Special Guest: Janeen Baggette from K9s for Freedom

This week, I’m joined by Janeen Baggette, a Gulf War combat veteran, retired federal law enforcement officer, and founder of K9s for Freedom.

These aren’t ordinary therapy dogs—they’re highly trained canines certified to assist in critical incident response, search and rescue, and even combating child trafficking. Janine shares her journey, the science behind these exceptional dogs, and how they’re transforming the mental health and lives of first responders.

📍 Resources & Contact Info:
🌐 Learn more at K9s for Freedom
📧 Contact Janeen: info@k9sforfreedom.org

Transcript

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hey everybody welcome back to the Doctor Burger podcast I'm your host Jesse Burger today I have an amazing guest she is not only a combat veteran she is also a law enforcement veteran who has now begun a non profit and a for profit service where she trains canines to be critical incident response dogs we're not talking your well behaved golden retriever who throws on a vest and walks into a critical incident we are talking a highly trained canine who was able to pass certifications and threshold set by not just the federal government but by Janine herself these dogs sometimes have multiple tasks from search and rescue and recovery to understanding stress and knowing how to provide the support and individual needs Janine's gonna share stories about first responders who aren't really dog people who have come up to her and have thanked her for bringing her canine 2 1 of their critical Incident response debriefings to help reduce their stress because after all it is stress especially the stress of being a first responder that is taking a toll on our nation's heroes without further ado let's get into the interview okay so um my name is Janine Baggett um I am um a combat veteran from the first Gulf War so Desert Shield Desert Storm I spent a total of nine years both active duty and reserve and I was an airvac medic during Desert Storm we um were stationed uh near Iraq so I was up in the northern border in in kkmc got out of the military after that um went into law enforcement first started out in the correction side of things on the civilian side then got into federal law enforcement and I actually worked up in Washington state at the Navy base Brimmerton so very familiar with um dealing with the military other than being in the military or even working on the civilian side uh I got out of doing federal work when I moved to Texas because uh we're having some family issues mom was having some health issues and stuff I moved to Texas became a cop here uh in that time frame I had been doing search and rescue and other types of canine work and then got full hands on within moving from California to Washington to um to Texas I started out on the search and rescue side and then got into the narcotics explosives I'm even doing things like water leak detection work now with some of the dogs uh we're getting into the child trafficking side of the house in regards to detecting the um cortisol levels adrenaline levels in people and taking it and spinning a little bit of search and rescue a little bit of building searches that a uh patrol dog might do or will do and then the stress hormones kind of meld them together and that's why we're we're getting into the child trafficking side of the house as well so we're doing a lot we're on the cutting edge I've been working the um cortisol and adrenaline now for about three to four years and developing that process and so now that I am retired out of law enforcement I have decided to uh get this non profit going and I don't know if you want me to jump into that or or or what yeah no let's um let's talk a little bit so I had a I had a question so your search and rescue work I know that was pretty extensive so what types of dogs did you work with with search and rescue uh breed wise or the specialties that we use the dogs for uh let's do both okay so I uh started out with an Australian Shepherd I've had a lot of luck with Australian shepherds it's a great breed it's a nice size that if you're in the back hills of this year in Nevada mountains I can actually throw that dog up over my shoulder on top of my pack and I can carry that dog out if I needed to uh but I've worked uh Belgian Malinois Labradors I've helped train and or train for other people different breeds bloodhounds um German shepherds um giant schnauzers German shorthaired pointers a menagerie of breeds what I actually certified in was uh area search wilderness type areas I did cadaver land cadaver urban disaster so basic urban disaster avalanche trying to think of what else I didn't certify in it but I've done tracking and trailing uh I've actually uh in a good way cheated on a couple area search tests because the tests were supposed to be X amount of time frame and luckily my dog cut a track even though we weren't certified in it he knew how to run a track and so um I remember my first test we did as a 40 acre test and he just happened to track the person cut the you know cross the person's track and a 40 acre test you have two hours to find the one person that you know is somewhere out there in the 40 acres and I think it took me less than 10 minutes from start to find uh yeah so that's impressive yeah that's yeah yeah no I was I was uh extremely pleased with my boy so um yeah so those are the things I've certified in in regards to the search and rescue side but I've certified both ATF and nationally in both um it will for explosives and then the narcotics side I have I've worked narcotics dogs as well the only thing that I didn't certify in myself because I was never in the position to um be asked to is the dual purpose dog and that's never been my forte anyway because I think it takes more finesse and a lot more training and education to teach a dog to detect an odor versus the excitement and um I don't know craziness of of doing a um patrol dog that's gonna go out and bite someone so and less liability so right yeah my short time with search and rescue I've just been thoroughly impressed with the the dogs that we have I primarily work with the cadaver dogs um but they they are sometimes um I know Scully for example I believe she's also tracking um just thoroughly impressive I mean I've seen her detect evidence just across a field um and it's it's definitely impressive so when did you start K Nines for freedom I started it I started doing all the non profit paperwork probably I remember I sometime in 2,011 um in 2,012 was when I got my official IRS status right after that I went and got my state um non profit status so I have both and um since then I've also started a for profit business which is canine peak performance and I assist people with other other things whether or not it be pet stuff or detection work or what not but the um the non profit side I started off doing handicapped service dogs for first responders and unfortunately found out very quickly that that is a difficult route to take I've talked to a number of non profits especially those that work with first responders or specifically uh veterans and they all agree um it's very difficult uh it's a struggle um and I just wanted more I wanted to help more people knowing that I had both sides of the house I had the you know the veteran side and the law enforcement side I wanted to be able to do more and so my organization came up with this type of dog I'm the first organization to come up with this I'm the first organization to come up with a national certification cause my certification has been um I think it's three years old now three going on four years old now