SWAT Officer Steve Holland & His K-9 Alpha’s Wildest Stories From The Front Lines

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
You're listening to in the VETS Office with doctor Josie Horshak.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
All right, everyone, welcome back to in the VETS Office.
I am your host, doctor Josie, and today we have
an amazing guest. We have Steve Holland here with us,
who brings eighteen years of law enforcement experience, including eleven
years as a dog handler, ten years on the SWAT team,
where he served as a team leader for five of
those years. Throughout his career, he has handled four dogs,

(00:38):
two of which were fully integrated into SWAT operations. Steve
played a pivotal role in establishing his department's SWAT dog program.
Steve is also the founder and lead integration instructor of
Righteous Tactics, a company dedicated to enhancing the integration of
canine units into law enforcement and military tactical teams.

Speaker 3 (00:57):
Welcome to in too the Vet's Office.

Speaker 1 (00:58):
Thane, thanks for having me.

Speaker 3 (01:00):
So happy that you're here.

Speaker 2 (01:00):
This is a very serendipitous because I had been looking
for a canine unit to come in and to interview them.
In fact, I had texted our producer Morgan at one
point and I was like, Hey, I'm in the airport
and I just saw a beagle sniffing, sniffing the people,
and I stopped the handler and I'm like, I know
this is so bad because I know you're working, but like,
can you come on my podcast?

Speaker 1 (01:21):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (01:21):
He said yes, and I gave up my number and
I never heard back. So I'm really glad that you're
here today.

Speaker 1 (01:26):
Thank you for having me.

Speaker 2 (01:28):
And so we had talked a little bit about your
experience and how you started and like the police department
and then worked your way to SWAT and so I
really would love for you to kind of take us
back to the beginning and how you've made this journey
to where you are today.

Speaker 1 (01:42):
Okay, yeah, sure, so all the way back that. It's interesting.
I never really thought i'd be a police officer. It
wasn't really I wouldn't say it was my childhood dream
that the seed was planted. Unfortunately, during the Columbine tragedy
so high school that happened, and I remember, I think

(02:03):
I was fifteen years old. I remember going to work
after the combine. You know, back then, no one had phones.
You didn't really you heard something happen, but you didn't
really see the footage until you got home, or in
my case, when I went to work and I remember
seeing the footage on the television and just I think
that was the first time I realized I was like
almost scared to go to school, you know, like this

(02:25):
was this was the first time I had ever seen
anything like that happen. I believe it was one of
the first in the country. Definitely one of the worst
and the earliest. But I remember watching the footage of
those swap guys pulling kids that looked like my age
out of the windows, you know, like it was I
don't know if it was seeing it or what it was,
but it was just playing on repeat, you know, and
you had the anchor given the updates, but it was

(02:47):
just the same footage over and over again, these same
kids just covered in blood being carried out the window.
And I don't I don't think I consciously realized it then,
but that's when the seed was planted in my brain
that that is what I wanted to do, and it
just it took several years for that to kind of
manifest So then fast forward to college, I was I

(03:09):
wasn't sure what I wanted to do. I dabbled in
a couple of different majors, and I ended up just
making the decision. You know, I want to do that.
I want to be police. So I got my college
degree in criminal justice, and then I really started thinking about, Okay,
if I'm going to do this, where do I want
to work? Where do I want to work? And at
the time I was going to I'm Springfield College in Massachusetts.

(03:30):
And believe it or not, back then, a lot more
people wanted to be the police, so it was much
more difficult to get on a police department. So I
knew if I was going to do it, I wanted
to do something specialized. I knew I was very interested
in swat. I was very interested in working at a
dog I wanted to do canine.

Speaker 3 (03:47):
Did you grow up with dogs?

Speaker 1 (03:48):
Now, that's what's so that's what's so crazy. So I didn't.
I am not like the person you would think like
if you knew me as a kid, you wouldn't think
that I would be where I am today because I
didn't grow up in a family that had guns. No
one hunted. The part of New York I lived in,
it wasn't really that common. It wasn't part of the culture.
And then my parents refused to let me have dogs
like I asked for dogs my entire life growing up,

(04:11):
and they always said no, no, no, you can.

Speaker 3 (04:12):
Have a bird all the odds.

Speaker 1 (04:14):
Yes. So so I here, I am dreaming of doing
this stuff and I don't have any experience in it,
you know, I don't. I've never shot a gun before.
I don't know much about dogs. I know I like dogs.
I want a dog, but and I know I want
to work for a big department. But all those departments
were receiving so many applicants. You had to know somebody

(04:34):
to get fast tracked, otherwise you were waitlisted. And I
didn't know anybody. And then I had an opportunity to
get a master's degree, so I stayed. I went to
grad school. I was up there and I got a
master's degree in education. So now I'm at this this crossroad,
like do I do I still want to be a
police officer or do I want to pursue this career
in education? And I started researching different departments and then

(04:57):
I ultimately found the agency that to work at now.
And it was twelve hundred miles away, but they were
it was a growing city. The department had a swat team,
I had a canine unit, and I just really was
interested in that department. So that was actually the only
department I applied for. I decided I'm going to go
all in. I think it was three days after I

(05:18):
graduated grad school. I packed up my apartment, I rented
a minivan and I drove twelve hundred miles to that city.
And I hadn't heard back from him yet. So I
needed to find a job. I didn't have any friends,
I didn't know know anybody. It's not like I had
any connections. And I just found a job at a
local mall and I think I only had to work
there two months and then I got a phone call
from from the police department. So then I was accepted

(05:39):
in the academy.

Speaker 2 (05:40):
And when you get accepted into the academy, that's the
training portion.

Speaker 1 (05:46):
Yeah, just for basic police officer.

Speaker 3 (05:47):
Yes, how long does that last?

Speaker 1 (05:49):
When I went through, it was about six months, Okay,
so I think it was just that maybe a hair
under six months.

Speaker 2 (05:54):
And when you were doing that, you're not doing any
of the canine stuff yet, no, no, so basic police training.

Speaker 1 (05:59):
Yeah, yeah, so that that was kind of the scary part.
It's like, I I was interested in being a police officer,
but I really only wanted to be a specific kind
of police officer, you know, and there's no guarantee you're
going to get that. And I remember when I had
my police interview, the lady who was interviewing me asked me,
what do you want to do? And I told her,
and you know, I'm sure they hear that a lot
from a lot of different people, Oh, you want to

(06:19):
do swat And I remember her just rolling her eyes
and she was just like, okay, whatever, But I was like,
that's that's what I want to do. But yeah, you
have to you have to become a police officer first
before you can even think about applying for that stuff.
And then when I did graduate the academy, at that time,
you still had to be on the department as a

(06:40):
swarm police officer for three years before you could apply
for anything specialized. So so here I am like, Okay,
I'm gonna have to do three years of a job
that I I don't specifically want to do to get
to the job I really want.

Speaker 2 (06:52):
To doe yes, and there's no guarantee I'm gonna get
it right, So.

Speaker 1 (06:57):
It was it was, but you know, I still found
police work rewarding, so that it wasn't like it was
it was horrible, but it was in the back of
my mind. I just you know, there's there's certain things
I didn't enjoy about working in patrol, and I was
really looking forward to doing something that I was passionate about.

Speaker 3 (07:13):
So that makes sense.

Speaker 2 (07:15):
And so then you hit year three and then and
then you apply is it for SWAT that you applied for?

Speaker 1 (07:20):
Then I applied for Canine first, okay, And that was
probably purely a confidence issue, like growing up not shooting guns.
I just did not think. I don't know if I'm ready.
I don't know if I could pass the calls. I
don't know if I can make it through the selection
process right now for SWAT, yeah, but Canine not that
Canine is easier, but I knew I was much more

(07:44):
likely to probably succeed at that first, you know. So
I don't know if it was a full, like laid
out plan in my head, but I think like, at
least at this maybe at the subconscious level, I was thinking,
just get established in Canine first and then and then
you can apply for SPOT later. And that's that is
what I did. I don't know if that was on

(08:04):
purpose or not. But there was a canine posting they
had some openings. I tried out the first time and
I did not. I actually didn't get it the first time.
And it's it's just such a competitive process. There's so
many people that want to do it, and there's very
few vacancies, Like they don't come open very often, you know.
So the the guy that beat me on my first try,
he's he's one of my best friends. Now that was

(08:26):
his I think his third time trying out. So it
turns into this like this process where most people have
to try out more than once to get it, not everybody.
It really depends on the timing, Like right now, I
think they're about to have several vacancies, so you know,
that just wasn't the situation when I applied. But he

(08:46):
had already been through the interview, you know, since his
third time. He knew how to you know, knock those
answers out of the park. And it was my first one.
I felt like I did really well. I finished, I
finished second on the list, but he got it and
then so then I had to wait another year and
there was another vacancy. I tried out that time, and
then I eventually got it. So that was twenty thirteen.
So I started started the police Academy in two thousand

(09:08):
and seven, and then I finally made it the canine
in twenty thirteen.

