Keeping A Protection Dog Sharp: When Does A Dog Become Your Liability?

A protection dog can be your strongest deterrent or your biggest liability, and the difference usually comes down to training maintenance and decision-making. We get specific about what separates sport dogs from real-world protection dogs and apprehension canines, including the hidden problems that show up when you try to “convert” a PSA or IGP dog. If your dog has been rehearsing bark and hold, or if it’s equipment savvy and locked onto sleeves and suits, that muscle memory can surface at the worst time.

We also talk through the part most people avoid: the legal reality of deploying a bite dog. When do you de-escalate instead of engaging? Why do verbal warnings matter when everything is on camera? How can drive capping keep your dog from drowning out your commands? We connect the dots between handler defense, vehicle defense, tracking-based deployments, and why you must be able to articulate the who, what, when, where, why, and how after a bite. Training logs are not busywork; they’re evidence, troubleshooting, and protection for you, your dog, and your trainer.

Then we shift to a hard news story out of Vermont: a fatal dog attack involving a dog with a prior bite history. We use it to highlight systemic failure, owner responsibility, and why “it hasn’t happened again yet” is not a safety plan. If you’re serious about protection dog training, apprehension training, or even just responsible ownership, this conversation is for you.

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Transcript

Welcome And Training Focus

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey guys, welcome to another episode of the Talk Shit Get Bit podcast. I'm your host, Michael Parker.

SPEAKER_01 0:05

Yeah, I'm your co-host, Chris.

SPEAKER_00 0:07

And today we're going to talk about protection dogs, more specifically, an emphasis on maintenance of training. So, Chris, you've we've got experience with well, I I don't have experience with sport dogs, more protection and apprehension, but we're gonna break down the difference between those three because there's a very different expectations. Actually, it's ironic that we're having this conversation because I just responded to a post on LinkedIn about this very topic a couple days ago. Another dog trainer on there had posted about insights between the differences between a sport dog and like a working like police canine or apprehension canine. So I'm I'm kind of excited to talk about this topic. So let's let's let's start with the the three types we got we got sport dogs, we've got protection dogs, and we got apprehension. So what does each one of those mean?

SPEAKER_01 1:11

Let's let's start with sport dogs. So sport dog, I mean you've got your your PSA, your IGP. Those are essentially going to be dogs that have that one very specific task. And just because, you know, it's kind of like saying, hey, I've got a service dog that's a protection dog, it's not impossible. You just have to make sure that that dog has it. We've mentioned that before on the dogs that we select for both your company and mine, where we're really picky about the dogs that we will do work with on protection, work, and bite. So we don't necessarily do very many sport dogs right now. We're getting ready to start branching a division over towards that. But I am familiar with in interacting with sport dogs as far as the apprehension and training for police side. So a lot of departments there for a long time, and a lot of vendors for departments and agencies were getting sport dogs and converting them over to apprehension dogs and protection dogs. And there's a lot of little differences, you know, when you're talking about us and dogs, owners and dogs, handlers and dogs, it's a relationship. And in a relationship, it's usually not that one big thing, it's a compilation of small things

Sport Dogs And Conversion Pitfalls

SPEAKER_01 2:30

and problems that add up over time that create a big issue. And what it what happens with sport dogs is one example, bark and hold. So sport dogs are trained to bark and hold. They get to the decoy, they bark, bark, bark, bark, bark, they bounce. It looks awesome. And then when the decoy moves, the dog engages. The problem is that starts to build muscle memory, and it's extremely hard to extinguish, extremely hard to counter condition something that touches both the natural drives at such a deep level, and they have been taught equals that reward so much. So even if you do break it, there's been a ton of documented issues and cases where a former IGP or a former PSA dog that is now working on a police department as a full service patrol canine has been deployed and the dude stops running. The 1015, whatever the 10 code is, the suspect stops running, turns around, and puts his hands up, or doesn't turn around, he just stops, and the dog doesn't engage. The dog just stops and starts barking. That's not what the dog's purpose was. The dog is supposed to bite and hold, not bark and hold. So it it does create a lot of issues there.

SPEAKER_00 3:54

And and that's what and the apprehension side you would call passive bites. And I've I've heard similar stories from canine officers about, you know, how they're they're send their dog to get a suspect, and the dog doesn't find the suspect, or at least they don't think until they finally apprehend the suspect. And they're like, why didn't my uh why did the dog bite you? And they're like, dude, literally, I was just laying on the ground. The the dog came up and was nudging me, and I just stayed still and it didn't engage. So that kind of ties in with the apprehension and those those passive bites, but we'll get there in a minute. But to the sport dog note, is can you take a sport dog and turn it into an actual protection dog? Absolutely. From my experience and the the two dogs that we have done that with, the one in particular, phenomenal, freaking beast. Like he will eat you alive. Like he's a man eater. However, if there's any kind of gear there, there is such a fixation to that gear because you got to think they're used to always biting a suit and such forth. Now, granted, this dog would bite you if there was no gear there, right? But the moment there's gear, that's where his fixation goes. And you could argue that in a real life situation, there's not gonna be a sleeve. Like, you know, the the person you're defending yourself against or the person you're apprehending is not gonna pull out a bite sleeve, normally, unless they're maybe you or I, you know, but like they're not gonna pull out a bite sleeve. But what if there's something there that resembles a piece of bite equipment? Are they gonna disengage to go for that instead of engaging that person? So there's there's those difficulties there with the with the sport dog. And you know, kind of what I said on that post that I was talking about on LinkedIn is like, you know, they're phenomenal dogs, they're really good at what they do on the sport side. I would say from my observation, typically they have extremely high discipline and obedience, and they're they excel in that, and they'll even bite really well. However, again, there's that gear fixation

Protection Dogs And Scenario Training

SPEAKER_00 6:10

versus moving into protection dogs and apprehension canines. There's there's a different emphasis. So protection dogs, that's gonna be like your own personal dog. These are more trained for deployment in certain situations, right? Like say a woman gets a protection dog trained so she can walk through some dangerous parts of town, or you know, you're walking through the back alley and somebody comes out after you, that dog is trained to take out that threat, or home invasion, or defending your car. And so I'll use Laura here. Laura's dog is a hundred percent a protection dog. And with him, it he's one of those that everybody's suspicious and everybody could get bit. You know, she's gotta be that that safety that's like, no, but he he a hundred percent is ready to pop off. He so with that, you have different calibers of protection dogs. You've got you know, protection dogs that are trained to just be there and and only engage when certain situations happen, or like hers. I know nobody's walking in the house without getting bit. I know nobody's breaking into my vehicle if he's in there without getting bit. You know, he's good for those kind of deployments or uses, really. Not the kind that I would send out after somebody, versus, you know, you you can get as complicated and sophisticated as you want with a protection dog, but again, there's that emphasis, yes, you use gear to train them, but it's just as important to train them without gear so that they don't get that gear fixation. So before we went live, we were talking about I was working with my protection dog earlier, and you know, like she she 100% will bite you no gear, gear or no gear. She's not very dirty, so if you have gear on, she'll target the gear. But if you don't have gear on, honestly, she's gonna bite you wherever she gets first, right? But it's it's there's a lot of situational training that goes into protection. And it's the same with with sport and apprehension too, all of these categories. There's a lot of training for those different environments and situations because that's how they learn. The same with obedience training. Like we have to train them for distractions, environmental factors. Dogs think in pictures, so I have to show them every single imaginable picture that I can so that I can set them up for success in a real world situation.