and there are a couple other organizations out there now that do a certification for police canines for doing their version of whatever they call it therapy dog support dog uh emotional support dog whatever I'm not a fan of any of those connotations because most cops uh probably 99% of all veterans take that as a weakness and that's just not something that that they want to have anything affiliated with them so I came up with the Critical Incident Response Team canine as it's been dubbed uh I've trademarked the name I've trademarked the logo and reason being is it sounds serious because it is a lot of people think that it's oh it's just fluff it's just petting a dog and no that that might be part of it for some people but that's not all of it but then too most cops and most veterans love acronyms so if you can say hey do we have any cert canines available that's gonna sound a lot better across the board across the radio across you know whatever you're talking through then hey where's our therapy dog you know kind of thing it's not gonna go over as well if you do something like that um and these are these are true police canines or you know if they're paired with a fire department it's an actual agency canine it's not just the the the pet that somebody decided to bring to work that day there is criteria that you have to meet there's prerequisites that both the dog and the handler have to meet there is um health standards for the dog there are behaviour standards there's in depth training that are requirements for you even to register to take the test one of which is you have to be an agency representative you can't be a contractor of you can't be you know a private organization you've got to have um a direct affiliation uh as I call it a card carrying member of that agency I don't care if you're paid or not I don't care if you're sworn or not that part doesn't matter but if you have a card carrying you know ID person you know that the backgrounds been done you know that you're not dealing with a convicted felon or a pedophile you know that you have someone who has character and ethics morals and values you add the training to them they're gonna want to get involved with this because you know this is this is not something that can be mandated on someone they've got to be asked to do it as a general rule and nine times out of 10 the people that are reaching out to me from those agencies are the ones that end up getting the dog because they're the ones who've done the homework they've done the leg work to get the information and obviously they're interested and then from there the um the the the industry standard for any police canine has already been mandated by FLSA which is the Fair Labor Standards Act so the federal governments already stated across the board police canines fire canines doesn't matter if you are a municipality owned dog um there are certain requirements that you must meet and none of these and and trust me I I mean no disrespect to these other organizations but you you don't even come close to what we have to do for the liability side of things um you know when when cause every dog can bite I don't care if it's a a very sweet dog or it's an intentional bite because it's a dual purpose um patrol dog from a police department all dogs can bite so you have to mitigate that liability at all costs without causing more problems to the dog working and so we specifically look at these dogs to understand the job be able to sustain the dog these dogs are doing a hell of a lot more for a hell of a lot longer time frame than any of these police canines are doing you don't purposefully allow these dogs to go into a large group of people where there's you know others walking all over the place because the liability is so big these dogs typically don't have a whole lot of contact with the general public and if they do have contact with the general public it's typically at a distance if they're doing a demo so if they're doing a bite work demo obviously people are not going to be anywhere close to that dog well our dogs are meant to be purposefully pet so you have to absolutely know the temperament and training of this dog and that they can handle all these crazy situations that they could possibly be put in and so most of the time I can I can state easily our dogs have 95% safer temperaments than the police the the other police canines and and I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that ours we have to because we're exposing them to community members and groups of people in a closer proximity purposely allowing people to pet them than what these other dogs are doing so we've gotta we've gotta be um looking out for the possibilities of anything going wrong and mitigating it where we can yeah I know you and I talked um based on what you explained to me as relates to the training that these dogs go through they are not therapy dogs they are more than that they are so they they provide the value of a therapy therapy dog on top of everything else in terms of training cause I've seen therapy dogs who just can't sit they don't know how to sit right but they're you know they're social and I think that is I think therapy dog and social are two different things but the public doesn't really know that right and with your critics and response I think being in the center of chaos and being okay with a person coming up to you to pet you to unwind and take a moment is a lot to ask of a dog who hasn't been trained and that I I think is a space that no one really considered and I think first responders alike are now seeing how beneficial it is to have this you know critical incident response area where you have you know like the agency social worker who's there who's you know you know sit down unwind distress and then you have this amazing dog who's able to sense your stress level who's able to be okay in the chaos and still provide you support yeah so I love that so if you could we can go to you as well versus you yeah you're not wanting anyone to see that you're gonna go talk to a therapist or talk to a practitioner of whatever level will come to you and a lot of times what we're seeing across the border of agencies is you have a person you may they may not even be on your radar in regards to having an issue and literally while I was pairing a dog the the new handler was getting phone calls saying hey are you gonna be in I need me some wheel time and wheel's the name of the dog uh yeah this is not anyone that was on the radar right and then what we call it in law enforcement is a spontaneous utterance you relax to a point where things just start coming out your mouth which is great because then when you let out a little bit of maybe what's on your mind we might then be able to refer to other things or maybe it's you just need someone to talk to and if that dog can be that bridge to start that conversation I mean what more could you ask for you're not going to them they're actually coming to you yeah a little gateway to a little gateway to a positive mental health yeah yeah no I love that um I didn't wanna talk a little bit about the handlers because the handlers are these card carrying members within the agency and that could sometimes mean police officer or a firefighter so what does the handler have to do I don't want to give away any like secret sauce but like the training that your dogs go through based on what you've told me is phenomenal I can't think of a single agency that provides what they call therapy dog that goes that's a canine that's a canine therapy dog um but the handlers such how you kind of go through the handler training I think is also very unique and speaks volumes