K9 Detection Collaborative

Today, Stacy, Robin, and Crystal discuss questions from their roundtable that they were unable to answer. They begin comparing their dogs’ workdays with their rest days, sharing anecdotes around what their dogs’ days off look like. This leads to a discussion around time management. Robin mentions that a dog’s training hours can be dependent on weather and climate. Search and rescue work, Crystal e...

Today, Stacy, Robin, and Crystal sit down to share their personal stories about their dogs. Sometimes, our dogs can surprise us with what they are capable of doing, sometimes even before we’ve trained them to do it! Our hosts kick off the conversation sharing the moment they felt most proud of their dogs, followed by those surprising moments where their dogs showed remarkable intelligence in the f...

Today, Robin, Stacy and Crystal discuss how to use blank sessions to your advantage. Blank areas, while they can be anxiety-inducing, can be a way for handlers to evaluate their dog’s behavior, and in the process build their stamina, attention, and trust. “We should really start redefining how we think of blank areas: Blank areas are an opportunity for us to work on nose time with the dog. We call...

Today, Stacy, Robin, and Crystal discuss what changes to expect as your puppy enters adolescence. Lasting between the ages of 18 months and two years, dogs in their “teenage” years will seem to forget everything they’ve been taught up to that point. Listen in as our hosts share how to instill focus and impulse control in your puppy as early as possible in order to minimize the challenges trainers...

Today, Stacy, Robin, and Crystal reflect on the reality that, as K9 handlers, our expectations don’t often play out in the long term quite as we expect them to. Listen in as our hosts talk about the awkwardness of receiving unsolicited advice for simply sharing their interesting training experiences with their neurodivergent dogs, and how to move forward regardless in your quest to hone your skill...

Today, Stacy, Robin, and Crystal discuss how to set your dog up for success by becoming their advocate. Listen in as our hosts explain how to see consistent growth in your training—pushing your dog while ensuring that you only put them in situations that they can handle. To them, a key factor to building your dog’s confidence in this way is by assuring them that they always have a choice during yo...

Today, Stacy, Robin, and Crystal discuss how to find a mentor or a community that fits your goals in the K9 world, their advice rooted in the belief that, “If you want your dog’s behavior to change, you have to change yours first.” Listen in as our hosts break down the benefits (and limitations) of using social media and video content to attract the right people to you, the value of openness and c...

Today, Crystal, Stacy, and Robin discuss how they use speed drills, or speed games in their training. They chat about the value of speed games as a teaching tool, how they allow for efficient training, and the ways in which they make training fun for the dogs. Crystal leads an effort to rebrand speed drills as speed games , to drive an emphasis on the point that they are not just for training, but...

Today, Stacy, Robin, and Crystal continue their conversation on motivation. While they believe that it takes more than knowledge to create action, they do caution trainers with a thought-provoking question: “Are you having a motivation problem or a follow-through problem?” Listen in as our hosts discuss the underlying principles that inform motivation, including the importance of creating a safe e...

Today, Stacy, Robin, and Crystal reflect on their top takeaways from attending a three-day cadaver dog seminar held at the Muscatatuck Urban Training Center, a 1,000 acre urban training facility located near Butlerville, Indiana—affectionately referred to by the K9 community as “dog training Disneyland." Listen in as our hosts paint a picture through their three distinct lenses of participati...

Today, Crystal, Stacy, and Robin take a deep dive into motivators, or the things that drive your dog to do the things that it does, and they explore different ways to harness those motivators. Stacy explores how she makes activities intrinsically motivating, so that the work itself is interesting and not just reward driven. In doing so, something that they coin a “positive addiction” emerges. Stac...

Today, Stacy, Robin, and Crystal discuss the ins and outs of working with a new K9 partner. They explain how to familiarize yourself with the dog’s personality, work ethic, and learned mechanics, as well as how to help them get into the right frame of mind as the two of you build your relationship. All the while, our hosts encourage us to remember that with every K9 partner, “you have this incredi...

Today, Crystal, Stacy, and Robin dive into part two of a reflection on their interview with Holly Bushard, playing back clips from the best moments in their conversation and expanding on them. Holly breaks down the difficulties of trialing with non-traditional breeds, as she does with Whippets. “Love what your dog is, and accept that it won’t be what it isn’t,” she advises. Stacy shares the diffic...