SPEAKER_01 8:53

Right. And that's that kind of relates to so, for example, my protection dog, we're we're nationally certified in patrol. So he does detection, he does tracking, and the he does apprehension. Now that works for me, and you you kind of I mean, you essentially hit the nail on the head with it. You can go as a laboratory as simple as you want, uh, and as your skill set and abilities will allow you. So the situational awareness is critical. My my dog's trained in handler defense. I think that's a very important thing. And with him being my service dog, even though it's not an authorized primary task through the ADA, the fact that I know he will protect me, whether they want to protect it, whether they want to admit it or not, it does help certain disabilities, like my hypervigilance, my anxiety, things like that. So with that, I know for a fact through training scenarios that my dog will do handler defense. I know that I can deploy my dog from a vehicle. I know my dog will defend a vehicle, I know my dog will alert me and defend a home, and I know that I can send my dog out after a visible or non-visible target. So part of the training that we do with apprehension that I have transitioned over towards protection is get the decoy, get the decoy to rile up the dog, decoy runs. Then you send the dog when the when the decoy is out of sight. That way the dog has to use its nose, it has to track, it has to think, it has to use its mind, and then it gets that reward at the end. You just have to be kind of careful when you transition over into tracking, that way you don't get a bite at the end of the track. But it is, they are very different. You know, the you mentioned things that look like equipment, so that relates towards sight picture. And if you have a dog that's equipment savvy, you're absolutely right. So dog sees bite sleeve, or dog sees one of those weird old people lounge cushions for the couch that is kinked in the middle from where they've laid on it for 62 years and it's bent up and it looks like an intermediate sleeve. To a dog, especially a young dog, and when I say young dog, it doesn't necessarily mean age, it's young in training, especially a young dog, that may match the sight picture that they're familiar with for an intermediate sleeve. So they may come off and they may target

Apprehension Skills And Bite Targeting

SPEAKER_01 11:30

that. The same thing happens when we train for apprehension. So on the police dogs that we train, we work with, we sell if it's a front bite, we go towards the left side of the bicep. If it's a uh chase for an apprehension, then we target for the back right pocket. So the tricep of the right arm. The reason is is if you think about it, if you take one person and you face them and you target the left, and then you flip them and you target the right, that's the exact same spot for the dog. So we build that muscle memory from the get-go from day one, we start imprinting that. This is where you bite. It doesn't matter if they're coming towards you, doesn't matter if they're going away from you, but you do have to really instill that sight picture. Now, with that, if you have a dog that's trained in handler defense, situational awareness, you also need to keep in mind the legalities behind it and how situationally aware you still need to be, even though I know my dog is there. Now it's my job as a responsible handler, is a responsible owner of a protection dog to make sure that that situation stays as safe as possible and to make sure that my dog doesn't perceive a threat that I don't.

SPEAKER_00 12:54

Yeah, and and it's like being a gun owner and you know, can still carrying, or if you live in a state that you can open carry, it regardless, being a gun owner that carries, right? It's very similar, except this is a loaded gun that you're the safety and it has a mind of its own. And it could perceive a threat, like you just said, that's not a threat. Um, and so you have to have an even higher level of vigilance and situational awareness than with a gun or you know, a regular dog. But yeah, to the to the apprehension point, that's interesting. I my dog is I I've trained her mostly on just the left side. I never actually considered the same sight picture. So that's that's I learned something from you there. She'll she'll attack left bicep or life left tricep area or forearm. Granted, if you that's with a sleeve, without she will bite whatever she whatever

Legal Use Of Force Realities

SPEAKER_00 14:05

gets into her mouth first, and and same with a bite suit. She's going for whatever she can grab first to take that bite. But yeah, the the legalities of it, kind of talk about that for a minute. You know, a lot of times we train even just protection dogs, not apprehension dogs, to go out and bite somebody. And it I think it's a good skill to still teach them. However, is it something that I would ever do with a protection dog in a real life scenario? Personally, no. And it and I relate it to you know self-defense and and why I would rather stab somebody than shoot somebody, right? Because then you have to prove fear of your life. I had to be in fear of my life deploying my dog. If I'm deploying my dog 20 feet away to bite somebody, were they really a crucial threat? Was it really necessary to send my dog out to do that? Versus if my dog is on a leash and right beside me and I and it bites somebody, then I'd say, yeah, dude, they were in my space. I was threatened. So personally, I would never, in a self-defense situation, normal self-defense situation, mind you, mine does apprehension. So I in in one of those tactical situations, yeah, I 100% would deploy her. But in a personal, everyday defense situation, I'm not gonna send her out unless maybe somebody had a gun, and then that's a viable threat. And I'm gonna deploy my dog so that I can hopefully pull my pistol and shoot them first. But guess what? If I deploy my dog, they're gonna take their goes back to the OODA loop. You know the OODA loop. Or or observe, orientate, decide, act. If I can break their OODA loop by deploying my canine, and then I can pull and I can drop the threat. You know, it buys me that couple seconds of time to gain that advantage. That would be about the only time as if they were charging at me with a knife or they were calling a firearm on me, then I would consider deploying my canine just to get that tactical advantage. But in an everyday situation, I'm gonna let them come up into my space. And if you come into that space, obviously, like my dog, my protection dog's gonna be lunging and barking at the end of the leash. If you get close enough that my dog can bite you, then that's on you.

SPEAKER_01 16:36

Yeah, and that's something that's important too. So as the world progresses and everything changes the way that it is, something that needs to be kind of focused on for the legal side and for protecting you, your dog, and your your liability in it is one, if there is any way that you can potentially evade or elude that situation, you need to. If you can walk backwards to get out, get out. If you can get in your vehicle and leave, get in your vehicle and leave. Just because you have a dog that will tear someone up, or you have a firearm that will turn into a you know a fifth street hole puncher, doesn't mean that you should or that you have to. And you don't you're not gonna understand the impact that it has on you fully, either of taking someone's life until you're in that situation and it's happened. So it sounds cool, it sounds great, but you have to look at these situations from an actual life stance, you know, especially with as far as substance abuses right now. Drug-induced psychosis is actually a really strong defense for people's actions in a court of law. If their attorney can articulate that they were under a drug-induced a state of drug-induced psychosis, they're essentially not responsible for anything that they did in that state. Which means that you deployed a yeah, you deployed a dog on somebody that had no idea what they were doing. That turns it into your fault. Now you're the criminal in that element. So I agree.

SPEAKER_00 18:17

So bizarre, dude. Like you knowingly chose to use that substance, but then you're not responsible for for your actions. But yeah, dude, like again, that's that's that legality. And and yeah, you like the I I think we all like kind of want to deploy our dog and and for a multiple of reasons, you know. So you can say, Yeah, my dog got a live bite, but also that's the ultimate test, you know. It's like us being in the military, the ultimate test of your ability is to go to combat. And you know, I didn't get that opportunity, so I'm like, man, I never gotta gotta test myself in that in that aspect. But then you have to deal with the aftermath of that as well. The the legal, but also the the challenges mentally of oh shit, like I actually deployed my dog and it bit somebody or it killed someone. Like, oh shit.