Speaker 3 (09:10):
Wow, all those years later, your dream is coming trail.

Speaker 1 (09:13):
Finally coming true. Yes?

Speaker 2 (09:14):
And throughout that time, did you now that you're an adult,
you're not living with your parents. Do you have a
dog then, or is really your first experience with canines
at this level once you get accepted in twenty thirteen.

Speaker 1 (09:26):
I let's see, So in twenty thirteen, we had my
wife and I had two dogs at that point, okay,
actually three because she had one one I met her.
So so no, luckily I've had some interaction with the
day for that, but I hadn't trained any of them.
I mean they were they were definitely wild dogs. There
was definitely no obedience with those dogs at all. And

(09:48):
I didn't you know, I didn't no idea how to
do that stuff anyway.

Speaker 2 (09:50):
So when they get you into that area of working
with the canines, I'm assuming that there are guys that
have been doing this, women that have been doing it
for many years, and they sort of teach you, like
you go.

Speaker 3 (10:03):
Through another round of training. What does that look like?

Speaker 1 (10:06):
Yeah, so that's that's almost a whole nother six months.
So I finally I get accepted, Hey you're going to canine.
I went January first, was my first day, twenty thirteen.
They didn't have the dogs yet, so right now I'm
just like for that month, I'm just kind of learning
the basics of stuff, like learning how does how do
we function around here? Who cleans the kennels? How do

(10:27):
we take care of the dogs? I got to observe
the monthly training. So what the monthly training is is
once the guys and girls are certified with their dogs
and they're answering calls on the street, they still have
to come back to training at least once a month
and do training with the training staff. So our canine
unit has its own training staff and that's what they're
responsible for. It's just keeping the current dogs certified, making

(10:51):
sure they're staying proficient with the skills that are required
to stay certified, but also making sure that the handler
and the dog are like operational. It's almost like two
different things when it comes to that training. There's one
you're training for the certification. There's certain things we just
have to do and we have to pass, but then
we also want to make sure that this dog can
do the job on the street, because the street's going
to be a little differ than the certification. So there's

(11:13):
there's different types of training for for both of those.
So I was getting to observe those experienced people like
you're talking about, like some of them were. One of
them was a legend. He was on his fifth dog
at that time. I got to watch him train, and
the person who was the head trainer at the time,
he was also a legend. He was the son of

(11:35):
the man who started the canine unit for my department, WOW,
back in the seventies. So the amount of knowledge that
he had, I mean, it was just like drinking from a.

Speaker 3 (11:45):
Fire hose in his blood.

Speaker 1 (11:47):
Yes, it's just like and he would say stuff, but
to him, you know, it's it's second nature. I'm trying
to like understand it and remember it and retain it,
and it's just it was difficult. It was very very.

Speaker 3 (11:58):
Difficult, I'm sure.

Speaker 2 (11:59):
And when you get accepted into that program, do they
have they tag you with one dog? Yes, each handler
has one dog. And when you're there and you're just
learning the ins and outs at what point do you
get your dog and do you know his name her name?

Speaker 1 (12:12):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (12:12):
Is it mainly female dogs or meal dogs?

Speaker 1 (12:14):
We actually, right now, I think there's two female dogs,
and I don't know, not exactly sure how many dogs
total there are right now, just because there's been a
few people who just who just resigned and a few
dogs that were tired. But when I was over there
in the actual Canaan unit itself, we were slotted for
eighteen dogs.

Speaker 3 (12:34):
Okay, so the majority of our meal most of.

Speaker 1 (12:36):
Them are male. Yes, there are some females though.

Speaker 2 (12:38):
Okay, And so you what was your first dog that
you got tagged with was so his.

Speaker 1 (12:42):
Name was Chaos. So they you know, they transferred us over.
They've transferred the humans over before they get the dogs,
because they never know when the administration is going to say, okay,
we have enough manpower and patrol. We can now like
we can send you people to fill your vacancies. You know,
it's kind of like a domino. People graduate, the academy,
patrol gets filled up, and then now we can start

(13:04):
like backfilling some of these specialized units. So you don't
want to get in a situation where you go buy
the dogs and now you've got dogs and you don't
have many people to give them to, so so they
brought back. I was in a class of four. I
was the only new handler, So I was going in
a class with three guys that had one of them.
I think it was his third dog. The other two

(13:25):
it was their second dog. So I was only like
fully green handler. And the way it worked then was
they the guys that went to select the dogs from
the vendor and brought them back. They allowed the most experienced,
the most senior guy to pick which dog he wanted,
so they kind of like got him out and did

(13:45):
some tests on him so the guys could see like
which one they wanted to pick. And it was funny.
No one wanted my dog because he was the biggest,
and they, you know, they were all experienced, so they're like,
that's going to be a nightmare to deal with. I
don't want a ninety pound dog pulling on my shoulder
and me having to pick him up and you know,
get him over and stuff. So so I got, you know,
I got stuck with them. But it's funny, that's that
was the dog I wanted to begin with. So Okay,

(14:07):
at that time, I was in my twenties. I didn't
care how big he was, Like, I just I wanted
this dog he looked. He looked so fierce and perfect.
It's like everything I pictured like when I wanted to,
you know, go into canine. So so they they do.
Ours came with just made up names. You know, the vendors,
they just give them names. So you get paperwork, it
has a name on it. You can keep that name

(14:28):
or you can change it. So I don't I don't
even remember what his was. Maybe it was Danny or
something like that. It was just like, I don't want
my dog to be named Danny, so.

Speaker 3 (14:36):
Come me here, Danny. So yeah, I think chaos is better.

Speaker 1 (14:39):
I thought it was more fitting.

Speaker 3 (14:40):
So yeah, definitely.

Speaker 1 (14:41):
So we start like as soon as you start training,
you just start imprinting that name on them and it's
not a big deal.

Speaker 2 (14:46):
And I know I had asked you this before, But
when you get these dogs and you're training with them,
and then you're in the field with them, they come
home with you at night.

Speaker 1 (14:54):
Yes, yeah, yep. They all every dog is paired to
their handler and then they live with them. So that
is one of the requirements to even put in for canine.
You have to have a house and the space for that.
You know, if you live in an apartment building, that
won't be conducive for it.

Speaker 3 (15:07):
So are you allowed to have other dogs?

Speaker 1 (15:09):
Yeah? Okay, Now some dogs, not just police dogs. Some
dogs are dog aggressive, right, So I don't know if
every handler has it, like I don't know if their
police dog has a good relationship with their personal dogs.
But I've always been blessed. I've never had those issues.
They've always gone along with them.

Speaker 2 (15:33):
And so how did you get from doing the police
canine unit into SWAT?

Speaker 1 (15:39):
Yeah, that's another crazy, crazy quinc like, the number of
things that had to happen for that to come to
life was insane at least I think so. But so
so I made canine in twenty thirteen and twenty fifteen,
that's when swap posted and I put in for that,
and so I put in for the collateral like a
collateral swap position because I was in canine, HM, there

(16:02):
was no way that I would be able to go.
And at that time that our full time SWAT team
was smaller than it is today. I think there was
ten guys on that team. So I was putting in
to basically be dual role. I want to be SWAT
and then I'll also be canine. So when I'm not SWAT,
I'll just be doing the canine stuff, and then when
they need me, I'll go help out with the SWAT team.

Speaker 2 (16:20):
Because at that time, SWAT was not using any dogs,
so you knew, like I'll go into SWAT, I won't
be doing any canine handling, so I still want to
be able to do this on the police.

Speaker 1 (16:28):
It was almost like two different jobs, you know, depending
on what I was headed to would dictate what uniform
I wore and whether I would bring my dog or not. Okay,
so I'm still I'm still on the collateral role when
this when this story happens. But I remember we tried
to use the dog. We tried to integrate the dog
out of necessity. So there was I get woken up

(16:51):
one morning by the SWAT lieutenant calling me saying, hey,
we need we need you and your dog, and I
was like, okay, what's going on? He said, there was
a gas station attendant that was murdered in cold blood
last night by a couple, a male and a female.
There run there were the females running away with the
with the male. They went in there to rob the
place and they killed them, and now we think he's

(17:13):
hiding in the area. There's a school right across the
street that the alarm's going off, the windows open, and
that they want SWAP to come clear it. So I'm like, okay,
I'm on my way because I worked. I worked I
think second shift when this when this call came out,
so I was actually off duty. So I wake up,
I get all my stuff, I drive there, and I
remember the SWAT guys like looking at me saying, hey,

(17:36):
how like, how's this going to work? And I was like,
I don't know. We can, we can try it, but
we've never done this before, so I.