Today, Crystal, Stacy, and Robin reflect on their interview with Holly Bushard, playing back clips from the best moments in their conversation and expanding on them. Holly was a police officer, working as a narcotics detection dog handler with the police department, which eventually led her into nosework. Holly shares about the dog that helped her overcome her initial struggles and jumpstarted her...

Today, Crystal, Stacy, and Robin discuss the 4 Ds of detection work: distractions, distance, difficulty, and duration. Then they add a few more Ds of their own, like diversions and discrimination. Robin breaks down how she uses the Ds to shift her criteria by making a hierarchy of Ds. She breaks down what bridges are and how she uses them in training. Stacy explains how she uses the 5 Ds, and adds...

Today, Crystal, Stacy, and Robin reflect on their conversation with Dr. Lauryn DeGreeff. They revisit some of their favorite topics, like the DustBuster-turned-scent vacuum. They discuss best practices in making collector and explore their own trials and errors in attempting to perfect it. Robin shares her experiences at body farms and explains how they function and how they serve cadaver dogs. Th...

Today, Stacy and Robin sit down with Dr. Lauryn DeGreeff, who has worked in analytical chemistry in support of canine detection for over a decade. She received her Ph. D. in Chemistry with an emphasis in Forensic Science from Florida International University, and her research focuses on the sampling, characterization, and delivery of human odor, living and deceased, for the purpose of canine detec...

Today, Stacy, Robin, and Crystal reflect on certifications, focusing on the mental aspects you need to manage with a trial, test, certification, or deployment. They discuss the emotional ups and downs of the process as well as what they have learned from passing and failing trials. They dive into the logistics of earning certifications, their most exciting and most challenging experiences, conside...

Today, Stacy, Robin, and Crystal reflect on their interview with police K9 officer Tabitha. They discuss their biggest takeaways from the conversation, including the bedrock of engagement and building a relationship with your dog, as well as the power of using imagination as a training tool. They also talk about the differences between working with a “hard” dog as compared to a “sensitive” dog, pr...

Today, Robin and Crystal sit down with Police K9 Officer Tabitha. For over 15 years, she has worked for a large police department in Missouri, and has been a K9 handler for the last eight of those years. Aside from her work as a unit trainer, Tabitha is also a trainer for the American Mantrailing, Police & Work Dog Association (AMPWDA). Tabitha does a deep dive into the unique challenges of he...

Today, our hosts Stacy, Crystal, and Robin pick up where they last left off with their prior conversation about fluency . They discuss what it takes for a team to grow past the first two of the three stages of dog training mastery, namely competency followed by proficiency . The road to true fluency begins once a trainer or handler realizes and embraces the fact that “you don’t know what you don’t...

Today, Crystal, Stacy, and Robin talk all things fluency . “Fluency” can be described as “a performance measure which refers to speed and accuracy of responding.” Another way to put it is as “the fluid combination of accuracy plus speed that characterizes a competent performance.” In the realm of dog training, fluency can be considered the third and final “stage” on the road to mastery. The first...

Today, Stacy and Robin chat with fellow co-host Crystal Wing, who has been training dogs since 2006 and has been involved in protection sports over the years. She is the Training Director for the Evolution Working Dog Club located in St. Louis, Mo. and a certified trial helper through GSDCA for IGP and training decoy for Mondioring. Our conversation centers around Crystal’s focus on engagement as...

Today, Stacy and Crystal chat with fellow co-host Robin Greubel. She, alongside her husband Joe, co-own and manage Dog Day Acres Land & Cattle Company. Robin also is the CEO of the K9Sensus Foundation which coaches the human end of the leash.  Robin has been involved in detection work since 2001, yet remains an avid student who always aims to stay on the cutting edge by learning from groups th...

Today, Robin and Crystal chat with fellow co-host and detection dog extraordinaire Stacy Barnett. She is the founder of the Scentsabilities Nosework training platform, an avid and successful competitor, as well as a talented instructor. Stacy kicks off the conversation going down memory lane. She reflects on her long, multifaceted journey from corporate America to working with horses and, finally,...