SPEAKER_01 19:20

But you know that's something else that needs to be like you said, hey, you know, if the guy gets or if the the person, if the threat gets into my space, my dog's barking, lunging at the end of the leash, things like that. That's dog dependent, too. For example, my dog is silent. My dog doesn't bark unless I tell my dog to bark. And even then, it's almost a challenge to get my dog to the bark, to the point to where when I did my certification for patrol, we almost didn't pass patrol cert because part of the cert was an act of alert. So somebody would run and hide in a vehicle in a line of five vehicles, and we had to deploy the dog, and the dog had to tell us which vehicle it was in, then the person would jump out. The reward was he got the bite. But the problem is, is my dog doesn't bark. So he indicated like it was dope. He would just go out, he'd use his nose, he'd find the person, he'd sniff the door seam, and he would just sit there and stare, and it'd be all amped up and he'd start backing up. But there's no there's no warning from him. So a big thing that that I would like to add with that too is exactly the same as you would in a self-defense shooting situation. You're gonna draw your weapon, and if while you're drawing your weapon, while you're you're acquiring your sight picture, while you're getting shots on target, the entire time you're going to say, Drop your weapon, drop your weapon, drop your weapon. So the same thing with the dog. You're gonna say, Hey, stay back, my dog's going to bite. Stay back, my dog will bite you. You're going to get bit. Stay back. Everything in the world's being recorded now, whether it's a public camera, private camera, somebody on a cell phone, dash cam, it an ATM that's close by, doesn't matter. Everything's on camera. You can't get away with nothing these days. So, because of that, that is going to help you significantly in your case if you do those announcement announcements. I worked with a client earlier, and we're working on dog focus. And I said, say the dog's name, the dog looks at you, reward the dog. Do that 15, 20 times, then we're gonna build it to a second, then we're gonna build it to two seconds, we're gonna keep working that threshold and that progressive overload. And she was like, Well, his command to look at me is focus, and that's great. I I can appreciate that, but part of our jobs as trainers is to break down the realistic side of things into why. And I asked her, I said, Let me ask you a question. I said, Your dog gets out of the out of the fence, takes off across the yard, and you got to recall your dog. Are you going to scream focus at the top of your lungs? Or are you going to scream the dog's name? She said, Well, I'm I usually scream the dog's name. I said, So wouldn't you want the response from the dog to hearing its name to be stop and look at you? She was like, Yeah, that makes sense. It's muscle memory. That's why I stand at the range and draw. I don't like ranges that don't let you shoot from the holster. In real life, you shoot from the holster. You need to build that muscle memory. When I use my dog, when we train protection dogs, we train them with some apprehension skills, but primarily they are trained differently than a quote unquote apprehension dog or a police canine because there's there's a difference like you said there's a difference of walking down the street in a bad neighborhood walking through which you I mean you're not far from uh Chicago right yeah so the example you go to Chicago that's not the same as being on a beat that's not the same as knowing there's a target knowing there's a threat and deploying your dog to to subdue that target you need to have situational awareness your dog needs to have situational awareness you need to get that environmental hardness in you need to have your dog ready for every opportunity you know police officers they have cages on their windows for for police or for canine units so it's not feasible to train a police canine to deploy from the window of a vehicle or to bite and hold from the window of a vehicle for us it is I drive a Lexus every day. I don't have cages on my windows and it's a really handy skill to have my dog be able if I'm getting carjacked for my dog to either automatically or with the drop of a word stick his head out the window and bite that subject that can be a life changing and a life saving event and if you don't train for it your dog won't know what to do.

SPEAKER_00 24:13

Yeah and and and to that point like the kind of jumping back but also tying into that too is like you you said your dog doesn't bark. Ideally when I'm doing tactical stuff with Padme I don't want her to bark. I want her to be quiet but that's why she has a light up command. Also I can tell her be quiet in scenarios that stealth is is necessity because I don't need you barking because you see a threat because now you're going to give away our position and now I got to deal with something different. I got to deal with incoming fire right so I need you to be quiet in those situations but I can tell her watch and she knows also she knows that when I start yelling at something like say we're coming to clear this building and we're lined up at the door I'm going to announce that I'm about to send my canine in and give you an opportunity to come out and if you don't come out she doesn't care who you are she doesn't care what you're doing. She doesn't care if you're in the bathroom taking a shit or you're sitting in front of the TV watching you know playing a video game or you're standing behind that door with a gun ready to blast our heads off when we come in she's going to find you and she's going to bite you. And she has to for that again that's the apprehension side but to the same as if there is a threat I'm going to tell you to get the fuck back. I I'm not going to say it nicely I'm going to get the fuck back or my dog will fucking bite you. And I'm going to make that adamantly clear like you said over and over and she's going to respond to that I don't even have to tell her I can start articulating that and she's going to just come out to the end of that actually kind of depends. Sometimes she'll just stay by my side but if she like is really amped she'll go to the end of the leash and bark. But I do a lot of off leash training with her I've had real life scenarios where she sat right beside me I the only work command she was given was heal was her heel command and as soon as I started yelling at the at that person she just starts barking at my side like and that's enough and again that's that's enough to get that threat to dissipate and so that's that's kind of back to to the to the training and stuff. It's like yes they need to be able to deploy and do their job if needed but also if I can deter you by my dog sitting there barking that's more ideal. Then we don't have to go through all that legal stuff which we'll we'll we'll talk about next we'll kind of use this to transition into that but if she just sits there and barks and that's enough to deter the threat then she did her job. She did a hundred percent what I what I needed her to do and and one I'll give a a real life scenario of this like where she nearly got a bite it was like 130 in the morning and I'm laying in bed and our other protection dog starts barking crazily and I was like what the heck is he barking at? And then outside I can hear raised voices. So I peek out the window and there's two dudes parked in the middle of the street right in front of my house yelling at each other. So I got up go downstairs grabbed her from the kennel and again like I said all I told her was heal. And she healed to the door I popped the door open washed through the screen door and the whole time she's just kind of growling which she doesn't usually growl but she knew something was up and so she's sitting there growling and the moment these two started fighting in my front yard right outside my front door I stepped out onto the porch didn't say a word to her and I said get the fuck out of here bubble and I whatever I said I started yelling at them. The moment I opened my mouth and started yelling she opened her mouth and started barking. And I'm going to tell you those two people were gone so fast I don't know where the hell they went. They like vanished in in midair like but again that that's that's the purpose and you know there's there's been a couple other times where I've just had to light her up just to get some crazy crackhead or something you know to go away and nine times out of ten that's enough to de-escalate that threat and and ideally that's that's what we want you know you you train for the worst the same with a firearm but you really don't that's that again is still a last resort. So tying tying that into the legalities you know I mean we've kind of already hit on you know what what that looks like legally to deploy but I wanted to dive into that some more there's some things you said before we went live that I'd love for you to hit on what it looks like if you do deploy your your protection dog or apprehension dog on somebody and get that live

Court Scrutiny And Clear Articulation

SPEAKER_00 29:20

bite.

SPEAKER_01 29:21

Yeah so and and that's another thing that you need to take into consideration. So everything everything happens in the matter of a heartbeat in these situations whether it's you know combat whether it's a civilian life and and you're just a normal person whether you're a first responder and police officer whatever the case may be everything happens in a second and you have to be able to make that split second split second decision that's why the muscle memory is so important and that's why training for your scope is so important. So for example in protection dogs for a normal person for a civilian even if it's a canine handler by trade you that's stuff that you can get through with you know hey the dog barks that's fine if that's a police officer when we work with police dogs we make sure that that dog has drive capping we make sure that that dog because that's what it is when you're yelling and it amps the dog up it's you're we're not capping the drive on the dog right there. So the dog's getting agitated the dog's getting fired up you're fired up you're talking the dog through the leash whether there's a leash or not the dog's feeding off of your emotions we haven't capped it. Unfortunately if you have never done anything more so Kentucky is a constitutional carry state now we no longer require that you have to have a CCDW. When I first started carrying a handgun you had to have a CCDW in Kentucky one of the reasons is is because you had to understand how to do it. So and what your your cans and cans are you know your king of the castle things like that. Here's the sticky spot when things not if when things go to court after those situations you have to understand that you will be torn apart based on your scope of abilities the normal person in a real life self-defense shooting that has never been in a combat situation never been formally trained never done tactical training is going to do one of two things in a shooting they're either fire one round and freeze or they're going to mag dump and freak out and you're going to be able to tell because that that shot pattern is going to be all over the place because they're probably closing their eyes by shot two or three so the problem is say you've got a combat veteran that comes back and he's got you know three three or four tours live tours under his belt and then he turns out and he joins the police department okay now he's on the SWAT team is that dude gonna put 10 15 rounds into somebody in a self-defense shooting if he's at Chili's with his family no he's gonna put two they're gonna be well placed and anything outside of that would be scrutinized and torn apart in court you are a trained professional efficient and effective in the use of a firearm why did you not act like that same thing with the dogs so when a when we train police dogs to protect them on the legal side we make sure that we cap that drive when the officers are yelling when the officers have an elevated command voice and they're clearly articulating directions because the last thing that we want that officer to have to deal with in court is a suspect saying I didn't hear the cop say drop the gun and show me your hands because the the the damn dog was barking too loud. I couldn't hear him over the dog that will him and that'll him an officer up in court. So one of the courses that I teach is you know canine case law for officers and that's something that we go over you you have to be able to articulate every single thing that you do in court. If you get into a self-defense shooting whether it's justified whether it's not justified whether it's clear or not they're going to take your weapon and the way you get it back you're probably going to go to jail for 24 to 48 hours just until that investigative process is done and you're cleared and the only way out of that stuff and to get your weapon back is to be able to clearly articulate the who, what, when, where, why, how in court same thing with a dog bite it doesn't matter if you do everything perfect you need to be prepared and you need to prepare yourself. They're going to take your dog they're going to quarantine your dog here in Kentucky it's a 10 day quarantine they're going to quarantine your dog and you are going to have to articulate the who, what, when, where, how and why that happened if you can do so you know what your rights are, you know what's allowed, you know what you can and can't do, then you're fine if it was a good bite. But you have to be able to act inside of your scope and part of acting inside of your scope is being able to articulate and explain why you did what you did.