to your experience in this area so if you want to talk a little bit about what the handlers go through and how you how you approve I guess um or go through that selection sure nine times out of 10 like we were talking before the agency just basically picks the person who's been doing all that homework there has been occasion and and it's completely up to the agency because once the dog goes to them they then own the dog um but they'll go through an interview process maybe with their own agency to see who wants to be the canine handler and then they pick however they pick but from there I'm giving them a ton of homework I'm giving them a ton of different articles and things to read even before I get there uh we talk all the time here's the good bad and the ugly about this dog because we all have it I don't care if you're human I don't care if you're a dog there's always some things about you that people like and people don't like so much it is what it is so we start talking about that we educate them on much less the agency on this is how you get prepared for this dog to come to you now for the law enforcement side and the fire side it's pretty easy to give them a list of these are the things you must do because No. 1 my dogs go as professional canines to these agencies so the federal government has already mandated what they have to do and so I send them FOP is a great organization for law enforcement and they did a letter I can't remember when it's dated but I have a copy of it and I send that to the agencies about these are the things you must do for the dog and the handler and we're we're willing to tweak that a little bit but in general you've got to get prepared the agency has to have a vehicle assigned to that dog and handler you've got to be prepared to have either a um crush resistant crate or an actual canine insert just depends on the agency if they already have a car that's available Yay if not you know we we figure out a way to make it work um there's a lot of other things that go into that but we we um we do a lot of training ahead of time I give them a lot of things to read up on the um the moment that we schedule for me to uh bring the dog to them I'm spending five days with them and these are 10 to 12 hour days as a general rule and all we're doing is training they have been put you know taken away from their regular assignment and we're training we're going out in the world we're doing stuff this is what you do here this is how you do and it's every day all day for five days then to bond and and um get used to each other and depending on if there's other teams in the area Kansas I have soon to be eight dogs uh in the Kansas City metroplex so both on the Missouri and the Kansas side they all train together and it's that type of a canine training resource that they can also um jump into to to ask questions I'm a phone call away I told them until you know the the dog passes away or you give it back I'm a phone call away if you have a problem you have a question you have a concern call me and so I'm always available that's at no added cost in regards to all of that um and we can get into the cost of all of this if that's what you want to do but um in general there's also then prerequisites that they have to come up with their certificates to submit to take the national test now the national test is a third party test it's not under my organization it's under airy which is the alliance for Emergency Response Instructor and examiners they're a U s based out of Texas U s based uh first responder agency certifying body for both human emergency response and canine emergency response search and rescue and then they've now added mine so you it's not open to the general public so they do the uh certification and then it's good for a year but we do a conference every year and during that conference we do the we do the testing and so there's that there's training with each other there's calling me if you need me to come up then I'll go up and I'll help or you can come down to where I'm at and and we can we can do some training there so that is always going to be uh an opportunity for anyone to take advantage of that has one of my dogs we also have dogs that come through the conference and that certify that are not my dogs they didn't come from my program but they're with agencies that's perfectly fine too whether or not I trained the dog or the or the agency got the dog for me as long as it's a agency dog we'll let it come to the um conference and we'll let it certify as long as they've got all their prerequisites done yeah see just that in itself just the process of just the handler is so much more extensive than what I've seen you did send me some articles which I took a bunch of notes and I'll be publishing in the episode associated um blog post but the amount of research that has gone into the benefits of these dogs and the current I just for I guess I'll just call it what it is the crisis that we're seeing amongst law enforcement I think it's needed so much more now than ever before so I'm curious as to kind of the night and day transition that we've talked about once one of your dogs is introduced to an agency so if you wanna go a little bit into that like the changes that you've seen sure sure um typically what it comes down to is let's say I get a phone call from someone within the agency wanting to get a dog nine times out of 10 it's a lower level person um that is on a uh crisis response team a wellness team a mental health team depending on what that agency has from there they have to put together a presentation or something to sell the administrators on to get the dog onto their agency that's typically our hardest problem is selling it to the administrators and nine times out of 10 even if they balked at it when they get it on board they can immediately see the difference um with with their people and what I try and tell these administrators because I'll meet with them if they wanna meet with me is you have got to show your people that you care about them as an individual because you're losing your people law enforcement as a whole we don't have a recruiting problem we have a retention problem and from what I'm understanding by everything I've read on the military they've got it even worse it's now both it's both recruiting and retention so law enforcement's at critical mass right now we don't have enough to cover the jurisdictions that we are supposed to be covering and with that being said you have the politicians at the top of most of these agencies and some of them are very good people and there is probably a a small percentage that I could actually call a true leader but unfortunately the majority of them are only administrators and politicians and you can't get them to budge because whatever they either don't believe in mental health work that's not the way it's been done um whatever their excuses and when we do get a dog on board it's absolutely mind blowing to see people turn into small children I mean I'm talking a cop with the with with 15 years on board that is like wait what I can pet this dog yes and you will see them in uniform and everything like lay down fall to the ground almost and start rolling around with this dog and they just kind of let loose and allow their body to somewhat relax even if it's just for a couple minutes it's it's a release that the body's been craving but because of our jobs we're not allowed to because you don't wanna you see things all the time at work that you wish you never had you can't say anything about it because depending on the environment that you work in whether or not it's healthy or toxic you may not be able to reach out