Working Dogs: Partners, Not Tools

I appreciate the concern people have for working dogs, and I want to point out something important: handlers love their dogs just as much—if not more—than pet owners. We spend hundreds of hours training them, traveling with them, and living side by side. These dogs are not just animals we work with; they are our partners.

A Lifetime of Experience with Working Dogs

I’m retired from FEMA K9 and have deployed all over the United States to major disasters. In all those years of service, other than the occasional cut paw pad, I’ve never had a serious injury with any of my dogs. That’s not luck—it’s preparation. Working dogs are a different kind of animal. They have unique personalities, higher pressure thresholds, and an incredible drive to work. But that doesn’t mean we take their safety lightly. On the contrary, it takes a tremendous amount of training, preparation, and care to ensure they stay healthy, confident, and injury-free.

Where Our Dogs Come From

We often look for the dogs that others have given up on—usually the high-drive, “cat-chasing” types that bounced from home to home. For us, those dogs are gold. When a dog enters our program, the first step is decompression. They need time to relax and adjust. From there, we build a foundation with basic obedience: sit, stay, outside, back up, leave it, and drop it. Once that’s solid, we introduce what we call the “nose game”—a hide-and-seek exercise with rodent odor.

The rodents are always completely safe—kept in cages or tubes—and protected from the dogs. This isn’t about killing. It’s about training dogs to use their nose in a focused, controlled way.

Building Puppies into Professionals

Our puppies follow the same path but with lighter work. They start with odor-only exercises and often go on to compete in Barn Hunt, earning their Master titles. This sport allows them to explore the world in a safe, structured way, while also building confidence and drive.

It’s worth noting: puppies never participate in abatement work. It’s too dangerous. A single rat bite could ruin a young dog physically or mentally. Abatement doesn’t begin until a dog is at least a year old, fully confident, and has demonstrated obedience, environmental stability, odor commitment, and the ability to work under pressure.

Safety Always Comes First

If a dog takes a bite on the job site, the protocol is immediate. We remove them from the work, assess the injury, and most often flush and clean the wound with veterinary solution we always carry. The dog is then rested in a crate for several hours. If there’s any concern, the dog goes straight to the vet and is removed from the job completely. We never take chances.

At the end of every day, both humans and dogs go through a full decontamination process to minimize exposure to pathogens.

Nature vs. Structure

The reality is that farm dogs kill rats every day. Pet dogs kill squirrels, rats, and mice—and most of the time, they’re perfectly fine. This is nature at work. We’re not teaching dogs how to kill. We’re giving them a structured, supervised way to do what their instincts already tell them to do—safely, effectively, and humanely.

Dogs Before Business

When you work with animals, the business doesn’t come first—the dogs do. I’ve turned down plenty of work that wasn’t safe for my dogs, and I’ll continue to do so. Their well-being is never negotiable.

That said, we have multiple tools and approaches to support clients—even when dogs aren’t the right fit for the solution. But make no mistake: these dogs are not tools. They’re partners, teammates, and family.