SPEAKER_00 34:19

And that kind of ties back into what I said earlier about you know a lot of times when you're training a protection dog, like you'll send the decoy and have the dog chase after them even though it's not an apprehension canine and just because your dog is capable of deploying on somebody from a ranch is it actually something you should do. And again for the legalities of it I wouldn't do that in in a normal everyday situation because back to the point that you brought up like if you can get a as a responsible you know gun carrier or you know owner of a protection dog you should try to de-escalate that situation. You should try to find a way out deploying your firearm or a canine is a last resort. So if you're sending your dog out that tells me and that's going to tell a court well then you should have been able to get away and you're you're most likely not going to get away with that being a clean bite. Unless there's some strange technicality in there.

SPEAKER_01 35:25

And that goes that kind of touches back it it it runs back into the example I gave you know with the the combat veteran going into the SWAT team things like that me and you and anyone who professionally trains or has any kind of educational background or operational background in fight work for dogs whether it's protection apprehension or sport they're gonna be scrutinized a lot harder. So for example if it's just a client and we train their dog for them and we do their maintenance training every month with them and we keep those records and everything's good and we can articulate why everything happens in court it takes that load off of that client because the client's like nope I'm gonna call my trainer you can talk to him that he's gonna explain why it happened yeah you still need to have some base knowledge but if your dog thrashes on that subject it's gonna be a lot more forgiving than if my dog thrashes on a subject if my dog does a live bite and there's more than four puncture wounds I'm smoked because they're gonna say hey you do this professionally you do this for a living you've trained this many dogs you've done this many thousands of hours of log training you have this many certifications so on and so forth why did your dog not perform at the absolute best that it could because in a real bite whether it's apprehension whether it's protection your dog should bite and hold now if there's a rebite needed cool but there should not be any kind of linear shaking there shouldn't be any of that that death shake that everyone's like oh yeah you know you see the videos online the decoy the dog shakes his head to side to side and the do the decoy pops alive he's like oh yeah no I'm not rewarding your dog on that I may in the beginning for like one or two times just to get that that game going but the very first time that your dog shows me it understands that's not the goal that's the expectation I'm holding our training is extremely progressive on expectation as soon as you show me that's it that's your new level that's your new expectation because we don't want people to have to do that part of working with us is if something happens we can be subpoenaed to court and it's the same with you. You know if you train a client whether you offer we offer that and whether you offer that or not that's just a life fact they're gonna want to know who trained the dog and then they're gonna talk to you and they're gonna want to know how you trained it and what makes you qualified to train it. So as trainers we need to make sure that we've got our logs together we've got the information together we've got video evidence we've got our certifications or our documented training hours. Because you know I touch on certifications a lot and yeah they're great they look good they stack up on the wall real pretty looks cool makes uh makes business a lot easier and I'm appreciative but I've done a lot of courses and a lot of classes that don't offer a certificate and they're just as beneficial. The knowledge is what really counts and logging that is what's going to keep you safe.

SPEAKER_00 38:42

Yeah so a couple things to hit on here is yeah certificates are great but honestly any educ any good education that you can gather like it you're training the dog but you also have to train yourself and you have the the uphold on that and and kind of like in the last episode when I was talking to Amanda and we're talking about you know search and rescue and HRD canines like there's that level of training for the dog there's the level of training for the handler the same with protection dogs you have to be adequately ready for those situations as well. You have to know how to respond to those so you have to put in training for yourself just as much and you sh should have that knowledge of what to do in case you actually do get that live bite and such forth which kind of leads me into a question that kind of popped into my head is you know like you put in all these hours on you know whether it's on on gear or hidden gear obviously I'm not going to let my dog live bite me because I've been live live bit before and I'll tell you that's that's not fun. I don't want my dog to live bite me to see what she's actually going to do in a live bite scenario. With that said is would a court have more leniency on your dog if they didn't necessarily perform to the training standard on their first live bite because it is it's something new.

SPEAKER_01 40:14

So is that something that the courts would take into consideration say Padme goes out bites somebody it's her first live bite she does a little bit of thrashing or she like rebites or you know whatever it might be even though that's not what she does in training can you argue hey like this is her first live bite like she acted uh a different you know she's never seen that picture before yeah absolutely and the good thing is on the people that we train it's our job to articulate and explain that for me and you specifically trainers that are doing that training that also work and act in that capacity at the same time so for example you you used yourself as an example so if you ever got into a situation where Pad may bit you can contact someone like me or me to come in and stand as a witness as a canine subject matter expert witness and say hey listen I saw the information I've seen the training logs I've watched the video this is my assessment of what happened why the dog did what it did. There's a massive difference in the very first live bite usually more often than not a dog's first live bite they'll pop off you can have a dog that's got the world's best grip they hold on they're good they they tear that suit up they'll burn a hole in that suit same spot just a tag driver the problem is that suit's made of French linen or denim or canvas intermediate sleeve it's got the hard got the you know you're building the bite strength it's got that hard plastic polymer insert hidden sleeve you get rid of the equipment savvy portion and for some reason we all use black hoodies over our hidden sleeve so now we've just trained people we've trained all of our dogs to bite people in black hoodies but so you you have that issue and it's still not the real thing. What happens on a real bite is it's the very first time that that dog's teeth sink into soft flesh. It's the very first time that that dog's teeth clang on bone and it's the very first time that that dog is going to bite into something and get a mouthful of fluid because the blood gushes out now there's training aids that can come close and they're similar you know you've got the pseudo arms you've got the fake flesh arms you've got the ones that have the arteries in it and stuff like that. And that I mean that's great but it's not the same it and it never will be the same.

SPEAKER_00 42:56

We will never be able to to make it the same and it's so it it's it's similar to drawing you know if you like we spend a lot of time on the range you're shooting all the time and you've you've never actually had to draw in a real life scenario like you could be as prepared as possible. I can simulate all the way up to actually shooting somebody but that first time that you actually have to make that conscious decision you know there could be hesitation you could freeze you could have to pop off seven shots because you missed five of them or you didn't hit where you were aiming to hit with five of them you know so there it just just like in a shooting like well you have all this training. Yeah but I've ever not never actually shot at somebody for real. So there's going to be some leniency versus a dog that it's like okay like this dog's got six live bites and and this time it was chewy and stuff that's all that's not a a first time kind of phenomenon.

SPEAKER_01 43:56

Yeah exactly and that just kind of loops back to that you know that combat veteran going swat a team kind of aspect you're you're held to the scope of your your abilities and your expectations nobody's going to expect especially nobody who's a professional in the canine field i don't i don't care i don't care who trained that dog i don't care if it is the best dog trainer in the entire planet and that dog you do not know what that dog will do you do not know how that dog will react on the very first live bike and you're absolutely right with your comparison you can shoot two billion rounds you could shoot from the time that you're six all the way to the time that you're 60 before you shoot your first person and you don't know what it's going to do to you you don't know what it's going to be like because you've never done it you've done things that were close you you may maybe you hunt you know what it's like to take a life you know what it's like to take a human life do you know what's going to go through your head the you know 10 seconds after you realize that you took somebody's father or somebody's husband no you don't know it's the exact same thing that the dog goes through and that's why there's cooldown times and you know you've got to be able to be prepared for stuff like that and you if you're going to be handling a protection dog not you specifically but people who are handling protection dogs and people who are more importantly training protection dogs it's our responsibility to make sure that they understand that like when you come to me and you say hey I want I want a protection dog okay it's not a game we can't just start you get bored you don't commit you run out of money you can't do these things no you can't because you create a liability and you're you're really opening up a world that you you don't want to get mixed into yeah and man you brought up a couple good points there yeah like I highly vet like I don't train as many protection dogs as I get requests for protection dogs and that's because I highly vet you know people

Vetting Owners And Managing Liability

SPEAKER_01 46:05

that are interested in a protection dog.

