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ISSUE 32OFFGRIDWEB.COMobject of some kind. Once they had this object, they
could go to a group of people and identify what person
that object belonged to. That’s not just a good nose. That
takes a pretty progressive thinking and learning process
to put that many things together. We don’t even have
machines or robots that can do that. Humans can’t do
that, but we teach dogs and they do it just for the fun of
it. I haven’t seen many dogs do that, but the ones that
can are pretty amazing because it wasn’t something they
were genetically bred for.What do you attribute the country’s rise in dog own-
ership to?
JF: Society has changed, even from the time I was a
child or since my early years of dog training, at how
we look at dogs. We put them to work a lot more and
they get a lot of good press for that. We do a lot more
in trying to make sure there’s no accidental dog bites,
and there’s a lot done to prevent dog fighting. There
are things out there we can do better to helping dogs
out of shelters. You don’t see dogs as much now just
tied off to a tree in the backyard, so society, for what-
ever reason over the last 20 years, has taken them on.
There’s even TV shows about dog training — if you’d
have told me that when I first started my career I’d
have laughed at you.
I think a lot of that also comes from dogs being put
to work in combat. People hear these stories and see
these great things dogs are doing. I don’t like to say thisa dog six hours away in a shelter because it was a Ger-
man Shepherd, and the people there thought it might
make a good working dog. It’s probably not going to
be for us, but it’s still worth looking. I also wish we had
a way to educate the people who are adopting these
dogs on how to make these dogs behave better so they
don’t return them to shelters. I thoroughly believe that if
we had dogs in the shelter and rescue system that were
better behaved, didn’t pull people down the street, and
didn’t bark at other dogs, I don’t think there’d be a lot of
dogs left in the shelters.Do you think dogs really sense fear in humans?
JF: I don’t think dogs necessarily have all the emotions and
feelings we think they do. I think they’re much simpler than
that, which is probably a reason why I really love them. I’m
pretty simple myself. If you take three dogs, you’re going to
get three different reactions to the same exact fear coming
from a human being. What I do think is that dogs definitely
recognize, probably as good as any animal on this planet, dif-
ferent body languages and different demeanors from people
very quickly. That’s how they survive as dogs. They’re the
world’s best at body language.There are stories about dogs doing things like detect-
ing cancer. What are some things you’ve learned that
dogs can do that really surprised you?
JF: I think one of the most interesting things that I’ve
seen a dog do was go into a particular area and find an“If there’s civil unrest, my dogs
are going to help me be on a team
that hopefully, the people who are
causing the problems and whatever
side we’re on, are going to help keep
us in or winning the fight.Ó