032
ISSUE 32OFFGRIDWEB.COMlightning than being able
to find quality dogs that
haven’t been specifically
bred and raised for this
type of work. And to add to
that point, there wouldn’t
be dogs in shelters if
people would just take
care of their pets, whether
they’re mixed breeds or
not — we wouldn’t have
this problem.At your company, what
types of dogs do you
breed and train for
the work you do, and
what combination of
traits do those dog
breeds in particular have
that
others don’t?
JF: All of our dogs are ei-
ther going to be a Belgian
Shepherd, Dutch Shepherd, some German Shepherds
and Labrador Retrievers, and occasionally German
Shorthaired Pointers. For the Belgian, Dutch, or German
Shepherds, we’re looking for dogs that have some natural
protection and fight drive, and we’re also looking for high
toy and retrieve drive so we can teach them some sort of
detection. With the Labradors and German Shorthaired
Pointers, we’re looking again at the same thing we really
look for in any dog — we’re trying to produce healthy,
happy, social dogs that are environmentally sound and
have really high hunt, retrieve, and toy drive so we can
teach them some sort of detection skill.People might ask why you can’t train any dog to carry
out those tasks. For instance, why couldn’t you train
an Akita to do protection or a Schipperke to do detec-
tion work?
JF: When we look at the training of the working dogs — and
this pertains to just about anything in working, whether it
be search-and-rescue, detection, bite work, or tracking —
there has to be a genetic desire to do those things to get
a dog to do it. You can teach any dog to sit or lay down; it
doesn’t really matter if they want to or not, but let’s just say
they don’t want to — I can make them do it. However, if I
want a dog to go out and follow a track for 45 minutes to
an hour, or I want a dog to go search cargo containers at
UPS for six hours a day to look for explosives or narcotics —JF: Anything in life can be done wrong; it doesn’t matter
what it is. The thing to look at with pure-breeding, the big
advantage of it is, if I want a dog to go out and be really
good at doing agility, I’d probably breed Border Collies
because they win most of the time. I’m not going to try
and make a Whippet into a national champion when I
know that Border Collies are made for it. If I want to go
out and compete in Schützhund, I’m probably going to
have a German Shepherd because they’re bred, raised,
and genetically gifted to do that type of sport. For mili-
tary dogs, I like the Belgian Malinois. If we don’t use those
genetics, then we’re not picking the right dog for the job.
I use an analogy that’s easy for people to look at. If
you want to compete in the Kentucky Derby, I suggest
you get the right bloodlines because if you go out and
buy some mixed-breed horse in some farmer’s backyard,
then you’re not making it to the Derby. If you use those
genetics to your advantage, you can get what you want
out of it. Breeding of any animal isn’t perfect, but if you’re
doing the genetics the best you can, then you can get
healthy, happy dogs that are genetically gifted to do
certain jobs.
Let’s say someone asked me to train 10 military dogs
to do certain jobs by the end of this year, and I could
only use shelter dogs that were mixed breeds. I’d say it’d
be great that 10 dogs wouldn’t be in a shelter anymore,
but the chances are much greater that I’d be struck by“If I can’t do
a good job
working
with
people,
then I’m
not going to
make much
of a dog
trainer. I
think most
people get
into dogs
and don’t
realize that
most of
your work
is actually
training a
human.Ó