SPEAKER_00 46:07

One what is your motives because I I that that plays a role is it something that you think just think is going to be cool because then maybe you're not going to be committed like you said to that two I'm gonna assess the dog if you have a dog if it is fearful or underconfident I'm not gonna work with it because the last thing I want to do is take a fearful underconfident dog and teach it how to effectively bite somebody now that's a liability I I'm also going to to look at you know I'm I'm gonna look into that person's background like if I I'm not gonna train a a canine to bite somebody that's frequently involved in law enforcement right like we got some neighbors over here that wanted us to train them a dog. I was like you guys are on probation and I've seen law enforcement over at your place five times in the last two weeks. Yeah no because I do not want to be the guy that trained a dog for you that bit a fucking police officer right so you got to have that morality there. But also to your point like hey like can you even handle this dog? It's not like handling another dog. Like that's a lot of power like I said it's it's basically a loaded gun with teeth and a and a brain of its own you have to be in control of the situation at all times. If you're not capable of that if you're not gonna pay attention to your dog with the level of focus that you need to no that would be irresponsible of me as a trainer to train that dog but also to your point the are you going to commit to the training and do you understand the repercussions of actually deploying a protection dog? Do you know what that actually looks like are you capable of making those snap second judgments and making that right call are you going to send that dog out when you shouldn't are you going to try to get away all those legal things that we talked about because a lot of people are like oh I think I want a protection dog. And then when you break down all the aspects of it they're like maybe maybe I don't and I'm like yeah you you you don't you know if you're like 60 70 years old and you're like I want a protection dog I'm like there's no way you can handle a fully trained protection dog. Like there ain't there ain't no way that that would be irresponsible of me. Now now you got a dog that's going to try to bite anybody like no but you I I wanted to touch back on the training logs. You you mentioned that as being important for for court so how important is it to keep training logs?

SPEAKER_01 48:46

So training logs are when it comes to the legal side of things being able to articulate as a business owner we have different motives behind so for example I do searches in recovery centers entertainment venues things like that so the higher the ticket client the more information they want and I have had people say hey I want to see your training logs and if you can't provide them you may have just lost out so that's that's the business side as far as the legal side there's two kind of avenues we we do both of them so we maintain training logs in-house but we also if it's a protection dog or a scent detection dog for firearms explosives or narcotics we require the client to keep their own training logs as well and we review them on maintenance there's multiple reasons for that one of them is legality two other another one is like troubleshooting another one is progress we're all busy i mean it's you know I work 26 hour days it feels like and doing those training logs when I have a second to breathe or if I'm working multiple dogs and I'm having an issue with one I'm like man what is going on like where did this come out of this this problem jumped out of nowhere you can look back at your training logs troubleshooting I'm like oh okay shit it actually started there and I was just so busy so distracted so so wrapped up I missed it same thing with a personal dog you know you've got the person that's buying that protection dog or working with that protection dog has got a nine to five too they've got a family too they've got Christmas dinners to go to and a lot of times their life doesn't revolve around dogs they got that as an asset. So by giving them more tasks if it's the wrong person and that person probably doesn't need a protection dog it's because they display that lack of commitment in that moment and they're like man I'm not keeping no training logs. Cool well I can give you a couple phone numbers for some dudes that will will teach your dog to bite people but I'm not going to train a protection dog for you if you are not going to display if you're already out of the gate not going to to do the things that I ask you to so when it comes to court you're allowed one your training logs will be subpoenaed they can either come from your trainer or they can come from you depending on what that method is as far as tracking when they get subpoenaed it's important that you provide specifically the logs that are requested so if they're like hey I want all the bite training logs cool don't give them your obedience ones they didn't ask for that don't give them the ones for your kennel maintenance they didn't ask for that they can use stuff in that in the extras the extra records to discredit your dog so if you were on vacation and you forgot to do kennel maintenance for three mornings and three evenings in a row because it was inconvenient you were out to dinner or you slept in they can use that and be like well your dog only bit my client because you broke its routine by not doing kennel maintenance or hey you know how do we know for a fact that your dog didn't have some sort of medical issue going on because you neglected to do kennel maintenance for three days there's things that can be pulled and you have to remember that the the person standing there asking you questions is not your friend. So you're always allowed to refer back to your notes as well. So when they say well what's the ratio me as as a subject matter expert if you were to call me I'm gonna say hey let me get your training records and I'm gonna go ahead and add that up and do all the equations so when they're like hey did you do you think this dog performed as expected well according to the training records the dog records or logs you know an 86% successful bite rate for good bites. The the dog does have a documented issue with thrashing so does the dog perform as expected yes I believe it did. That doesn't mean the dog couldn't be better it just means the dog did what the dog was trained to do which means you're clear because the dog did exactly what it was trained to do.

SPEAKER_00 52:58

So the training records are really a tipping point plus it separates even as a private owner it really separates you as a professional in that capacity from just jail blow you know there's there's a couple guys here in town don't get me wrong they're real good at making dogs bite they will make any dog bite I've seen it one of them used to work for me but what method is he using what is he tapping into is it good is it effective is it standard is it you know nationally accepted as a method is it borderline abusive and then on top of that is that dude going to court with you he charged you 1500 bucks to provide you a quote unquote protection dog okay well how does how does that add up when you know on the west coast they're selling protection dogs starting at 2500 I mean I can push a protection dog out if I get a good deal on a dog I can push a protection dog out you know 1520 grand but I mean that's you're you're kind of scratching there $1500 you're gonna tell me that dude's not going to court with you that dude's not going to court with you because he's got warrants that's why he's not going that's that's that's a that's a shady person to get to train your your your uh protection dog but yeah so highlight a couple things there it if you're listening to this and you have a protection dog if you don't have training logs I would start and and I'll out myself here I used to be I I still am terrible about keeping training logs I I have to keep training logs now so that that that makes it where I I do it but you know like I'm like dude I got seven dogs to train every day but there's benefits to that for one the legal standpoint but two the the training standpoint so if you are having an issue with your with your protection dog and you take it to your trainer they can like Chris said hey let me see your training logs let me see what you guys have done and then part of our job is to look at what we see and diagnose how that came about so we'll look at that training log and be like oh you see this right here that's where that issue developed from and then we can back it up and work on that issue. So training logs are important they're tedious and annoying which is why I I don't like doing them but they are a necessity especially when you know Chris and I are business owners and we've got 700 things that we got to do each day. Training logs is not something that we want to do but it's something that we have to do. But but

Maintenance Hours And Environmental Proofing

SPEAKER_00 55:50

with that I want I want to talk about the level of training right um so you you you talked about the performance of the dog and is it up to that training standard what what should that training standard look like how often should we be working our protection dogs running them through scenarios obedience outing all that kind of stuff so I I kind of mentioned it earlier when I refer specifically when I speak when I refer to a dog as a young dog it doesn't necessarily mean age you know you can have a seven year old dog that I may call a young dog and the reason is it may be young in training.