Speaker 3 (17:42):
Don't dogs there.

Speaker 1 (17:43):
Yeah, And and what I mean is like, is he
going to bite other guys? You know, because I've done
building searches with my dog before, but it's usually just
me and the dog, or me and a few other officers.
We've never had twenty guys flooding this building. You know, Like,
if you're with me, you're probably he's probably gonna realize
with me. But if if you end up three rooms
away from me, how is he to know he's not?

(18:04):
I don't think he's gonna know, but out of necessity,
it was probably stupid, but we tried it, and and
Chaos like he did it. I mean there was guys
all the way down the hallway. I remember at one
point we came out of one room and this other
team was coming down the hallway and they stopped as
they came around the corner, and Chaos like stopped and
looked at him and then just went back to searching.

(18:26):
It was like, yeah, it was. It was definitely one
of those scary moments because it could have gone the
other way. For sure, some dogs would have gone. They
would have been like, Okay, that's that's the decoy. I'm
gonna go get him.

Speaker 2 (18:38):
But go ahead, did he did you end up finding
the bad guy?

Speaker 1 (18:43):
We did. He wasn't in that building. But so we
finished clearing the building and then we just started saturating
the area. And there was a motorists that drove by
and spotted spotted them like off this embankment. So he
stop and flag down. I mean, this was like a
huge man hunt. There was yeah, tchp everyone was out

(19:04):
there looking for these guys. Got it or this couple.
So anyway, he stops the first traffic officer he sees,
so he tells him where he saw him. They put
it out on the radio, and we were like two
hundred yards away, so we went down there and got him.

Speaker 2 (19:17):
So it's interesting your job of SWAT is like, hey,
we need to also use this guy's second job, which
is being a canine handler, because there's some added bonuses
to this. And then I'm sure it got to a
point where they were like, hey, maybe we should get.

Speaker 3 (19:29):
Our own dogs.

Speaker 1 (19:30):
Yeah, So that was the moment I realized what these
dogs are capable of. You know that there were people
that had been doing canine for thirty years, twenty years,
thirty years that would say that's impossible, Like there's no
way you're going to be able to teach a dog
to work with that many guys and not bite them.
They would say, one of two things is going to happen.

(19:50):
Either he's going to bite them, or you socialize him
so much and he's letting everybody work with him that
when he finally finds a violent bad guy not going
to engage him because he's he's so used to not
biting anybody. So there was a lot of resistance, like
people did not want that that program to happen. But
that's when I realized, well, it can be done because

(20:11):
we didn't even try, Like we didn't even teach his dog,
and he did it. So imagine if we actually figure
out how to train him and like build fundamentals and
really like take this to the next level. So it
still took a couple of years to get the full
program going, but after that, one of our one of

(20:32):
the guys on the team, was able to work out
a course where we had outside instructors come from a
company called Tier One Tactics, and they were mostly former
military guys for special forces, and they had that's what
they did, you know, I mean, that's not all they did,
but they integrated the dogs overseas on missions. So they

(20:52):
came out and they did a class for us and Caaos.
Chaos had actually just passed away from cancer right after that,
right before that class came, so we actually didn't get
to use Chaos for that, but we used some regular
canine guys, guys that weren't on swap. One of them
was he was like like I was, he was collateral.

(21:12):
But we used a couple of different dogs that looked
like they were suitable for it, and then they actually
showed us like, hey, this is I know you've done
it on a necessity, but this is actually how you
teach the dogs to do it. And they and it
all made so much sense, and they showed us how
to integrate these dogs and how to tell like teach
the guys how to communicate to him. So if in

(21:33):
that instance when Chaos saw those people down the hallway,
if that had gone the other way and he started
running a hit on him, teaching them how to communicate
non verbally with the dog so he understands that he's
part of the pack, got it, Or that they're part
of the pack.

Speaker 2 (21:47):
So the guy he's coming after it, let's say it's
a swap member, he can nonverbally give him a signal
to say, hey, I'm with you, and the dog will
back down.

Speaker 1 (21:54):
Essentially, Yeah, wow, A lot of it's a lot of
it's based on like the movements and that, like the
body line language. I mean, we can verably command them
as well. But if you have to be quiet, yeah,
there's that, but it's almost not it's not even necessary
because these animals are it's it's part of their instinct,
like they have a prey drive right. They want to work,
especially these breeds, and then like I believe at least naturally,

(22:19):
they want to work in a pack, like they're pack animals.
So this just suits them. Like they just pick it up.
They understand it and they realize that. I'm like, the
handler is dad, and everybody else that are my uncle's Yeah,
and we're all working together.

Speaker 2 (22:31):
Yeah, they are so smart. I have a German shepherd.
You can definitely talk about the breed. But it's crazy
how intelligent they are. Yes, and they don't need like
they just they get it.

Speaker 1 (22:41):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (22:42):
Sometimes they're too smart for their own guide.

Speaker 1 (22:44):
Yeah, I definitely it makes it harder. Sometimes that makes
it harder than to train them. I remember my first trainer.
He would say he would laugh and look at me
and say, you know, Steve, it would be easier to
train a stupid dog.

Speaker 2 (22:53):
Exactly, a stupid dog that just wants a cookie, Yes,
you know.

Speaker 3 (22:56):
Not these guys, they're like they're always.

Speaker 1 (22:58):
Trying to outthink you. They're trying to away figure out how
to get to what they want quicker.

Speaker 3 (23:02):
You'll probably appreciate this.

Speaker 2 (23:03):
I have a lot of owners that come in that
maybe have never had a dog before and they're like,
I think German shepherds are cool, Our malanwas are cool.

Speaker 3 (23:10):
I'm going to get one, and I'm.

Speaker 2 (23:11):
Like, whoa, whoa, whoa, pump the brakes, Like you need
to be really committed and you know, be committed to
training and have a yard and activities because they require
so much stimulation.

Speaker 1 (23:24):
Yes, and not just physical. That's that's the exactly a
lot of them, I think forget or don't even realize.
They think, oh, he'll get exercise. But it's not just that.
Those those breeds, they need the mental part too. They
need to problem solved. You need you know, like you said,
train them. You need to give them tasks to do.

Speaker 3 (23:40):
Yeah, they love it.

Speaker 1 (23:41):
Otherwise they're going to figure out other outlets. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (23:44):
Otherwise you were drywall will get destroyed, your shoes will
get destroyed. Okay, so now we are. Now you've shown them, Okay,
we dogs can do this. And then from there is
the SWAT team integrating dogs at this point.

Speaker 1 (23:58):
So at that point, we we were but the team
itself didn't have there, like we didn't have our own
dogs yet, so we were still relying on canine unit
officers to assist us when we needed a dog and
that worked fine. There were no issues with that, but
there was still a lot of resistance from at that time,
the lieutenant that was over the canine unit. I personally

(24:21):
don't think he was a big fan of it. He
didn't want it. And I don't know if that was
like a control thing or if he just didn't like SWAT.
I really don't know, but I just know that it
was like, now that's impossible. We're never y'all were never
going to have your own dogs. So it wasn't until
twenty twenty that a lot this wasn't just my agency.
A lot of law enforcement people quit and they were like,

(24:43):
I'm done, this is too much. I've got a family,
I don't want to do this anymore. That's just too stressful.
And that other handler I mentioned a few minutes ago,
who was also collateral in canine with me. He went
through the SWAT selection process with me, one of my
best friends. His dog was one of the ones that
had been integrated with the team. But he was like,

(25:04):
I'm done. I'm gonna go do some other things. I
can't do police work anymore. And interesting, his dad is
the one that was my main trainer, So this is
the grandson of the man who created the unit to
begin with in the nineteen seventies, and he's like, I'm done.
Police is in my blood, but I'm done. So the
lieutenant had changed over the cannon unit at that point,

(25:27):
and the lieutenant was a lieutenant who was also on SWAT,
So like the pieces are starting to come together, right,
And he calls me one day and he says, hey, Steve,
you know, Chad's retiring. And Duke was the dog. He said,
Duke is at a weird age, like he's so old,
it doesn't really make sense for us to give him,
like to recycle him to a new handler. But you're

(25:51):
certified with the USPCA. The dogs certified with the USPCA.
Even though it had been at that point, I hadn't
been working a dog for a few minutes, but I
still head to obtained that certification in the past. So
his thought process was, you two can get in service
very very quickly. All we have to do is get
you guys to bond, do some training, and pass the certification.