to someone and just say you know that really bothered me when we had to go to this call and you know whatever it was something about a small child or whatever and so it's like okay just tamp that down well then you go home and if you have a spouse and you have small children or you have whatever you're irritable you're this you're that you're whatever and then we try and protect those people that we care about by not telling them about what we saw and then that causes a divide between the spouses right and then that causes more tension which is just more of the pounding down of and so when you think about a pressure cooker you think about a water heater it's only so much it can hold until something bad happens and you know yes I know we're just talking about a dog but with that being said when you have an administration and I'm talking whatever management up to the top that's constantly bearing down on you about well you can't do that because that looks bad or you can't do this or don't make that decision until you call a sergeant or you know whatever you're you're taking a piece of that person away because you're now telling them in a roundabout way or a not so direct way that you're too stupid to make a decision on your own I don't trust you to make a decision on your own well how about this goes into back to the another another side of the house the training side how about you give us the training that we need what a concept right you help us you let us ask questions I've worked for agencies you couldn't ask questions if you didn't know you were and I was literally called a stupid can I cuss here yeah uh didn't know I was literally called a stupid fucking bitch literally called it because I asked a question about something I'd worked canine for so long I hadn't done some of these other calls and I hate to say it but the training that I'd gotten from the get go was so bad that I was not sure I did not want to make a mistake but then too I couldn't ask any questions so aren't you shooting yourself in the foot wouldn't you rather have someone ask questions ahead of time and prevent a problem than make a mistake cause a problem and have to fix it so yes we're talking dogs yes we're talking um how we can help these first responders all of us cause I'm still active I'm I'm not working full time anymore but how do we get back to respecting the the cops respecting the firefighters respecting the military members caring about them wanting the best for them and in turn when you show that they then do a better job while they're at work so it's it can either be a vicious circle in a bad way or a self self what is it self fulfilling prophecy if you do it in the correct way you treat people like they're smart you give them the training that they need you help them out you know that there's gonna be good bad days you you know that someone's gonna make a simple mistake and you go what happened okay that just wasn't clear I didn't communicate that with you well enough okay so I get it now no problem just wanted to try and understand let's move forward from here cool versus having to burn them every time they make a small little mistake or or whatever we've got to start taking care of ourselves we've got to start taking care of our peers and we've got to get away from this thin blue line thin red line thin green line whatever it may be because it sounds good and it makes a pretty flag but it's not reality nine times out of 10 on the law enforcement side anyway you see the the um the the the toxic stuff where someone's trying to throw somebody else under the bus so it gets them out of the limelight for whatever reason so anyway I don't no I don't get me going on all of that no I agree I think I think improving overall quality of life and having from the supervisory level and from the decision maker level just showing some level of care especially as it relates to maybe issues with training command and ability to do my job better just show me that you care a little bit and you have faith in me and maybe start with the mental health crisis that we're seeing with law enforcement and with first responders in general yeah um no I think that's amazing and I think that providing a dog that can accomplish all of those things and provide a little peace of mind like my department cares about me they're trying something new and they're trying something that has been effective there's tons of scientific research out there yeah showing the positive effects the cognitive behavioral effects of being in the presence of something like a dog and all the things that happen on a chemical level to improve your overall mood reduce your stress improve quality of life it's like why not apply decades of research to an existing crisis and not just apply it by just putting a dog in that situation but giving this dog amazing training and setting them up for success and then putting them in an environment where they can excel and it's a win win the dog gets love the the people get you know the first responders get some some much needed downtime some unwinding and distressing so they can get back into the fight effectively no I I love it I think it's amazing so let's talk about because I do have a lot of law enforcement on my channel and first responders in general but let's talk about a little bit what they can do so if we have a deputy who's listening to this or federal emergency responder who's listening to this and they wanna present it to their agency what is what do you recommend do they just reach out to you and you send that material how would you like that process to work um yeah I mean they can absolutely reach out to me I've got some of my handlers and and I love them all they've all become family now we've we've we're all one big you know family of of dog people now um they've been great they've put together different Powerpoint presentations and they've been asked to to go out and give presentations to other agencies that are interested I can send information they can put together their own Powerpoint presentation um but we are going to send them facts and information that will help hopefully persuade their administrators because instead of it's here's fluffy the dog that that's gonna be great for the agency it's like okay that well that's all well and good but here's the down and dirty the down and dirty is all about money that's where it all comes down to and the money side of this isn't just about the dog it's about the personnel as a whole so let's say you've got an agency that's losing people like a sieve which most are how much are you having to pay for recruiting background checks and the whole application process to then get to the academy to then get someone to pass who then gets on board in their FTO status who passes FTO status that stays for longer than max 2 years there's your money because that all takes money if you're paying for the academy if you're paying the person while they go through the academy are you putting them in a um an academy type uniform are you paying for all of that are you paying for their equipment you're having to pay the FTO while they're training so that's more money so then that's then you know all these other things there's back fills of people and overtime because you're losing people that's all money that you know is very hard to come by so it's not the fact of just showing them that we would really want this you have to show it as a need the need is we gotta keep our good people and we're not doing it right now or we're trying to do even more to keep people because one thing is not going to fix everything so the dog is not going to be the quick fix for the whole agency but it's