SPEAKER_01 56:28

So it's really going to depend on the dog on you on your your involvement level your goals where your dog is what your dog's job is what your job as a team is are you having issues you know if you're having issues obviously you need more training so on so forth so on and so forth so once we hit a point where we're doing maintenance training or you know maintenance training is is keeping the dog where it's at in in my eyes I usually call it progression training because the goal is always to progress it's always to keep going you know I I get clients even on the pet side through amdi they're like hey you know how much training does my dog how much more training does my dog need I'm like well I mean that's completely up to you there's never an end to training I have thousands and thousands of hours in training in each of my dogs there's never a stop there's always something else that you can teach I'm actually getting ready to start teaching my personal dogs two new things now and it's after thousands of hours. So there's always stuff you can work on in the law enforcement side of things which I will say that the civilian side is notably ahead of the time versus the law enforcement and military and law enforcement is ahead of the time versus the military and that's no offense to the military it's just they're very set in their ways they still do things the same way they did 20 25 years ago and dogs progress theories progress methods change that we have better options now you know you don't have to legal disclosure I'm not accusing the military working dog program of doing anything like this but you don't have to with you don't have to withhold food to get a dog's respect you know stuff like that. So when you start looking at things like that and it's even gotten to the point to where the military is contracting with civilian entities to help them improve their programs law enforcement agencies also there's a bunch of law enforcement agencies that I know that their master trainers are civilian canine handlers so when we when we go into and look at stuff like that there's no set regulatory standard technically the basic accepted field standard that's set by you know USPCA napwata all those big titling and certifying agencies is 16 hours a month the minimum requirement for law enforcement handlers is is traditionally 16 hours a month now you know and I know that when it comes to a dog that meets or exceeds expectations that is nowhere near enough you cannot get the desired results that I desire in 16 hours a month you just can't do it.

SPEAKER_00 59:28

Well I'm I mean just think about it like with a police canine like and I and I and and that's just the minimum standard there's departments out there that require way more than that but the minimum is 16 hours but if you break that down you know a police canine their apprehension their tracking their scent detection you've got all these different facets so if you break that down you're talking only a couple hours of training per each area that they need to work on a month and and obedience too I know a lot of departments that's part of it as well is uh maintaining the obedience so you've got so you take just those four facets that's four hours of training and each of those a month I do that in a day with my dogs like how do you granted law enforcement gets a lot of live training with those dogs so that there's that caveat but as far as your personal dog dude I'd be working with them every day you know even if it's only 10 15 minutes 30 minutes like session just to keep them fresh but like this is how I look at it is I'll be driving and I'll see or I'll think of a scenario or I'll see something and it'll make me think of a new scenario I'll be like my dog's never seen that scenario let's try it let's run the dog through that scenario or I'm like oh this is an environment that I haven't worked my dog in let me work my dog in this environment like if you watch our social medias you always see me doing tactical training with my canines in all kinds of different environments it's all the same stuff that we do on on a regular basis but that that change of scenery the change in weather all of that can impact how the dog performs so it's extremely cold outside I don't usually operate in cold but guess what we're gonna practice because if I need to now my dog's seen it oh hey that this is this is desert I'm not usually in the desert but hey let's train my dog just in case one day I'm in the desert and I need need my dog to perform here I'm I'm gonna train the dog for whatever situation again creating the scenarios and pictures so that if you do come across it because that's the thing is you never know when you're actually going to need to deploy your canine or what that situation's actually going to look like. So if I can train them for every imaginable situation possible they might be prepared for the real thing.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:02

Yeah and you know just to kind of re-emphasize the even though that's not the norm let's make sure the dog operates in it the best example I can use for that is a tracking dog. So a tracking dog is it moves it acts and the method and process that it utilizes its nose and actually tracks is completely different in a wooded forest area with foliage versus sand and versus snow. So you could have a just a world class rock star dog that track people for miles on day old trail trails in the woods that is going to flop as soon as it hits the sand because the dog doesn't know that it has to bury its nose in the sand it hasn't never been in a position to where it has to figure out how to utilize its olfactuary system and not inhale sand at the same time. So you're you're right every situation does need to be touched and that's specifically what the purpose of training is is to mimic those situations to get as close as possible. So when it comes to you know the training hours everybody that's listening that says man it sounds good in theory but I just ain't got the time I will tell you right now I do the same thing I do five 10 15 20 minute little windows if I'm walking to the car and I've got you know eight minutes to spare I'm gonna do an eight minute little set with my dog whether it's obedience whether it's scent detection I keep an odor kit with me it's that's very small whether it's throwing on the intermediate sleeve that I keep in the trunk of my car and getting a couple bites in real quick it doesn't matter what's going to go on I'm gonna do something for that little eight minutes. That adds up quick. So I just did the math and if I averaged if I were to estimate what I do as far as training now remember the accepted field standard 16 hours a month I'm sitting right around 112 hours a month just from doing little free moment stuff. So if you say you don't have the time for it go ahead and jump on your TikTok profile or your Facebook or your Instagram go to your profile settings and go and look at your screen time usage on that app. If it says anything more than about an hour every day across all those forms of social media you have time to train your dog because you have time to scroll on Instagram you have time to watch reels on Facebook that means you have time to be proficient with your canine especially if you're working into getting a protection dog. So if you need one hour to watch one with your time exactly yeah you have the time you just need to manage it so it's you know you have to look at it from a realistic standpoint because it's it's a reality at that moment what's going to keep you safe in court being able to say hey listen I saw this hilarious screaming goat video on YouTube for like an hour a week or being able to say hey I spend an hour of time every day training my dog so I know my dog acted the way it should I know my dog performed the way it should have yeah and I just did quick math and if you do 30 minutes a day with your dog over 30 days you're looking at about 15 hours of training so again you can hit that minimum just doing 30 minutes a day and I mean I do I do more than that.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:39

It's usually like 15 20 minutes but I I just did three 10 minute sessions a day because you you're letting your dog out at least three times a day why not use every opportunity and and this is what I tell our clients and this is you know what I always recommend to people like if you you've got to pull your dog out, take your dog out to go to the bathroom at least three times a day ideally four Do 10, 15 minute training session with them. And if you're doing 10 minute session with them three times a day, that's 30 minutes a day. That's 15 hours a month. You know, if you up that to 15 or 20 minutes, if we up that to 20 minutes, then we're looking at 30 hours of training a month on your dog. And that's that's enough to maintain an upkeep. And you know what? I'll throw myself under the bus because I don't act like I'm perfect. I fuck shit up. I let my dog go like two and a half months without hardly any training, hardly any upkeep training. And a lot of that's because I spend most of my time here at the facility and she was at the house. So you know what I did so that I could have more time to train her? I moved her here to the facility where I spend probably 16 hours of my day. So that way I can just pull her out and I can work with her and started working with her five, six times a day for 10, 15 minutes. So now she's getting that training again. You know, it's it's doing what you got to do to make sure that you're maintaining that training with your dog, and there's a lot of upkeep involved in it. But let's uh you know, I think this uh we can we could talk about this all day long, all night long. As as Chris pointed out in a previous episode, we record these late at night, not at 1 a.m. Like he said on the other episode. Usually it's it's in the evening though, mostly because that's when we have time to sit down and record, because we're very busy during the daylight hours, so we get in this stuff while everybody else is usually sleeping. But I think this is something we can we can dive into more in the future, and there's there's so much so many more facets of this that we can address and talk about. And you know, I we we could spend a whole hour talking about each different type of bite dog, and maybe that's something that we consider doing in the future.