(26:13):
We don't have to do the required like six months
of training. If we do that, this dog is gonna
lose another six months of his life and he's going,
it's just not it doesn't make any sense. What do
you think about taking him? And at this point, I'm
full time SWAT, I'm one of the supervisors on the
SWAT team because we've jumped a couple of years, and
he's like, what do you think about taking them? And
trying this as like a trial run to see if
the full time SWAT team can have dogs? And I

(26:37):
hate emitting miss. I didn't want to do it at
first because at this point I'd stopped working a dog,
and working dogs is is just such a commitment, you know.
And I don't want to say I was being lazy,
but I was. I do remember thinking to myself.

Speaker 3 (26:51):
You were content, Yeah, I'm all right right.

Speaker 1 (26:53):
Now, Like that's a lot of work. I'm gonna have
that dog twenty four seven. But I thought about it
and it made a lot of sense, and I remember
saying to him, Hey, if that's what's best for the team,
then I'll do it. And so I did it, and
I took him and within I mean, we got certified,
like I said, really quickly because we both knew what
we were doing. All we had to do was past

(27:14):
the past the certification process, and within the first month
of being on the street with him, we were involved
in multiple critical incidences and not only did he not
only did he save officers lives, but he saved suspects
lives because there was several where if we hadn't had
a dog there, it would have escalated into a lethal

(27:35):
force situation.

Speaker 2 (27:36):
I think that is so important and something that I
really didn't think about, like, yes, this dog is saving
law enforcements lives, but it's also saving the suspects lives
as well, because if he's not there to sort of
act as that like middleman buffer, yeah, you might have
to use lethal force. So that's such an important point
that I never would have thought about it.

Speaker 1 (27:55):
Now most people don't think. I don't know if I
ever thought of it until we started doing you're working
with the dogs.

Speaker 2 (28:00):
But and basically that's like, hey, here's the bad guy,
the dog jumps in to kind of take him down,
and then you're able to apprehend the suspect without having
to use the.

Speaker 1 (28:10):
Yes, yeah, I can give you. I can give you
some examples that kind of helped illustrate it. So we've
been involved in several or we've been asked to help
with several suicidal, violent people. Right, the first time that
we used a dog on a situation like that, that
actually was chaos. And that's when I was still the

(28:33):
collateral role. But we had a man who had if
I'm remembering it quickly, he tried to shoot his wife
or his girlfriend, but they were able to get out
of the house. So we had aggravated like this man
is wanted. Now there's aggravated salt warns for him. He's
not just suicidal, he's also a criminal at this point.
But he has fled into his backyard and he was
just holding a gun to his head and he was

(28:56):
very intoxicated and was making a lot of threat It's
like I'm gonna I'm gonna kill myself, I want to
do suicide by cop. I'm gonna make you guys kill me.
And we had we had him contain. You know, at
that point, Swat had full containment of the home. He
was in the backyard, so we had him isolated. There
was nowhere for him to go. But obviously if we

(29:16):
went up there to try to just put him in handcuffs,
he was there was a high likelihood based on his
statements that he was going to point the gun at
us and force us to kill him. So we came
up with a plan to use the dog. And my
first thought was, well, I don't want my dog to die, Like,
I don't want to just send him. This guy's gonna
see the dog coming, you know, he'll have all the

(29:37):
time in the world to just take the gun and
go like that, shoot the dog and then either shoot
himself or then raise the gun up at us and
make us shoot him, because he says that's what he
wants to do. So I start thinking about it, and
we had other tools at our disposal. So the plan
we came up with was, Hey, let's we're gonna throw
a flashbang at him. That's gonna disorient him, surprise him,

(29:59):
and then we have they're forty milimeter rounds, but they're
basically foam like they shoot out of a launcher and
they're just basically like foam rounds. They hurt, but they
they don't leave any permanent injuries or anything like that.
So so I'm talking to my lieutenant, I'm like, I
think we can do this without killing him, without letting

(30:21):
him force us to kill him, yeah, and protect the
dog at the same time. I don't I don't think,
I mean, I know this isn't this isn't one hundred
percent guaranteed, but I think this is our best chance
with what we're dealing with here, unless unless we're just
gonna walk away and let this guy kill his wife
or kill himself or whatever, like if we're if we're
gonna take this guy into custody, this is the only

(30:41):
way I can think of doing it that's gonna minimize.

Speaker 3 (30:44):
Collateral damage, yes, and preserve.

Speaker 1 (30:46):
Life in general. So he, you know, he passes the
plan up the chain and command. Everyone says, okay, you
guys can do it. And then and then the suspect
gave us a countdown. He said, I'm and I don't
remember what it was, like sixty seconds. I'm doing it,
like he's talking to the negotiators, I'm gonna do it
in sixty seconds. So I look at my lieutenant and
everyone's like, all right, we're doing it, like he's just
forced our hand. It's been approved do it. And and

(31:09):
it worked. So the flash bang went off, and of
course that shocked shocked the suspect, so he's disoriented, and
the dog closed the distance way faster than we could
hit him so hard that it knocked the gun out
of his hand and then and then just keptaining the
mobilized while we ran up there to get him. So, yes,
he got dog bit, but what's worse being shot or that?

(31:31):
You know, the dog bite's gonna heal. Yeah, if he
if he had shot himself in the head, that that
wouldn't heal. And if he forced us to shoot him, it
would have been worse. So so yeah, a lot of
people don't think of it that way. They just think, oh,
that's you guys are using these dogs on people. That
sounds really violent. But we're not using him responsibly like that.
You know, we're using them in an effort to try
to reduce the ultimate force that's used.

Speaker 2 (31:52):
Right safety for all involved. That is such an amazing story. Okay,
so where were we at now? Now the SWAT team
has canines yep.

Speaker 1 (32:07):
So yeah, so I've I'm hit the street with Duke
and we're involved in several incidences that show like, hey,
this preserved life and it just kind of I guess
it just kind of grew from there, you know, they
saw the value of it.

Speaker 2 (32:21):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (32:22):
And the other interesting thing, at least that I think
is interesting is a lot of people thought, oh man,
you guys got your own dogs. Now you guys are
going to be getting lots of dog bites. And I
think that the misconception was like use of force was
going to go up, and it's actually the exact opposite.
Not only do we get less dog bites than most
people thought we would, are like total use of force

(32:44):
has gone down because it's such a deterrent. You know,
obviously some people are hell bent on not being held
accountable or are they don't want to go to jail,
and they're going to be those people that fight. But
it has convinced more people to just surrender than ever before.
You know, just having that.

Speaker 2 (33:00):
Dog there, they say, I mean, they say, and this
is not the same. But in robberies even the biggest
deterrence is not an alarm, not your lights, it's hearing
a dog bark. So that makes sense. I mean, people,
I would probably just give up and go to jail if.

Speaker 1 (33:14):
I had it most.

Speaker 3 (33:18):
Well, that is amazing.

Speaker 2 (33:20):
I asked my listeners if they had any questions for you,
and I was inundated with questions. People have so so
many questions, So I'm going to ask you some. And
one of the big things was, these are the breeds
that you're mainly working with. Are German shepherds in melanwas? Yes,
do you have a preference between the two?

Speaker 1 (33:44):
I would, ironically, I like the hybrid, okay, And that's
what my current dog is. Alpha is a mix between
a German Shepherd and a Malawa. But it's it's such
are there are stereotypes for both breeds and they're not
necessarily true. I mean, there are stereotypes for a reason, like, yes,

(34:05):
most Malawas are going to be very geeked up, more
hyper than the German Shepherd. So there's a lot of
people that subscribe to those thoughts, are like, I don't
want a Malawa, they're too crazy. And then there's other
people that are like, I don't want a German Shepherd.
They're too they're too slow, Like I want that fast,
missile dog, you know. And I've seen both. I've seen
German Shepherds that are spaz is and are great at agility,

(34:27):
and I've seen Malawas that are calm and docile. But
there's something about by my current dog, and maybe it's
just a coincidence, maybe it's not because he's half and half,
but he is like the perfect demeanor for me, and
he's he's also now it goes back to now that
I'm older, he's smaller. You know, he's not a ninety
pound dog. So I do like that, like it is

(34:49):
it makes my life a lot.

Speaker 3 (34:50):
Easier, a little more agile too, maybe yes, yes.