a piece of the puzzle and if you start doing what's good to help your personnel you'll have less leave and then what happens with that because I've seen it the last agency I work for people are leaving like it's going out of style because it's extremely toxic people aren't going to apply other than those individuals who are just coming out of the academy who might spend a couple years so they can get a little time under their belt and then they're going to go for greener pastures so you can't put a you can't put a a um a price on 5 10 15 years of experience there's no money you can put on that so you're now exchanging out that experience for a 1 2 3 4 year um person right so there's there's you've got to make it look like a need not a want I mean it is a need I think that's the thing yeah exactly I mean they don't they won't do anything that's not a need right but it depends on that administrator what do they see as a need you're gonna know your administrators a lot better than most anybody else um and you have to gauge that towards those individuals um if you're wanting um you know to put something together absolutely we can help with that whether or not it's you know I can give you one of the power points that my guys use cause they send them to me as well and then we stay up to date on on everything but the biggest thing is um it we need to keep it as a as a peer having an outsider coming in with a dog is going to cause you more liability on a number of levels and because that's one of the excuses that I've heard oh well we have an organization that comes in okay well are these people vetted did you do a full clearance on them do they have a complete background check done do you know if they're a felon or a whatever else um do they have their sieges clearance and if you don't know what that is that's a problem but that's the Criminal Justice Information System and that is a test that law enforcement officers or any law enforcement personnel whether or not you're sworn or unsworn have to take every depending on your agency every couple years which goes directly to the FBI so it's a full background check and it's making sure that you know you you can hear and see some of the information you're gonna come across well these organizations don't have that those that's an actual law right you know there's HIPPA there's the Cleary Act there's the Privacy Act there's the Sieges Act if your people can't can't get around all four of those you shouldn't be asking those non profits in and because it happened in Uvalde and I'll give you a prime example one of my one of my uh dear well she's she's now become a very dear friend but uh a colleague of mine that does something very similar for her agency and she works for a federal agency she responded to Yovaldi her agency who was a large component of what happened there asked her to come and she told me she literally saw these unknown therapy dog people waiting inside the agency to walk through dispatch these are all unknown people with unknown dogs of what their background and training is that's just in that situation then if you remember anything about the um the actual uh things that were going on down there they had all the kids and the teachers segregated in the community center they asked some of those therapy dog people to go inside the community center that's direct evidence right and anything they see in here is considered evidence they had an individual actually go up to a child and this child spontaneously started telling and I won't get into all the details sure but it was graphic because she was in one of the classrooms and was explaining what she saw and what she did to make sure she could get out alive to a random person who happened to just show up with a dog to a random person yeah and that person had no peer support or system training and the dog it was way way beyond its training both the dog freaked out with everything that was going on but the human freaked out and walked away from this child in the midst of her letting loose of of the things that she had seen yeah that's that's the crap that's going on that pisses me off yeah I think it's important that we address mental health issues and and what we know our issues as as it relates to the crisis but we should not be letting our guard down as it relates to the safety to public safety into the mission of the agency so if you wouldn't let me walk in if I just said oh I'm a therapist and I do you wouldn't let me walk through but I have a dog and then you let me through like that to me seems like a huge vulnerability and a huge risk that agencies should be aware of and it's like well there is this organization that exists that has been vetted that goes to the proper chains that works with existing personnel with your agency to match them with a with a dog to then provide that support you don't have to vet their car carrying member you've already vetted them when they were hired right so that's why I love what you're doing that's why it's so different because even with my assistance with the eat and fire and all the um efforts happening right now with all of the agencies federal and local and even um at the individual jurisdiction level there there needs what you're doing it needs to be there but we have to do it safely and securely exactly and and that's a big thing too is you have these organizations that will self deploy and show up for their five minutes of fame or to say oh look I was here send us money yeah kind of stuff there's there's no need for that we so you know yeah and what they don't understand is they've now added themselves to the subpoena list number one for the case they've added themselves to be brought in to tell what they heard okay so you've now put let's say it was an officer that decided to to um express some regrets of having to have dot dot dot maybe they had to take somebody's life and that now becomes part of the court record because you're not covered in the same aspect that I am because of my training and background of not just being a law enforcement officer but of also being a critical incident stress management trained individual and you've now allowed this person the the possibility of being um tried in court yep you know I I think about that just not yeah mm mm especially these days look at what look at who they're throwing into jail or attempting to on the military side some of those stories that I've heard I'm sure you've heard some of them where they're trying to fry a special Forces person and come to find out that wasn't even the person that did it it was somebody else but for whatever reason they were going after that individual and so yeah I don't there's no need for those people to be there now what we can do with those individuals is okay here go out to the community where people are sad and upset because this happened in their community but they're not part of the case please there's not enough of us right so please help us by going and helping them we will take care of those that are within the law enforcement field that are within the criminal justice case because that's my specialty your specialty go to the hospital right and help those guys out there go to let's say they're gonna have a um candlelight vigil go please right yeah that's a public place that anyone can go go there don't go to the places that could affect the case or affect the first responder directly that's that's all I'm asking is stay out of those areas and you know I I'll work with anyone as long as we know who they are I mean and that's two sides of the tape yeah no you're right there's there's two sides of the tape right there's the active incident the active scene