Vermont Fatal Dog Attack Breakdown

SPEAKER_00 1:08:06

But let's roll into the the second portion of our show where we look at a news article about canines and dissect what we see there. And this one is actually from today, March 12th, 2026, and it comes out of Vermont, Essex, Vermont. The headline is 70-year-old killed by dog that had previously bitten a delivery driver, uh, officials say. So I'm not gonna read the whole article here. I can throw it in the show notes for you guys. So if you want to check it out when you're watching this, but the gist of it is is this 76-year-old men man was attacked by a pit bull outside of his home. It says that the family was home. It says that the chief police chief, you know, said that it's common for dog bites, but usually not this severe. So definitely kind of has everybody in in that area on the on edge. But they also noted that it kind of wasn't unexpected because the dog has bitten multiple people in the past. Now, obviously, this dog was put down, and it it says that they took it to the Humane Society and euthanized the dog. Let's see, this one says this is a quote from the owner. The dog is not potentially vicious and dangerous. That was from an officer.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:46

That was the quote from says Emily Lewis, a certified dog behavioral consult, consultant specializing in aggressive behavior, was called to the scene to help with police. She evidently this dog has a bite history, and she was involved in one of the bites previous to this one, where she classified it as a level five bite, which is the most severe. And her quote was this dog was not, quote, potentially vicious and dangerous, this dog was absolutely dangerous. And then she goes on to say that the the rules need to be changed. And I I agree with this next quote from her. She said, I think that this I think there is a systematic failing here, and I can agree with that. I mean, oh yeah, if if you've got a dog that has a very documented case of bites. So I'm I'm actually working with uh a client right now that has a dog that consistently gets out, and that's has a tendency to to nip at people. And that's one of the things that I kind of drive with them. I'm like, listen, man, like this isn't this isn't a game when that behavior starts, and then we have the the lack of control there. In that combination, it's not a game. That's a huge risk. People are suing McDonald's right now because well, not right now, but people are suing McDonald's because the coffee is hot. I mean, and it didn't have a warning label, right? Yeah, like I didn't know the hot coffee was hot. So we live in a crazy world, man, and it's really wild what people can do, what people can get away with. But this case, I mean, a suit would be justifiable. This was absolute, it doesn't matter if it's your property or not. They gave away the potential of saying, you know, hey, I felt threatened. One, like you said, you have to be in self-defense, even if it's on your property, King of Castle, no matter what it is, no matter how the state writes the statute, you have to meet for self-defense, you have to meet with equal or lesser force. So that means, so I'm 210 pounds, I'm 5'10. And you know, I've worked in corrections, I've worked in the military, I've deployed, I fight dogs all day long. I'm not saying I'm the baddest dude walking because I'm not, but I can hold my own. So it's gonna be real hard for me to articulate why I had to beat up a an 18-year-old 110-pound kid because I felt threatened, or why I had to hit him with a baseball bat or a chair because I felt threatened because he said, Oh, I'm gonna kill you, but he had his bare hands. Same thing in this situation, even if it was self-defense, it's really hard to articulate why you sent a large pit bull with known aggression issues on a protection case, if that's what they wanted to claim, which it doesn't sound like they did, on a 76-year-old man. That I mean, it just doesn't make sense. Unless we're missing some pieces there, that puzzle doesn't look right. So they go on in that that news article to say the owner was there, the family was there, and they were unable to stop the attack.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:08

That's that's that's a red flag, even if it was a protection dog. Like you have to be able to out your dog. I I think that just goes on to show that this dog probably had very minimal training, if any, at all. And I I agree with Lewis there, and I guess that's what I get for skimming or skim reading the article out loud to everybody. They'll let the the army guy from Kentucky read. That's embarrassing. But yeah, I I agree with her. I think this is systematic failure. How was this dog able to have multiple bites, uh especially at the highest level? I think after that last one, it definitely should have been put down. This should have never been a situation, and and unfortunately, I I won't give much details, but I know of someone here locally who has a service dog that it's not people aggressive, but it's dog aggressive, and it's been labeled as such by the city and the county, and this person still takes their dog out. That's irresponsible. And the same, the same with this situation. Like your dog already has that label and you weren't supervising it, right? Like, that's back to the dog you were just talking about and those situations. Well, most of the time that's the owner's fault. The owner didn't do the things with the dog, the owner left the dog unsupervised or created that opportunity for that to happen. I think it it shows why training is important. Behavioral issues, that's all stuff that can be fixed. Granted, it's gonna cost you money to go see a trainer and get that training done, but that's gonna save having to get your dog put down, or worse, probably losing everything you own because your dog killed a man. Like because you neglected to get training and correct those behaviors. I think they absolutely deserve to be taken to court and have everything they own taken from them. That's just complete negligence and disregard for other people's life, that kind of stuff really irritates. I have zero tolerance for that kind of stuff. Like, I I get some of the you don't want to pay a trainer because it costs a lot of money, especially to fix stuff like that. It's gonna cost you a lot of money. And you're gonna have because you're gonna have to find a good trainer that's capable of fixing that stuff, and it's gonna cost you. But is it worth having is that that that cost worth you know keeping your dog around? Does that cost worth you know other people not getting injured, not getting lawsuits in in the end? I'm willing to bet it costs them more than it would have to get that dog trained.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:06

Yeah, and that's that's something that I point out when I interact with clients that have bite-risk dogs or active bite dogs. Yes, the price is is kind of abrasive, but what would you rather lose your house? You know, and at that choice, you need to make at that point you need to make a choice. Do I want to invest? Because at that point, it isn't purely in actual investments, an investment in safety. This dog killed a man who's been on this earth for over seven decades. It was 76, right? Yeah, so over almost eight decades, he's been here. So the community lost someone, the family lost somebody, some that was somebody's grandfather, that was somebody's father that died pointlessly and needlessly for cause because they didn't go seek a trainer. And it is a systematic failure because the the local agencies should have taken some steps, they should have either said, Hey, you need to put the dog down, we're gonna put the dog down, or you need to follow up in court with proof of you working with a certified trainer that is experienced in dealing with this, where that trainer also gets involved with the courts. And I know here in uh Jefferson County and Louisville, just slightly north of us, the the county has to where if your dog has one bite, you get put on a list. If the dog gets two bites, they eject the dog from the county. So the dog's not even allowed to be registered in the county. Now, whether people follow that or not is neither here nor there. But if that dog is caught anywhere in Jefferson County after that by any sort of agency, they're immediately putting that dog down. At the same time, local agencies, the animal control, stuff like that, they do work with some of the local trainers who have been in this field for a long time, and they work with them to rehabilitate the dog to be able to pass tests like the AKCCC uh CGC, things like that, to be able to reintegrate that dog back into the community. And that's fine. But like you said, that takes a lot of time, takes a lot of money, and you need to value and figure out where where

Owner Follow-Through And Trainer Standards

SPEAKER_01 1:18:35

that lays with you before you make that choice.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:38

To to that note, it takes a lot of time and a lot of money to get the trainers to train it. However, in situations that I've seen with dogs similar, is we put in all the work, get the dog to doing better, and then the owners don't go home and do the things, and then they're calling us a month later, oh fluffy, bit such and such. Well, did you do this? No. Well, did you do that? No. Did you do any of the things that we told you to do? No. So it's your fault that the you let the dog do that, and they don't like it when you redirect and say, so you allowed the dog to do that. Well, no, you allowed the dog to do that because you neglected to do the things. So it it's in that situation, it's more than just the financial. Now you have to commit your time to upholding that standard so that that dog doesn't go back to becoming a liability. And who knows, they might have worked with a trainer previously, and they could be one of those people that just didn't uphold the training, which honestly, to me, I don't know which is worse. You know, not paying a trainer and letting your dog continue on, or paying a trainer and then not doing things. I I would say paying the trainer and not doing the things because then you blew your money for no reason. And you're probably gonna talk trash about the trainer when in reality it's 120% your fault.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:07