Speaker 1 (34:53):
It's just like he's like the best of both worlds,
at least for me.

Speaker 2 (34:56):
I guess that brings me to another question, which is
what do you look for when you're like, ah, yes,
this is the perfect dog as a handler, Like what
are some of those yeah, like prerequisites.

Speaker 1 (35:06):
Well, I'm the first couple of dogs I had, I
wasn't able to go down and go to the vendor
to see like how they picked the dogs. But but
for Alpha, I was able to do that, and I
got to see the kind of the tests and stuff
that the that the training staff kind of looks at,
and it makes a lot of sense. So we're mostly
looking for their their drive. I would say that's probably

(35:31):
the most important thing. So and what I mean by
that is like how how badly do they want that
toy or that reward and how how long is their
attention spaned for it? So, like one simple test that
they did was with Alpha. They showed him a toy
and saw how excited he got. Okay, good, and he's
really excited. He wants that toy. So then they threw

(35:51):
the toy into some really high grass that he's probably
never gonna like, he's not gonna find it. Maybe he does,
but the point is it's supposed to be really difficult,
and we want to see if the dog's gonna look
for it. And of course he went right in there
and he started searching for it. And and then we
just sit there and we watch and some of the
dogs they would search for a little bit, but then
they would start eating grass or they'd start peeing on things,

(36:12):
and then they lose interests.

Speaker 3 (36:13):
Well, look a squirrel.

Speaker 1 (36:14):
Yeah, you know, like okay, yeah, this may still be
a good dog, but he's he's losing interest pretty quick.
Alpha would not give up. He just kept searching and
searching and searching and searching until we finally were satisfied, like, okay,
he'll search till he's dead. Give him another toy. So
because we're not gonna find that one, yeah, so we
give him another toy and then and then we took
him off of it or took him out of the grass,

(36:34):
So you're you're looking for like how how much do
they want to work?

Speaker 2 (36:40):
That makes a lot of sense. And then size wise,
probably a little bit smaller isn't a bad thing. It'd
probably fit through tighter spaces like more agile.

Speaker 1 (36:47):
I think that's probably more more considered for the military.
For us, it was really we really didn't take any
consideration their their physical attributes. It was mostly like how
how good is their dry? How good is their aggression?
Do they fire up when they see like the bite sleeve?
Do they want like to engage it?

Speaker 2 (37:05):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (37:05):
And then the other like important thing is you don't
know if they're going to be equipment fixated, but you
can kind of start seeing that early on. So one
of the things we did with Alpha was one of
my friends he went up there with the sleeve, and
of course Alpha fired up because he's seen the sleeve before.
He knows that, oh, I'm going to get to bite that.
And then they take the sleeve off and set it

(37:27):
on the ground, and then the decoy moves around away
from the sleeve and starts agitating the dog to see
if he wants the man or does he wants the sleeve.
If he wants to sleeve, it may not be the
end of the world, but that's something to think about.
And Alpha didn't care. He wanted to go after the person,
so his prey drive was outweighing the equipment fixation, so

(37:48):
that was important.

Speaker 3 (37:50):
Yeah, that makes sense. How old is Alpha?

Speaker 2 (37:52):
He's four now, And how old are they usually when
they come into police work, and how old are they
when you're like it's time for them to retire?

Speaker 1 (38:00):
It varies, so I think Alpha was barely He wasn't
even two yet when I when I got him, so
he was one he turned two in training. I think
Chaos was already two when I got him. Sometimes they're
three or four when we get him. It really just
depends on you know, their their journey to get to us,

(38:20):
you know, because most of them are coming from other countries,
and then these vendors go out there and they've got
their breeders that they buy from and they bring them back.
So I would say anywhere between one and three it
would be average for a dog to begin the training,
and then really it's just their health is that kind
of dictates when they retire. That's what happened with Duke
he started having hip problems and he didn't want to retire,

(38:43):
but but I felt like, this is just this is
just too much for him, Like I don't it's selfish
for me to keep pushing, like he's just gonna hear
his body up, you know.

Speaker 3 (38:52):
So it's probably like around nine.

Speaker 1 (38:55):
Yeah, between eight and nine is on average.

Speaker 3 (38:59):
I wish they could lift for.

Speaker 1 (39:00):
I do too. And that's that's what was really tragic
about Chaos. He he got cancer when he was six,
so he never even got to retire.

Speaker 3 (39:06):
Wow, that's so young.

Speaker 1 (39:07):
He passed away while he was I mean, he wasn't
at work when he passed away, but he was still
active duty when he did. No, it was his whole
body was eight of with cancer, but it was. It was.
It was frustrating because they didn't know he had cancer
until they did the autopsy, so they didn't know what
was wrong with them. They found other things. One of

(39:27):
them was a fungal infection. One of them was bartonella.

Speaker 3 (39:31):
Okay, yeah, I'm saying that correctly, And I'm.

Speaker 1 (39:33):
Trying to remember. It's been so long now, but I
I remember. It was it seemed like the cancer lowered
his immune system and then he started getting all these
other things. So that's what the vets would find, and
they thought that's what it was, but there was obviously
the underlying issue. And yeah, he I was told after
they did the the autopsy that he that he was

(39:55):
just covered in cancer.

Speaker 3 (39:56):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (39:57):
At least, I mean, I mean that's terrible, but at
least it gives you a little piece of mind that
there was nothing more that you could have done.

Speaker 1 (40:03):
Yeah. So yeah, it was hard. It was definitely hard.

Speaker 2 (40:05):
And so we'll take alpha for example, how do you
or how would you explain like dogs that are on
duty and off duty? Like does he know like Okay,
I'm home now I can chill, Like how does he?

Speaker 3 (40:17):
How did? How does that work?

Speaker 1 (40:18):
Yeah? I I'd like to describe that dogs as they
almost have like these little computer programs in their brain,
you know, you know, they don't they don't look at
things like humans do. You know. We we kind of
look at things analytically. For them, it's much more like
a math equation one plus one equals too. Right. So

(40:39):
and so for me, I just don't do anything work
related at home. I make sure home is always relaxing,
that I don't do any training. I'm not saying all
officers do that. Some officers probably train at home with
their dogs, and obviously that can be done. But for me,
Alpha knows when we get home. He he you know,
they they know when you pull on the street. I

(40:59):
don't know what it is, if they just they have
the bumps memorized or whatever. But he'll like stand up,
you know, stand up in his in his great like, oh,
we're home, and he knows he's gonna get fed, and
he knows what he eats when he gets home, so
he gets really excited. So I make sure just never
do anything work related at home. And then when they're
like at work, when how do they know when to
go to and from?

Speaker 3 (41:22):
They just know?

Speaker 1 (41:22):
It's well, it's it's more than that that they're picking
up on things. You know, there's there's pictures that they
recognize is and that's this goes back to the one
plus one. So a great example it illustrates it is
one day I was in the parking lot with Alpha
and I was talking to another team member who he

(41:43):
had just drove up. So he's in he's in his
driver's seat talking to us through the window. Alpha's fine.
Alpa doesn't think anything he's just like sitting there, like,
all right, where are we going? And then at one
point I think there was music playing, so the guy
that was talking to me just started like tapping to
the music, but he was tapping the window frame. And

(42:03):
one of the things that we do when we're teaching
the dogs, like the early stages of how to go
into a vehicle to get a bad guy, is the
decoy will slap slap the window frame. So I, luckily
I'm at this point. This is my fourth dog. I've
seen things go bad enough times where I figured it
out before Alpha did, So as soon as he started
tapping the window, my brain recognized it, like that, that's

(42:25):
not good. And Alpha went from total calm to lunging
towards that vehicle, and I was able to, like I
anticipated it, so I was able to get him back.
And of course my buddy was like, oh it just happened.
I was like, well, because you he thought you were.
He doesn't know, like to him, this is all a game.
He thought you were playing the window.

Speaker 3 (42:41):
Game, right, He's like, let's play.

Speaker 2 (42:45):
Have you ever had an instance at home where you're like, oh, no,
Alpha is.

Speaker 1 (42:49):
I'm really careful about that? Yeah, so because of that,
like I've always been very aware of that. I don't
want a picture to trigger his brain like, oh, that's
that looked like that game that we play. So you know,
with my kids it was very from very early ages, like, hey,
we don't run around him. There's certain things we just
we don't do if he's out. You know, if you're

(43:10):
around him, he just can't do that around him because
he may misinterpret it. And even if he doesn't, he's
he's bigger than you. If he thinks you're playing with him, yeah,
you might get knocked down.

