for me, man. I really appreciate the opportunity.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, absolutely, man. Well, hey, brother, we're gonna catch up, man, and you be safe out there, brother. Thanks, sir.