and that is where your team is it's a very special niche because you are highly trained and so are these dogs but there is also support required on the other side of that tape and that is where a lot of these other organizations are needed and I I think we have to be very careful of that tape so or blue line if it's a government installation so sure no I love that I think that's I think that's well and hopefully they can start putting together of okay so of these places who's doing a complete background check on these individuals who by name has got a full background check done on them and then those people can be added to a list of you know wherever they're allowed to go um you know I can show up with my with my ID and my badge you know who I am I mean still put us on the list um and then you know we can we can reach out to our teams I've actually already had some of mine reach out and going hey do you know if there's been any request for any of our dogs to go to California and I'm like no not yet they unfortunately they don't know enough about us yet to be on that and that's why you know hopefully putting together a FEMA type team or a national type team to respond to things like New Orleans I know how to keep my mouth shut I know how to be within um a crime scene or in and around those individuals who are working a crime scene um you know wherever it's an actual crime that's where we should be called in at because we're all active and you know we're building enough teams up across the country that that's actually getting to be to a point now where it's going to be feasible where we help each other out we already do that as it is in our own areas but now hopefully we can start putting together and if more agencies come to us with their dogs and they pass this testing I don't care if they're my dogs or not that's not my point the point is is we know who you are and we know that we know your training because you have to submit it to test and then when you test on a yearly basis we know your dog passed right so the the the criteria will all be the same whether or not you got a dog through my organization or you got it some other way and you're wanting to test I've got several dogs they're not my dogs and the agencies got them they see the importance of doing this type of training doing the the certifications and that they're they're sold every year we're we'll research every year we gotta make sure that we you know get our bases covered um and so that's that's uh that's how we do things but you know no we don't just take jobless citizen who wants to be a do gooder this is not an AKC certification this is much more than that I mean AKC has we I mean we use the AKC CGC test but that's just to show that you're progressing in the right direction that's the start that's not the end right you know and and you'll be training for forever so it's not there's never going to be an end to your training and and certification until you know you you then retire or whatever but um yeah um I just read up some place of some agency went out and got a pet smart basic obedience class and a CGC and now it's a therapy dog yeah that's what scares me is that yeah I mean it's good that dog might be great if you take him on walks in your neighborhood but not to respond to anything we have to have that access control it's a part of our security and depth and to play it loose and fast with those things is going to eventually get somebody in trouble or compromise the scope of an investigation yeah so no I think that's great I also so it sounds like you are working as it relates like future goals to have a deployable team to provide ad hoc um we would have to support we would have to do it now but we've got to have we've got to get um some sort of a federal entity to acknowledge that these teams are deployable yeah I'm wondering um I know for California the Emergency Management Department EMD runs and at least I Learned a lot about this when I was going through my EMT course recently is that for like mass casualty incidents when we're setting up triage areas there is an expected area for us as first responders especially providing medical support to be able to go to unwind and it's like their critical incident response area where there's someone that you can talk to and there's refreshments just you know you take a second it's usually off away from everything and putting one of your dogs there I think would be incredible because I know for someone like me not to get like super personal but for someone like me I don't always wanna sit down and talk about my feelings but if you put a dog in front of me I feel so much better without ever having to vocalize or maybe feeling a little bit more comfortable to say you know what I am a little overwhelmed right now I need to take a second in order to be able to do the best job that I can do and continue to help those people out there so yeah I would love to see you guys getting with like urban The Urban Search and rescue is a FEMA funded um you know search and rescue team that they are deployable they do utilize government funds but the people that make up the team are generally it's a collateral duty for firefighters and police officers so I think that like I'm trying to get onto the team out here because it's a collateral right they go in their firefighters during the day but if they need to go to North Carolina or Nepal or you know Jersey or wherever um the golf they can get up and go because there's an Mou with their organization and I know that they're interested in putting a couple of handlers in there but you know they're full time firefighters so right a lot of them are not capable of supporting that initiative but I would love to see that so when they go out they have that internal checks and balances well and then knowing some of these agencies too I mean cause I've not been on a uh FEMA disaster team or a task force but I've been on both a DMAT team and a d Mort team so I'm currently on a d Mort team right um but the nice thing about working under FEMA in regards to the FEMA task forces is that they um will reimburse the agency for the pay of their person being gone right and that is a huge hindrance for some of these smaller agencies because they can't afford to constantly pay someone to be gone they're already in a budget shortfall because they're understaffed yeah so that's um you know that's definitely a concern so if we could if we could do something that under a different model obviously not a not a FEMA task force as as they know it now but something else where we can kind of use that model then that might be a way that that we can that we can help out with some of these uh criminal incidents or what not to to help out both sides both the agency that's sending someone and the agencies that are dealing with the situation and so yeah no I so my security company we provide disaster response efforts post event so once the events been cleared and the damage has been assessed usually by like FEMA for example in order to provide financial support to the area um to the state usually I will come in at that point and I solely focus on the safety and security people information and infrastructure but as it relates to that agency so any government agencies any you know banks for example that burned down that they need to rebuild like those sorts of things is kind of where I come in also because during these events it's a huge like cyber risk right now oh yeah all the bad actors see that this is happening but in doing that and in providing that support and I'm sure I'm gonna be flooded once we are in the recovery phase of handling with this eat and fire for example yeah a