Speaker 2 (43:19):
So all kids should learn that, no matter what was
their pets, I think, sure, there's a way to interact
with them. Yeah, and how I mean is he like
lovey dovey when he's off duty like belly robs And.

Speaker 1 (43:31):
Yeah, he's so that's what makes him so special. He
is so social but then also very fierce when it's
time to do work. And I've never had a dog
that was quite to both extremes like he is. Duke
was really good, but but Alpha is just a little
more like loves affection, loves being pet on Chaos was

(43:54):
very much. He had the mentality of it's us versus
the world, and I didn't give him that like that
just they all have their Yeah, yeah, he's just he
was very untrusting. He want to let other people pet him.
He did the integration stuff, but if we were like
done with an op or or if like we were
taking a break from training, he didn't. He didn't want
anyone to pet him except me, no one. If anyone

(44:16):
else tried to touch him, he start growling. But Alpha
is the exact opposite. He's like, yes, I want treats,
I want love, Please pet me. I love it. And
then when it's worktime, he just like he snaps into
work mode and he's just he's the best. He's the
best dog I've ever worked.

Speaker 3 (44:31):
That's awesome.

Speaker 2 (44:33):
I've seen some of your videos on Instagram and obviously
going into swat situations, you have tons of gear. What
kind of gear do the dogs wear?

Speaker 1 (44:40):
So that's that's a great question because that has evolved
so much. Just in my time. In K nine, when
I came on Canine, there was there were no ballistic
vests for the dogs. I mean they existed, but they
were worthless. They stopped the bullets, but they were so cumbersome.
It was more of a hindrance for the dog than
it was, especially if you work in a in a
a hot environment. So it really wasn't until I was

(45:04):
in Canine. I believe it was twenty thirteen. There was
a few dogs that were killed in the line of
duty in Canada and there was two companies, LF Defense
and Storm Canine Storm, and they started innovating and coming
up with these vests that are just phenomenal now. So
there's an organization called Spikes Canine and they travel around

(45:24):
the country and they get donations and then they outfit
a lot of the departments with these ballistic vests, and
that's how we got ours. So Alpha has a ballistic
vest that was manufactured by Canine Storm, donated by Spikes,
and it's a level two ballistic vests. So he's got
that protection on him at all times. And then one

(45:47):
thing that I do that I have him where that
I don't want to say it's controversial, but a lot
of handlers don't like the idea, is I put a
med kit actually on it's attached to his vest. And
what we use Alpha for maybe different than what some
other departments use their dogs for. So I can get
the argument of hey, I don't. I don't want anything

(46:09):
on my dog because it's going to get hung up
on things. I want my dog to be slick. I
understand that argument. I don't really have anything like any
way to dispel that, but all I can say is
on my operations it has not been a hindrance yet.
And with human medical we subscribe to the thought of, hey,
if if an officer goes down and we need to

(46:29):
do medical on them, we're going to use his medical gear.
We're not going to use ours. We don't want to
deplete ours because I may need mine in ten minutes
from now. So if the if the gear is available,
use it, use their gear first, and that way you
always have some still. So fortunately with the dogs, a
lot of the medical interventions are the same, Like we

(46:50):
can still use chess seals, we use the same gauze,
the pack wounds. Really, the only thing that they have
that is different is like I want them to have
needles on them, so for needle decompression or blow but
that's the only thing that they have that's specific to them.
But I'd like to keep a kit on him for
the same reason. I want him to always have medical

(47:13):
gear with him. So that way, one, my guys don't
have to use theirs on him, they can just use his.
But two, what if I already use mine and now
I don't have anymore, Well, at least the dog's got his.

Speaker 2 (47:24):
Yeah, absolutely, Yeah, I can get the argument for them
like getting hung up, but they're like jumping fences and whatnot.
But I guess the likelihood of that happening is so
much less than you'd rather be safe than something.

Speaker 1 (47:34):
You know, there's pros and cons with everything. You're giving
up something to get a benefit of something, and it's
an individual decision, but that's a decision that our team
has gone with and and we you know, not to
be like, oh, we're right, but we talked to we've
trained with some military units that that Yeah, they taught

(47:57):
us the medical stuff and we actually we went to
we did some training with them last month and that
specific question came up. One of my medics asked him, Hey,
what do you think about this, and he was like, oh, absolutely.
We tell all our handlers that have the dog have
their own kid. So it was kind of like affirming, yeah,
like okay, we're not complete idiots, No, not at all.

Speaker 3 (48:16):
What is one of the most.

Speaker 2 (48:18):
I mean, you mentioned a couple of the situations you've
been in, But what is one of the most challenging
situations you've faced on duty with your K nine.

Speaker 1 (48:26):
It's usually those those standoffs I've been involved in several
are been there for several of those suicidal people that
and that we're trying to end it as peacefully as possible.

Speaker 3 (48:39):
Have you ever had one of your dogs get hurt?

Speaker 1 (48:41):
Oh, I've been so lucky. No. No, And honestly, that
goes a lot to deploying them responsibly. I know there's
no guarantee, there's no way we can guarantee that this
dog isn't going to get shot. But there's some I
see some departments in the way they use their dog.
It just doesn't make any sense to me. To me,
it's like it needs to be a symbiotic relationship. The

(49:01):
dog is faster than us. The dog is keeping us safe.
It's screwing with the bad guys. Doodle loop his brain.
You know, if if we come into a room with
a dog, you know, his his brain has to process
all that like, oh there's a dog, Oh there's a
person with a gun, Like then they have to make
a decision and and by then the dog's already closed
half or more of the distance. You know, But if I,

(49:24):
just if I just deploy that dog recklessly, I'm gonna
get him hurt because he can't protect himself from lethal force.
He needs us for that. So so I don't know,
you know, it may just be it may be luck,
it may be God, it may be we just we've
just been smart. But we try our best to make
sure to mitigate any dangers to that dog before we
use him.

Speaker 2 (49:44):
I'd have to guess, if you've been doing it for
this long, it's probably not all luck. Hopefully you're probably
doing it responsibly. What would you say? Some of the
the biggest misconceptions are are most surprising things people probably
don't realize when they when we talk about working with

(50:07):
tactical canines.

Speaker 1 (50:09):
I think the biggest misconception is is kind of hinted
at it earlier with the use of force. I think
most people think like, oh, man, you guys are you're
just biting everybody, or that's barbaric, or you know, it's
just is that necessary? But in my in my experience
at least, it's it's been the exact opposite. It's it's
more of a deterrent than anything. And yes, there are

(50:30):
people that that we actually have to use the dog with,
but it's it's way better than the alternative, you.

Speaker 2 (50:36):
Know, so I'd have to assume too, there's probably some
people out there that are like, oh, the dogs, Like
do the dogs really like doing that?

Speaker 3 (50:42):
Like what's there?

Speaker 1 (50:43):
Oh? Yeah, that is a misconception. Yeah, there's some people, yeah,
that think that what we you know, that we're abusing
the dogs, or that we're forcing these dogs to do stuff,
and that goes that goes back to that breed. These
dogs they want to work, they need they need some
kind of stimulation like that. So I can say, you know,
going from no experience with really with dogs and going

(51:06):
straight into the canon unit and just my eyes were open.
It was like, oh my god, that this dog. He
doesn't want to go home. He wants to go to
work because this is the best part of his day.
He hates it when he goes home. He just wants
to be here doing this stuff. So yeah, the dogs
love it. They absolutely love it, and you know, they
can't conceptualize it. They don't know that, hey, this is

(51:28):
this is us going after bad people just to them.
It's just all a game, right, you know, they're just
having fun.

Speaker 2 (51:34):
It's work and they're out with their uncles, their uncles
and their dad. Like you said, do you have any
women on the swat team or is it all men
on the swat team?

Speaker 1 (51:43):
Currently? It's all men. Okay, there are two female handlers
at our apartment in the canon unit.

Speaker 3 (51:48):
Okay. Cool.

Speaker 2 (51:50):
One thing that you had talked about when you were
just talking about it was deploying your dogs responsibly and
that just sending them in almost I don't want to say,
like a suicide mission, but the men without the humans
that have a lethal force. I feel like that's something
that you have focused on with your company. Righteous Tactics.
Tell us a little bit about that.

Speaker 1 (52:11):
Yeah, so.

Speaker 3 (52:13):
Drink break it.