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, and and that is we tell people, so we do we do day training on the pet side of things. So overdrive handles all the working stuff, and amity handles all the pet stuff, and we do day training, and you know, we tell them they're like, hey, you know, my dog's been with you guys for two weeks, Monday through Friday, eight to five, and the dog doesn't walk with me on a leash. And you know, we tell them, like, one, it's not magic. Like, this this isn't this is Amity dog training, not Hogwarts. You're not gonna just drop your dog off, and we're gonna win Guardian Leviosa your dog into a perfect heel. It doesn't work that way. So what you what you need to do is be able to be receptive and open enough to listen and apply. If you're not willing, it is an absolute investment. Yes, it's money, it's also time. If you're not willing to learn how to use the new tool that we gave you and use the tool that we created for you, you're gonna fail at that job. You know, it's one of my clients is a professional roofer. He owns a roofing company, and he was like, Hey man, I dropped my dog off for like a four-week boarding train, and he don't do shit. I'm like, Yeah, that's cool. Did you set up your go home session? Because we always do our go home session like three to four days after the pickup. That way, all of that mechanical and that that place association with us wears off. The things that are gonna stick from muscle memory stay, and the baseline problems that are gonna stick around represent themselves. So when we do our go home, we can breeze through the things that the dog remembers and then stuck with the dog, like heel and sit and stuff like that. But if your dog's having a really hard time downing with you, but didn't with us, we know we need to really focus on that down with you so you can understand how to apply this. So I asked him, I said, Hey, you're a roofer. I I don't know anything about roofing. I imagine you all have some special tools and stuff, right? And he said, Yeah. I said, So would it be reasonable for me to just walk onto a job site and be like, hey, give me, you know, 120 to 160 dollars an hour and I'm gonna bang this job out. He said, No, you're not gonna know how to do it. I said, Exactly. So, what makes you think that when I give you a tool for a special job that you're not familiar with, you're just gonna magically know how to do it? You have to invest your time. I can tell at every session of every week if the if the owner has been doing their homework that I assigned to them. And if they haven't, I call them out. I I give everyone a pre-warning before we start working together. I'm a very blunt, very straightforward person. If I'm too abrasive for you, please let me know. I'll recommend you to a different trainer. But you know, it it's because it's a real thing, it's a liability. Because what happens when you get your dog trained, especially for behavior modification, and you know this better than I do. I mean, that's that's one of your your primary specialties. So you you invest this time, you invest this money, and you go home and the dog reverts and backslides, and that comes back on me too.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:21

Yep. Yeah, I mean, that's honest, unfortunately, that's the shitty part of it, is we put all this time in, and guess what? I can come over there, or they can bring the dog in, and guess what? It's not gonna do any of those things. That's because it knows what I expect from it, and they aren't upholding and keeping those same expectations at home. And I'm like, it's doing exactly what you allow it to do, but somehow that's my fault because they don't listen, but it does reflect poorly on us as trainers when when clients don't listen. But yeah, like dang, I had another point to that and I I lost it. Yep, it's gone. Uh but there, yeah, it was something to do with behavioral stuff, but yep, we're we're we're gone. It's completely blank. We're gonna cut that section out of the podcast. Oh, that's what I was gonna say. So when it when it comes to like clients coming in, like I'm very blunt. I'm I'm gonna tell you exactly how it is, but I can I can often tell what they've been doing at home, and I'll call them out on it. I'll be like, You've been letting your dog do X, Y, and Z. And they'll be like, No, I haven't. And I'll be like, Yeah, you have. And they'll be like, Well, I only let it happen a couple times. Like, no, no, you didn't. And like, what how how do you know? And I'm like, I can tell by the way your dog's acting and the things it's doing. I can tell exactly what it's getting away with at home and what you're doing with your dog. That's that's why I'm the professional here, because I'm able to look at your dog and figure out exactly what's going on. I can tell you exactly what you do and do not do at home. You haven't been using the training tools, you haven't been enforcing the commands, you haven't been doing this just based off of how that dog acts when it when it walks back in here. And I'll I'll watch before they come in. I'll watch them. I'll see the dog dragging them in and doing this and doing that. And as soon as they get in, I'll be like, So you haven't been doing the things we told you. Yeah. No, you haven't. I just straight up, I'll straight up call them out. So they some of our clients probably think I'm an asshole, but that's exactly I'm like, dude, if you if you don't like the fact that I'm very direct and I'm gonna tell you how it is, like, granted, I'm not overly dickish about it, but like I'm I'm also just gonna be blunt and tell you how it is. I'm not gonna beat around the bush. If you're messing up, you're messing up. And again, my time is is valuable, so don't waste it.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:48

Well, and it's not just yeah, yeah, I I agree a hundred percent. And like you said, my time is valuable. That's you know, our educations don't come, they don't come cheap, they don't come free. Our skill doesn't come cheap, doesn't come free. It takes a lot, a lot of man time, a lot of hours involved. Like I said earlier, it's you know, I work 26 hour days, and and you do too. That's why we record this so late in the evening, you know, around the one o'clock. So when uh so when we look at stuff like that, and especially knowing that everything we do is a reflection of us, it's not only just hey, my time is valuable, and I don't want to to spend it with someone who's not gonna follow and not gonna listen and not gonna do this. But my job and my desire for my company is not to take your money for the rest of your life. I want you to be so happy with your results and so thrilled when you're out in public. I want people to be so happy that they see you and your dog so well together that they say, Man, who trained your dog? And you recommend us. I want your friends to come to me. I want strangers that you meet to come to me. That's how I keep my business alive, that's how I feed my kids. So if you're not gonna do this stuff, you're throwing your money away. And I listen, I've had a job when I was 15 years old. I had two jobs and went to school. I have worked and been in the workforce every single day from 15 years old, I'm 35 now. So running through that, I mean, it there's it's not a joke. Money is it's tough. A hundred bucks these days is you know the same as a five dollar bill 10, 15 years ago. So I don't want you to just sit here and throw money away and and waste your money. You work hard for that, you have a desire. You need to help me uh work together with you to be able to meet that goal, too. My goal is to bring families closer together. On the pet side of things. And if you're not going to be involved in that, I'm not going to come in and fix your family. That that's that's a relationship issue that you got to fix on your own. But we train dogs, not people.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:15

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Kind of we do train people, but we don't train that kind of stuff.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:21

Well, and that's the thing. That's what we that's what that's kind of one of our things. You know, here in in Kentucky is we tell people all the time, we're like, listen, we don't just train your dog, we train you to train your dog. We show you what we do, we show you every single little mechanic. That's why. That's why we're the price point we are, that's why we have the success rate that we do.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:42

Yeah, and I I'm right there with you. Like, I I I'll straight up, there's a reason we do more boarding trains than we do sessions, and that's because if you're not gonna put in the hours of time each week to progress your dog, could I absolutely take a hundred dollars from you every week indefinitely? 100%. Am I going to do that? No, because if you're not gonna put in the work on your own, I don't want to do the same thing with your dog on repeat every single week. I want to progress your dog. I want to see, like you said, I want to see you succeed. I want you to be able to take your dog out, I want you to be happy with how your dog is. That's why I recommend most people, and I'll tell them, I'll be like, look, like this is cheaper to do this route, but this is the commitment that you're signing up for with that, versus if you do the board and train, the boot camp, this is what it looks like. There's still commitment on your end, but we're handling all the training, and then you just have to upkeep it on the back end, and we're gonna teach you how to do that. And whether they choose to upkeep that or or not, that's on them at the end. But I know that when that dog goes home, it is well above what they expected, and and that's the goal. And I'm I'm with you, like I don't do things to keep people coming, you know. Some trainers out there, they their model is to keep you coming back, you know, and almost like a subscription system. And I'm like, no, dude, like once I train your dog, I shouldn't have to see you again. You shouldn't have to come back here. And that's that's the way I approach it is like I want when your dog is done with training, it can go home. And maybe like there's sessions that come on the back end, but ideally you shouldn't have to use any of those because we did such a good job teaching your dog and you and setting you guys up for success going forward. Now, there's there are times where I know the dog struggles with certain things in home. So I'm gonna be like, yeah, we're scheduling a session right afterwards, you know, in home to work on those things. But again, it's getting that dog trained, getting you trained, and creating that lasting impact going forward. To your point, like you take your dog out places and you're you're super happy with it. And now you're gonna go tell all your friends, well, we're gonna cut out this long, awkward pause from the I I figure you had something to say. But on that note, we're gonna wrap this show up. And once again, thank you guys for tuning in. We really appreciate your guys' support. Hopefully, you guys take something away from this. Same with every episode we put out there. It's just this is for you guys, and hopefully you gain some knowledge from from these conversations, and we're not just sitting here rambling. But guys, thank you for tuning in to another episode of the Talk Shit Get Bit Podcast. We'll see you guys next week.