By Terry Fleck

I was recently contacted by a law enforcement agency who wanted my input on starting a specialized K-9 detection application. After giving them my input on training the odor recognition and extinction (proofing) training, I further recommended that they contact other law enforcement agencies currently doing this specific specialized mission for actual “hands on” knowledge.

This agency contacted two other allied agencies currently doing that mission. Both agencies contacted would not share or network their training or deployment philosophies with this other agency.

As anyone who has been in our K-9 industry knows, we are our own worst enemy. This situation is living proof. I still hear about trainers, agencies and handlers that will not share or network their training and deployment philosophies with allied agencies. I thought our industry had evolved out of this “secret squirrel” mentality. I thought the ego of “I’ versus “we” thinking was over. Apparently, I thought wrong.

It is time for every trainer, agency and handler within our K-9 industry to stop this madness. If we do not share our experiences of what works, or what does not work, in K-9 training and deployment, we will cause our own demise. Simply put, this is quite stupid! We are all on the same team, law enforcement K-9.

I challenge our industry to do the morally and ethically correct thing, and that is to help make our industry better than it is today. The days of keeping secrets and not sharing / networking training and deployment philosophies should be over. I challenge our K-9 industry’s trainers, agencies and handlers to stop the madness!

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