Speaker 1 (52:16):
I started the company last year in twenty twenty four.
I knew I wanted to do something when I left
the department whenever I retire, and I was like, I know,
I want to train dogs. But for the longest time,
I didn't really know what that would be. You know,
there's so many dog trainers out there. And then as
we as this program grew, I realized, Okay, not many
people are teaching this, so maybe maybe that could be

(52:38):
my niche maybe that's what I can focus on. That way,
I don't have to compete with, you know, thousands of
other people, because there's tons of people that teach obedience,
and most of them you don't even have to be
police to teach that, you know. So I went to
a class, a SWAT team leader class last year and
and there were there were a bunch of canines that
were killed in the line of duty last year leading

(52:58):
up to this. But I remember reading the stories and
listening to some of the debriefs and hearing how these
people are using their dogs, you know. And this is
it's hard to say this because people get mad, and
I've gotten I've pissed people off saying these things before,
but I don't know any other way to say it,

(53:19):
Like that dog didn't need to die, like the way
you guys use that dog got that dog killed. Now,
that dog may have died no matter what. But if
you send a dog into a room by himself, what
do you think is going to happen? That guy's got
a gun. Now, the argument that people will make is, well,
that dog said our lives because he told us that
there was someone in that room with a gun, and

(53:40):
that is true. They did determine that. But I guess
I encourage people to think of, like, let's think outside
the box here for a second. If time is on
our side, Like this isn't a hostage rescue situation, and
if it was, we probably wouldn't be using a dog anyway,
because the dog would probably bite the hostage. But if
time is on our side, and we know, hey, there's

(54:01):
there's a likelihood that someone is in this building and
they're violent, do we have other tools or their other
options to try to determine if someone else is in
there other than using the dog as a canary. Our team,
we use drones, some teams that have robots. There's other
ways that we can possibly like probe this area rather
than sacrificing a dog. So I'm at this class and

(54:24):
I'm just hearing, you know, I'm hearing how that some
of these teams are using their dogs, and I'm getting angry,
and I'm thinking about some of these dogs that have
died already this year. And I get home and I
just decided I need to just I just need to start.
I don't need to wait till I retire. I need
to start this company now and maybe it'll catch on,
maybe it won't. But I can't, just like I can't

(54:45):
just keep sitting here watching people use their dogs like this,
especially if it's just because they haven't thought of it
another way. And I think that's what a lot of
it is. I don't think anyone thinks to themselves, I
want to get my dog killed.

Speaker 3 (54:55):
You don't know what, You don't know exactly, and they.

Speaker 1 (54:57):
And some people just hadn't thought of it that way.
And honestly, I to be fair, originally I hadn't thought
of it that way either. But a good example would
be I believe it was Nebraska. There was a swap
call out where the man was inside. They weren't sure
where he was, but he ended up being in the basement.
So they sent the dog in to the house by
himself with no officers, and of course the dog got

(55:20):
shot and killed, and then they confirmed, okay, he's in
the basement, and then the police department used I think
they used the fire department to flood the basement to
get this guy to come out and surrender, but that
dog died, and I don't know, I just seems like
there could have been another way to do that.

Speaker 2 (55:38):
Robots like you said, or drones like those kinds of interesting.
And so you are using training tactics that say, hey,
let's go as a unit rather than or the other
alternatives of figuring out what's going on, rather than just
sending your dog in.

Speaker 1 (55:54):
Yeah, so I guess the company has like three facets.
I would say that we focus on people that want
to integrate their dogs into a tactical into a tactical team,
and they don't know how, Like, hey, how do you
guys get the dog to understand who is part of
the team and who isn't. We need to help with that,
so we can help. We can help teach dogs how
to seamlessly integrate with that team. The other facet is

(56:18):
I use a lot of PowerPoint and body cam footage
from the mistakes that we've made over the years to
help like kind of illustrate, Hey, this is this was
a mistake. We didn't think of it beforehand. This is
the lesson we learned. Now you can learn that lesson
not without having to do it the hard way like
we did. And then educate them on ways to use

(56:39):
these dogs, like how can we deploy the dog in
a way that's going to keep them as safe as
possible and keep us because that keeps us safe as possible.
You know, the and one of my videos I talk
about it too, the if I know that there's a
guy in this room and he's and he's got a gun,
Like let's say he shot his wife and he's helment,
I'm not going to jail today. If I send that
dog in there and dog dies, I still have like,

(57:02):
we still got to go get that guy. At some point.
Nothing has changed except we've lost a dog. So what
makes more sense going in that room by ourselves, or
going in that room simultaneously with the dog, or or
maybe there's another way to do it. I don't know,
but that makes sense. But sending the dog by himself
is definitely not the answer. No, at least not to me.

Speaker 3 (57:19):
No, not at all.

Speaker 1 (57:20):
So we teach that, and then we also teach medical
like so how to actually do interventions and save that
dog's life if if they do get hurt.

Speaker 2 (57:28):
I think that's amazing and like a really important part
of what you do, which is in the line of duty,
being able to do a place of tourniquet or do decompression,
and that can save the pets life.

Speaker 1 (57:41):
Yeah, absolutely, So how.

Speaker 2 (57:43):
Do you you work with a human medic to teach
guys that?

Speaker 1 (57:46):
Yeah, so we've got several guys on our team that
have gone through medic school. They've gone to the our
city's fired Department academy and they're full medics. So that's
how the medical program started. Originally it was just humans,
but at least for our team. And then once I
started around company, one of the medics came up to

(58:07):
me and he said, Hey, have you thought about teaching
medical for the dogs? And I said, well, I hadn't,
but that does sound like a good idea. And then
he just started brainstorming with me, like telling me ideas
things that he was thinking about. And at that point
he had gone to a couple of different canine combat
medical schools, so he had a wealth of knowledge and
he was like, on our operations, he was the lead

(58:27):
medic for the dogs if any of the dogs went down,
and at that point, none of my dogs had gotten hurt,
but he had he had to do. He had to
administer real life IV several times on different call outs
just because the weather was so hot. Yeah. So's he's
just he's great. He's so knowledgeable and he's so forward thinking.
So he starts telling me all these ideas, like, hey,

(58:48):
you know, there's classes out there right now, but no one,
like there's plenty of knowledge out there, like people with
more knowledge than I have. This is him talking, but
no one has a really great way to practice it
right now, Like they just have stuffed animals. You know,
some some schools may have access to cadaver dogs or
something like that, but no one is like really giving

(59:09):
people repeatable repetitions to like get muscle memory on this stuff. Yeah,
and he started coming at me with all these different
ideas on how to like create that that type of environment,
and then and then he brought it to the next level.
He said, Okay, so we start in the classroom, we
teach them the skills. They understand it like cognitively, but
then then they start going hands on, and then once

(59:30):
they start getting that practice, then we start adding stress
to it. So because it's it's a big difference between
doing it, yes, or on a stuffed animal in the classroom.
Now you're working on a dog that is moving even
around and you are stressed as well. So it's it's
been great.

Speaker 3 (59:47):
That's kind of like going to bet school.

Speaker 2 (59:49):
Honestly, you know, we learn how to do surgery on
cadavers or like we intubate stuffed animals, and then we
get out into the real world and it's like, holy smokes,
it's much different, way different. Like Fluffy's mom is kinda
is scary, and you know, this dog's not doing well
under anesthesia. So yeah, it's it's not the exact same,
but I can understand.

Speaker 1 (01:00:07):
That, oh yeah, for sure.

Speaker 2 (01:00:10):
And it's lucky that you've never really had to you know,
you have not personally had any dogs hurt in the
line of yet not yet, thankfully.

Speaker 3 (01:00:16):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:00:17):
How would you describe in three words the bond between
a handler and his or hurricaneine?

Speaker 3 (01:00:27):
You can use more than three people.

Speaker 1 (01:00:28):
I think it It might change based on the experiences
of each handling each dog. For me, for instance, Duke
Duke wasn't even my dog to begin with. He was
my friend's dogs. So when I got him, I mean
I didn't mistreat him by any means, but I didn't
really feel bonded with him at first. But then within

(01:00:50):
you know, within I think two or three weeks, we've
been shot at and then just a bunch of critical
incidents that together, one of them, we were completely this
may this may have to go into a full story
to understand it, but we ended up covered in human feces,
like me and the dog completely covered head to toe

(01:01:10):
and we're having to get like washed down by the fire.
It ended up being a mentally ill person who had
just threatened to go into a business and kill everybody
in that business. So police obviously got called out and
then when when the patrol got there, he had a gun,
so they got him contained. So they brought us out

(01:01:31):
there to try to to try to diffuse the situation.
And he was homeless, and he was in a homeless
like I guess like his homeless camp area, but he
had positioned himself purposely into like he he had just
been using this one area to go to the bathroom
for I don't know how many weeks, but it was
just it was just a basically a latrine and he

(01:01:52):
had positioned himself in that and none of us knew
it at the time, like from a distance, it just
looked like mud. But when we ended up having to
go go get him, it was it's when we found
out that it was facy, so wow, and he and
he had shot at us too, So going through those
experiences with Duke like that bond was strong. Yeah, I
mean I had a hard time. I ended up giving

(01:02:12):
that dog back to the handler when he retired, and
that was hard because I really loved him.