lot of times when I go into that people are just drained they don't wanna talk to me they're just like listen we've been battling this for weeks days months whatever just fix it and it I would love to see them get some support so they can begin to articulate what they need from me you brought me in you want me to fix a problem but I need to understand the standard in which it needs to be repaired right like my threshold for operational efficiency might be completely different I need to I need coordination from the from the agency but I know they're not in a cognitive capacity to provide me the information I need they just want to write me a paycheck and say go do it and I feel bad cause I'm like I wish I could help you I wish I could sit down and say what's going on what do you need and provide that level of support but that's outside of my scope um and I don't think I would be very good at that I think that is definitely the job for a dog and that's a piece you bring that up that's a piece actually that we see very common across the board um when it comes to working with these dogs whether or not you're talking a victim of a crime let's say it was an assault victim or or you know whatever or in that case let's say it's an employee who's been through something and you know between um sleep deprived the the cortisol has been too high for too long that purpose it's very well known that that causes basically a fog in your brain your brain is like sorry I mean it's kind of like taking your computer offline sorry not working today it can't it's not that you don't know it's not that um you don't know your job or anything like that your brain just like in any type of an emergency your body shuts down to what is bare bones needed to survive and if it's breathing and you know you have to be up and walking and moving or doing something you know the the the brain is not going to be fully functional yeah and I mean it's it's understandable but unfortunate well for you and I it's understandable again we go back to these administrators when you're put under so much stress for so long it's the same thing the stress causes so much cortisol which then causes your brain to shut down that you're gonna start seeing mistakes that people make or them not seem to know what they're doing or irritable or coming in late or problems at home or whatever it could be it's not that this person is a quote unquote problem child what's wrong and let's figure it out and fix it so we can get that person that we know back yeah it's also like that's not what we're doing yeah and it's not like the fires put out we're done it's not okay we wrapped up the crime scene evidence been collected or corner left like it's after that too it's like the next day and as we're writing the reports for this and as we're trying to reconnect with our families like you were saying like having a pause and having the ability to just exhale for a second like you did a phenomenal job you prevented this fire from you know from going any further you prevented needless deaths needless destruction you did your job and you did it well go home and it's like I need a second to decompress right and when I come into work tomorrow cause you know the job doesn't just go away right it would be nice to have a second while I'm writing this report to just have someone near me or something near me that can tell that I'm still operating at 1,000 and can help me slowly start to bring it down so that's why I think these dogs they're great at the time of the event but they're also there for you know in perpetuity for support absolutely moving even moving that forward yeah and I love that and yeah yeah when we do those debrief cause debrief typically debrief system debrief are done at about 72 hours right and these dogs absolutely I've seen it with with my dogs and I've heard it from some of my handlers they absolutely identify without any what which is how we train them but they absolutely identify the most highly stressed person and that's the person that they're attracted to and the one debrief that I did not too long ago here in North Texas um my little guy I have both an Aussie and I've got a Labrador that I'm using and he was persistent he's like he would just go up we're all sitting in a big circle and this one big old linebacker size guy looking all stoic in his uniform and everything looks all Billy badass and all that and my dog would go and just sit in front of him and he's and and if you knew my dog he's like you know you wanna pet me you know and this guy was not a dog person so he that that just wasn't what he wanted that's okay I don't have a problem with it I can call my dog off but like 3 times my dog goes back to him and is like how about now you know and and so I'd call him off every time but at the during near the end you could see each time my dog went up to him it was like okay the secrets out I'm upset and everybody now knows it and and then you see him well enough then you see this big burly guy starting to cry then you see him starting to let it out and it's like fantastic yeah we need that you're getting some of it out and by the end of the debrief this is like two hours later he comes over to me and he gives me this big old hug and he's like I don't even know how to say thank you he said I'm not a dog person I'm like don't worry about it it's not a big deal he goes but I so appreciate you being here yeah and that to me was like there there you go that's the reason right there yeah there there yeah yeah no that supports phenomenal yeah um yeah it just I I don't know why there's such a disconnect with administrators I mean I know for a multitude of years they have not been on the road but come on yeah um and I find it to be an oxy moron when I don't care if it's on the fire side or or military side even I've I've gone through leadership schools in the military they call it a leadership school which for me is a complete freaking lie yeah because it has nothing to do with being a true leader it has everything to do with how to do progressive discipline mm hmm or how to you know write a policy and procedure or you something of that sort those are important things to learn yes but without just like with a civilian company if you don't have people to work in your company you don't have a company same thing goes for the military for these different government agencies fire law enforcement whatever if you chase all your people off who are you gonna be chief of police over yeah exactly bunch of rookies bunch of new guys haha like well exactly and unfortunately and I and I know for a fact it is the same that there is still a female issue within law enforcement and fire yeah damn there's definitely a lot of that yeah then I mean I have to admit there should there's certain places in the military there are certain places in my own personal opinion that um women shouldn't be unless they can pass the test that was already there sure no I I share that sentiment as it relates to readiness mission readiness yep because I see some of these things that are going on and you see this testing that's going on and no one else gets a second shot at that why are you giving her a second shot at it yeah or lowering well you don't have to do let's say 15 whatever now it's down to 10 right you know so no I agree I mean I went I was on some specialized teams in the military and I was not it's like this is the standard period it's not yeah it doesn't it's not different for you it's the same for everybody because of the mission that we need to accomplish right if you can do it as a female cool if you can do it as a pineapple cool like we don't care who tries out as long as you