Working Dog Radio

Your WDR Hosts, Eric @vanessk9 and Ted @ted_summers, sit down with the boys of Trident K9 Consulting, Marty Mahon and Chris Devan. The gents chat about keeping current on case law, dog selection (and the pitfalls of donated dogs), and more!⁣ ⁣ Mahon is a police sergeant with the South San Francisco Police Department. He has been a canine handler for 18 years and is currently the head trainer of th...

Joshua’s story might be every kid’s dream: he was kicked out of high school, joined the U.S. Army, became a Ranger. Then went to Selection and became a Green Beret where he handled a MPC named Timo for two deployments. Joshua then tried out for the new Army eSports team. Out of 16,000 applicants, they took 16 for the team, and he was one of them. Joshua went from real life sniper, to professional...

Catch up with the latest your Working Dog Radio hosts, Eric @vanessk9 and Ted @ted_summers, have been up to! Eric chats about his recent COVID19 experience and its after effects. Ted recaps his experience at Blueline K9 Conference, and the pair chat about the dogs currently in the pipeline in their kennels and various training problem solving techniques⁣!⁣ ⁣ Thank you to our partners:⁣ @KineticDog...

Ted sits down with Kyoko Johnson, lead K9 instructor and trainer, and Michelle Reynolds, PHD and lead science advisor, to talk about their awesome conservation programs in Hawaii. Ted does this episode SOLO as Eric is recovering from COVID (get better) – but this take on working dogs (and rats?!) is one you won’t want to miss!⁣ ⁣ Conservation Dogs of Hawaiʻi (CDH) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit o...

What was getting your first K9 like? The good, the bad, and the ugly; we get into it with this episode! Your WDR Hosts, Eric @vanessk9 & Ted @ted_summers, sit down with a former Army Tactical Explosive Detection Dog (TEDD) handler, current Police K9 officer in upstate South Carolina and owner of Carolina Canine Academy, Jason Dutton. The gents talk with Dutton about his time going from never h...

Are good quality K9s becoming more difficult to find? Your WDR Hosts, Eric @vanessk9 & Ted @ted_summers, are honored to sit down with Air Force veteran and current K9 handler in New Canaan, Connecticut, David Rivera of Black Rock Canines, (which is a large importing kennel @BlackrockK9s and BlackRockCanines.com) The gents talk about the challenges of K9 supply & demand, buying dogs, future...

Your WDR Hosts, Eric @vanessk9 & Ted @ted_summers, are honored to sit down with Matt and Joe, Founders of the Blueline K9 Conference!⁣ ⁣ With decades of Law Enforcement and K9 handler experience between them, Matt and Joe are both veterans of the Pocono Mountain Regional Police Department and members of North American Police Work Dog Association (NAPWDA). Joe is a certified NAPWDA Master Train...

Your WDR Hosts, Eric @vanessk9 & Ted @ted_summers, are honored to sit down with Matt and Joe, Founders of the Blueline K9 Conference!⁣ ⁣ With decades of Law Enforcement and K9 handler experience between them, Matt and Joe are both veterans of the Pocono Mountain Regional Police Department and members of North American Police Work Dog Association (NAPWDA). Joe is a certified NAPWDA Master Train...

Your Working Dog Radio Hosts, Eric @vanessk9 & Ted @ted_summers, are honored to sit down with combat veteran, Kelly Roby, who served over ten years in US Army Special Operations, as both a Ranger and a SMU operator, and played a crucial role in the SOFK9 community. The guys talk about handling dogs in the beginning of the GWOT. dogs he has worked, dogs they have lost, and the HUGE advantage of...

Your Working Dog Radio Hosts, Eric @vanessk9 & Ted @ted_summers, sit down with the “King” of Retrievers: Freddy King! This man definitely knows the subtleties of conditioning, ecollars, and pairing the two skill sets together! We picked King’s brain and covered everything from old school ecollars, to ecollar conditioning, the gun dog trainer’s version of the word “mark”, and what it’s like at...

Your Working Dog Radio Hosts, Eric @vanessk9 & Ted @ted_summers sit down with Mike Jones at Primal Canine ⁣ ⁣ Starting in an animal shelter in San Jose at the young age of 13, MIke has been involved with dogs or all shapes, sizes, and problems for years. He then got into sportwork, which evolved into protection dogs, and Primal Canine was born. Mike then partnered with Ray Allen, honing the es...

Your Working Dog Radio Hosts, Eric @vanessk9 & Ted @ted_summers sit down with Jake Lawrence at Rilyn K9.⁣ ⁣ Jake grew up working and breeding hogs and cattle, with the help of generations’ of German Shepherds. He got into IPO, K9 handling and training, and now is deeeep into the GSD breeding game. We talk all things bloodlines, his mental Rolodex, and how important it is to breed what you like...