Speaker 3 (01:02:16):
I guess i'd have to imagine that.

Speaker 2 (01:02:18):
You know, we all love our pets, but I go
to work every day and they sit at home on
the couch like a little vegetables. Yeah, living the dream life.
I mean, you go to work every single day. I
can't imagine that bond must be like you know each
other like the back of your hands.

Speaker 1 (01:02:32):
So yeah, we see each other more than more then
I see my wife and kids. So sure, yeah, it's
it's a strong bond.

Speaker 3 (01:02:37):
It's really special.

Speaker 2 (01:02:39):
Any other crazy stories from your time on duty.

Speaker 1 (01:02:46):
There's there's there's quite a few. Let's see. I'll go
back to it with Chaos because he was my first
and and we had some good times. So there was
one night where we were searching a rest that had
been burglarized, and patrol when they got there, they saw
people inside, so they immediately called him for canine and
they set up a perimeter. So Chaos and I got

(01:03:09):
there and we start searching systematically through the restaurant. And
I didn't know it at the time, but this this
burglar had brought this is like three in the morning.
They brought their child with them on the on the
whatever you want to call it, the crime, and they
left them in their car in the parking lot. Now
at this time, I don't I don't know if I know,

(01:03:30):
I didn't know, but I don't know if patrol had
even realized that there was a kid in the car yet, Like,
I don't know if anyone had got into that vehicle yet.
They were all still fixated on the building. So so
I searched the building and it's clear, and I'm like, okay,
did we miss him? And Patrol was adamant, No, we
saw him in there, and we surrounded this place. We
didn't miss him, Like he didn't get out, so he's

(01:03:51):
in there. Like okay, well that would what I How
terrible would that be? I say, hey, the restaurant's clear,
and then the owner comes in in the morning and
the guy is still I wouldn't be good. So I'm like,
all right, let me let me think here, what did
I miss? Where else could we search? And then I
realized I haven't searched the shed yet. There's a shed
in the back of the restaurant. So I go over

(01:04:12):
to the shed and I don't I don't know if
it's because I was tired, surely, I don't think I
was being complacent, but I really didn't think he was
going to be in there. And I opened the shed
and he is in there, and he's got a big
butcher knife that he took from the restaurant and he's
got it like as I slide the door open to

(01:04:33):
the shed, he's like up like this, and I had Chaos,
and Chaos didn't like he didn't need me to tell
him what to do. So, I mean, as soon Chaos
knew he was already in there. When I look back
on it, I was like, Okay, he was giving me
indication that there was human odor there. So Chaos was
anticipating someone there. So as soon as that shed opened,
Chaos was was going in. So Chaos bit the guy

(01:04:54):
before he could do anything with that knife. And I
just remember the guy like from the pain, just like
dropping the knife. Wow. Once again, probably probably saved his
life because as I was processing knife, what do you
think I'm gonna do. I'm not gonna let this guy
stab me. I'm gonna pull my gun out and probably
have to shoot this guy because we were I mean
we were like face to face. I mean he was
tucked in the shed, but the shed was full of stuff,
so he like got in there and then slid the

(01:05:15):
door shut when he ran for the treal so I
opened the door and he's like right there.

Speaker 3 (01:05:20):
With a knife waiting for you, knife waiting for me.

Speaker 1 (01:05:23):
So of course, you know, he gets dog a bit
and we get him in custody. And what I did
not realize at the time was that there was his
child was in the car, and I don't know if
they could see everything, but they they knew something, you know,
they knew their dad got arrested at least, and it
was just I remember my heart like breaking, like what
one who does that? Like you're a criminal to begin with,

(01:05:44):
why are you doing this to begin with? But why
would like that's a whole other level. You're bringing your
child with you, So you know, this kid was scared, rightfully, so,
and I remember going to my I remember going to
my police car and I had a lunch packed and
I just I didn't really didn't know what else to do,
you know. So I got grabbed my lunch and I
I took it to the kid and I was like,
are you hungry? Do you want anything to eat? And
I gave him my sandwich and my food and and

(01:06:06):
then I don't remember if they were able to get
someone else to come and get the child or if
it just went if like DCS came out there, child
services to get the child.

Speaker 3 (01:06:15):
But heartbreaking, Yeah, it was.

Speaker 1 (01:06:16):
It was. It was just a really like a lot
in a short amount of time. Like I just went
from hey, this, this is clear, there's nothing in here
to Oh I almost got stabbed and we caught the guy. Oh,
and here's this child.

Speaker 2 (01:06:28):
Yeah, no kidding, I'm sure it's a lot to digest. Yeah,
you mentioned that Chaos was sniffing at the shed, like
he knew there was human odor. Are they I have
to imagine they can like track down.

Speaker 1 (01:06:39):
Yeah, so Chaos, Chaos was a dual purpose dog. And
what I mean by that is he wasn't just for apprehension.
He was also a drug dog. So I've worked two
dogs that were dual purpose like that. My first and
second dog were both drug dogs, Okay, as well as apprehension.
So yeah, chaos could track. Now we were doing a

(01:07:00):
building search, so we weren't actually doing a track. But
you know, looking back on it, I remember like my
prefhel vision like picked up on it, and I just didn't.
It just didn't register. I don't know if I was
just tired or I just really thought the guy went
there and I was being complacent. But looking back on it,
he gave little indications like, you know, like there's something here,
you know, whether it was a shot or not. He

(01:07:20):
was in the odor of a human and I should
have I should have picked up on that.

Speaker 2 (01:07:24):
Interesting. Yeah, I have another maybe random question. You might
not know the answer to this. The dogs at the
airport that are sniffing are they sniffing for? What are
they sniffing for?

Speaker 1 (01:07:34):
I believe if they should be sniffing for bombs? Okay,
those are usually bomb dogs.

Speaker 2 (01:07:38):
Okay, that's what I thought. And the dogs on the
police force aren't necessarily bomb sniffing dogs. They're more like apprehension.

Speaker 1 (01:07:44):
It's going to depend on the agency. But so our
our agency has a bomb squad, okay, and they have
dogs that are just bomb dogs. And then we have
like drug units that have dogs that are just drug dogs,
but then the canine unit has the dual purpose dogs.
So you know, I think I think it started in
probably in the nineties, it was like, well, what how
what other ways can we maximize the efficiency of justifying

(01:08:08):
paying all this money for these dogs, Like we don't
just need them for apprehension, so and and honestly, most
of the dogs really enjoy it anyway, Like they really
love Like I said, they like they like to work,
and there's not always bad guys to go after. So yeah,
if you can dual purpose them, it gives them another outlet,
another thing to do. So the canine unit itself, most
of those dogs are either cross trained with criminal apprehension

(01:08:30):
and narconic detection or criminal apprehension and bomb detection.

Speaker 3 (01:08:33):
Got it?

Speaker 2 (01:08:33):
Okay, that makes total sense. Man, these dogs are impressive,
aren't they. Well, thank you so much for coming in.
I feel like this has been really informative, and my
goal from this episode was just to let the audience
hear a little bit more about what it looks like.
And I think, you know, I barely have an idea
of what all that you guys do, and I think

(01:08:54):
it's really amazing work.

Speaker 3 (01:08:56):
And so thank you, Yeah, thank you.

Speaker 2 (01:09:00):
How if people want to get in touch with you?
What is what are your handles? What's your website?

Speaker 1 (01:09:05):
Yeah at Righteous Tactics is my Instagram handle I've got.
At this point, I think I'm on all the socials,
but that seems to be the one that gets the
most traction, so I post mostly there. The website is
Wwwrighteous Tactics dot com.

Speaker 2 (01:09:19):
Okay, so pretty easy to find you then awesome and then,
as always, if you guys have any questions for me comments,
let me know what you thought of today's episode. You
can find me on Instagram at doctor Josievett. And as always,
please like, rate, review, subscribe, give us five stars, and
we will see you next week.

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Host

Bobby Bones

Popular Podcasts

40s and Free Agents: NFL Draft Season

Dateline NBC

The Bobby Bones Show

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}SWAT Officer Steve Holland & His K-9 Alpha’s Wildest Stories From The Front Lines