can pass I was fortunate enough to pass but it was not easy and it's not meant to be easy and it's not meant for every guy who tries it to be able to pass it's meant for people who are ready and and I I share that sentiment I think that I think if we if we bent in either direction we would be a joke as a military as a uniform service in in as a whole yeah and unfortunately it it's kind of gotten there yeah I think they're waking up a little bit to that though cause I think they're understanding now with a lot of the threats that we're seeing a lot of the Intel that we're getting right we're understanding now that we're not as ready as we think we are and if they were to implement the standards as they were designed excuse me then they would see that some of the folks who have quote passed they didn't pass to the standard that we need to accomplish the mission and that's a life thing that's a we don't want you to die out there and we don't want your team to die so no I share that sentiment but I think there is a place I mean for the Marine Corps for example um even the army a lot of the specialty ratings are open but there's no change like you have to pass certain standards yeah but there are some other I I know what you're talking about there are some other areas that they're starting to talk about Special Forces yeah no exactly nope lowering the standards nope yeah exactly we have a ton of women as pilots fantastic yeah but yet on the other hand and I don't want to divulge into something else but yet you know you have other crazy things going on and you're like wait a minute I don't understand yeah but no yeah no I have a friend who's a female ranger and if you wanna be a Ranger you gotta be a Ranger Ranger has a standard so you have to pass that standard yeah no I agree uh thank you so much I just before we wrap up I just wanted to know is there anything else that you wanna throw out there yeah and that you wanna talk about as it relates to canines for freedom or you know what uh let me ask you a question about your other company cause you mentioned you have another company I wasn't aware of that what what is that other yeah I I've got a for profit company I've got an LLC it's K9 peak performance and what I do on that is kind of everything that the non profit doesn't so canine wise if it's I'll do evaluations for people if they're wanting evaluations of their dogs for whatever they're wanting um they're doing problem solving for I don't care if it's a pet dog to a working dog um you know training other types of detection dogs if if that's what they're wanting um it's it's kind of the um the other side of the house that I can do some contract work under which I've done with um I've got some municipalities that I've worked with on the water leak detection I'm actually teaching dogs alright water leak detection we're getting into some of the other things as well so um that's where the child trafficking is going to come into in regards to if they're wanting me to to train the electronics into the dog I can absolutely do that um but then too it's kind of a combination it's it's it's a critical incident dog that we can also use to um detect the electronics for these uh pedophiles that they're going after child traffickers alright yeah and hopefully one of the big things I see it being used for is is um if you go into a situation with um a sting operation where you're looking for a pedophile and they've hidden the child somewhere within these dogs are going to help to locate those hidden spots gosh I was just watching some body cam footage about that I don't remember how old it was but essentially a parent so a little little bit of a different situation but yeah a parent called local law enforcement for a wellness check on her child was that who was with a daycare it was an at home daycare so all these parents drop their kids off with this woman who date who babysits out of her house and uh police show up and they're like hey we're doing wellness check no one was home and there was no kids in sight it turns out the kind of like cutting to the chase the homeowner had a worker who like hid all of the kids stuff like stuffed it on the closet the owner came home and she was like no no kids here and they're like where are the kids like oh they're at the park with my other employee they start searching it turns out she left to go you know live her best life go to lunch with her boyfriend they put all of the kids in this hidden basement and I'm talking soil diapers with two people who had criminal records one girl actually had an active warrant out for her arrest none of the parents were aware that these people worked there they thought it was the one woman and her helper the one who hit all the kids stuff the police go in to search they find a closet filled with backpacks and fresh lunches and they're like where are the children turns out there was a false wall that opened up and downstairs in the basement there was like 30 kids yeah it turns out the the daycare she only had a license to babysit five at a time so she was watching too many kids she had um other employees working there who weren't supposed to be working there yeah one had an active warrant and then this other supposed um daycare worker yeah she had no credentials she didn't even know first aid couldn't even do infant CPR and we're talking babies like under the age of 4 but it took the police hours to find the kids the what they ended up hearing was one of a they ended up hearing music coming through the vents very lightly and one of the cops just happened to like tap one of the walls and realized it wasn't a solid wall but if they had like a dog like yours who could just be like they're right here they could have gotten to those kids sooner cause who the conditions were horrible we're talking soil diapers yeah we're talking like just piled on top of each other in a basement it was it was horrible yeah but situations like that having a detection dog there who can find that is incredible yeah it's uh that's why my basic motto is dogs rule people suck yeah no I I agree it is what it is but yeah so um yeah any agencies that want to reach out any individuals please reach out um email phone whatever smoke signals whatever yeah um you know it it it's absolutely going to help there is especially if they already have canine units this is not gonna add to their liability they've already got the coverage right but at least if you go through um an organisation whether or not it's mine or someone else's obviously I would prefer you to go through mine who actually knows how to temperament test who knows how to train these dogs who can mitigate that side of it that um we can prevent as best as possible um something bad happening with the behavior of the dog then that's going to be your best way to mitigate liability it's not going out and getting a free dog from God knows where that you then go get a whatever type of obedience um training on it and and hope for the best cause it's happened here multiple times even here in North Texas and they've had two dogs now that have ended up um biting someone yeah and that's just a that's a testament to training and you're up front with it like hey listen this is a dog dogs dogs do what dogs do but you've done so much to train and to help the handler identify like okay maybe give the dog a break um no I I love that thank you so much thank you for being here thank you for kind of going through all of that I will leave a link to the article in the description but if anybody wants to reach you directly I know it's k nines for freedom.org and I will leave your all your contacts information in the video description