Your Working Dog Radio Hosts, Eric @vanessk9 & Ted @ted_summers sit down with Lt. Joe Kenda, a twenty-three-year veteran of the Colorado Springs Police Department. Lt. Kenda spent twenty-one years chasing killers as a homicide detective and commander of the major crimes unit. Kenda and his team solved 356 of his 387 homicide cases, getting a 92 percent solve rate—one of the highest in the coun...

Your Working Dog Radio Hosts sit down with Ben Richards in the third episode of our Australian specials! ⁣ ⁣ Ben Richards is former Australian military, and former patrol dog handler (tune in to see what his dominant strength is: dog handling or firearms skills!) Richards also set up the TAC dog programme with the Northern Unit of the SWAT Special Emergency Response Team. Boasting Silver and Gold...

⁣ Your Working Dog Radio Hosts sit down with Pat Stuart and Glenn Cooke, in our second episode of our Australian specials! ⁣ ⁣ Pat Stuart (of Operant Canine) spent over a decade in Army Special Forces, and found himself immersed in the dog world. Mentored by Michael and Bart Bellon, Pat is a certified NePoPo instructor, a certified decoy, and the PSA Assistant Regional Director for Australia. ⁣ ⁣...

with Eric @vanessk9 & Ted @Ted_summers ⁣ You guys are always asking for Ted and Eric to answer your questions, to bust myths, to hear infamous rants, and we are happy to oblige! In this episode, your favorite hosts debunk several K9 myths that have been propagated throughout the years; things that are made up and passed from trainer to trainer, handler to handler, and admin to admin. So listen...

⁣Your Working Dog Radio Hosts sit down with Brad Griggs, owner of Canine Services International in Melbourne, Australia, and host of The STIM Podcast! This episode kicks off the first episode of our Australian specials! Brad has a beard to rival that of Ted’s, and almost 2 decades’ experience training dogs. We chat about the differences in legislation between the States and Down Under (both in bre...

“Can’t bite ‘em if you can’t find ‘em” This episode is truly mind blowing 🤯 with the Hide and Seek Expert, Mic Bonin; proving that K9 guys really are the Swiss Army knives of LEO 😎🐕! Mic started tracking at the ripe young age of 12 in southeast Texas, joined the Army in 1996, then Tulsa County Sheriff Office in 2005. He was a member of SWAT, and was part of the sniper team for 10 years –...

Hailing from northern Illinois, and the maker of the hottest hot sauce, we introduce Rik Wolterbeek! (We kid, he’s not really from the States, in case his accent gave it away! ) The man is as legendary as it gets, working with dogs for 45 years, a member of KNVP, instructing countless K9 teams through certification, working as a decoy – Rik knows his stuff! Your hosts chat about KNVP’s past,...

⁣Your hosts, Ted and Eric, talked with Pete Copilillo from Working Dogs For Conservation. As the world’s leading conservation detection dog organization, their mission (which is multi-tiered in Africa, as well as in the US ) of using the dogs’ incredible sense of smell to help protect ecosystems and to help scientists gather information on endangered species, cannot be understated. Additionally, W...

Your hosts Eric @vanessk9 and Ted @ted_summers chatted with the current Executive Director of the USPCA, Don Slavik. Slavik worked for the St. Paul K9 department in the 80’s and 90’s as a handler and trainer, and they discussed what it’s like working a Rottweiler K9. Slavik was a trainer, instructor, and course developer for ATF. He developed and wrote lesson plans for two classes on Air Movement...

Your hosts chatted with Sr Agent Anthony Moore, of the Special Operations Division of the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics (OBN) , stationed in Oklahoma City, and working as a member of the K9 Highway Interdiction team . Moore handles one of these incredible K9’s, and as a certified trainer and instructor , he chats about the incredible importance of leash proficiency and obedience in that environment...

⁣You asked ‘em, we answered ‘em! ⁣ This Q&A episode is a first for Working Dog Radio BECAUSE it’s the first podcast we’ve recorded with video , WHICH MEANS, each new podcast will also be recorded with video Be sure to check it out and watch Ted and Eric answer YOUR listener-submitted questions 🤘⁣ You can check out the video on YouTube Working Dog Radio. ⁣ 𝗔𝗡𝗗 𝗢𝗙 𝗖𝗢𝗨𝗥𝗦𝗘, thank you to our amazi...

Episode 114: Jean-Claude Leblanc grew up in the army in the 2/75 Ranger Battalion, and made it to the highest levels of Army Special Operations (trust us when we say the man is a true badass ). Leblanc handled 4 dogs in the GWOT, and walks us through each dog, his likes and dislikes, and shared stories describing some amazing things he saw his dogs do . We talked about how he founded his company,...

McDonald and Beplay talk about their deployments as US Army Rangers, various stories, and lessons learned during the Global War on Terror.  Beplay recounts the first time he saw a MPC work on target. McDonald recounts several stories about MWD Benno, who McDonald lost on his 27th birthday on a mission in Afghanistan, and MWD Lakya, who, on her first mission was shot, causing her to lose her leg (a...