My international experience with dogs really began somewhat unexpectedly.

After college, I went to Europe to play professional basketball. I eventually lived in both Germany and France, and even though basketball was my profession at the time, I never stopped pursuing my passion for dogs.

In fact, I brought my own Doberman, Shanga, with me to Germany.

Having a dog with me overseas gave me the opportunity to continue training while I was there, and it wasn’t long before I connected with some of the top police-dog trainers in the world. I became an understudy and spent as much time as I could learning from them and working with their dogs.

That experience had a profound influence on me.

I was exposed to a very different level of working-dog training—dogs trained for obedience, protection, scent work, agility, security, and other demanding applications. These weren’t simply dogs that knew commands. They were highly driven working animals that had to perform reliably under pressure.

I learned to pay much closer attention to drive, motivation, temperament, timing, communication, and the relationship between the dog and handler.

It reinforced something I had already begun to understand: there is no substitute for understanding the individual dog.

From Training Dogs to Working Internationally

My international experience didn’t end when I returned to Los Angeles.

During my time at California K-9 Academy, our business became involved in importing and selling fully trained dogs to clients around the world. That gave me an opportunity to work with an incredible variety of people and dogs in an international marketplace.

I sold trained dogs in Thailand, China, Indonesia, Colombia, Mexico City, and throughout the United States.

That experience taught me another important lesson: although cultures, lifestyles, and expectations may be very different, the fundamentals of working with a dog remain remarkably consistent.

The dog still has to understand what you’re asking. The handler still has to communicate clearly. The dog still needs motivation. And the owner still needs to understand how to maintain the training.

But every client and every environment presented different challenges.

A protection dog being placed with one type of client might have very different requirements from a dog being placed with a family somewhere else in the world. I had to learn to understand not only the dog, but also the people, environment, purpose, and expectations surrounding that dog.

That broadened my perspective considerably.

Abu Dhabi Was Another Eye-Opening Experience

Another memorable experience came when I participated in a security expo in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.

The expo brought together companies and professionals involved in security technology and equipment. There were exhibits featuring surveillance systems, alarm systems, weapons and other security-related equipment, and a wide range of technologies designed to protect people and property.

I brought several dogs with me and conducted a personal-protection-dog exhibition and demonstration.

It was fascinating to see how dogs fit into a much larger security picture. Technology can provide surveillance, detection, alarms, and physical security, but a properly trained dog brings something completely different to the equation: a living, thinking, highly sensitive partner capable of detecting and responding to things that technology may not recognize in the same way.

Following the expo, I also had the opportunity to visit a military installation in the UAE, where I worked with and provided training involving some of their dogs.

That experience gave me another perspective on the level of discipline and responsibility required when dogs are being used in serious working environments.

Seeing Dogs Around the World Changed the Way I Train

When you work with dogs in different countries and different environments, you quickly realize that the principles of canine behavior are universal, but the application of those principles has to be individualized.

A dog doesn’t care whether you’re training in Los Angeles, Germany, Thailand, or Abu Dhabi. It responds to what it understands, what motivates it, what it has learned, and what it experiences.

And that’s where I think my international experience had one of its greatest influences on my career.

It taught me not to become locked into a particular system or philosophy.

I’ve been fortunate to learn from police-dog trainers, working-dog specialists, competitive trainers, protection-dog handlers, and family-dog owners. I’ve trained dogs for very serious working purposes and I’ve trained dogs whose biggest job in life was simply to become a good member of a family.

Both have taught me something.

The fundamentals are the same, but the dog in front of you determines how you apply them.

Today, when I evaluate a dog, I’m drawing on all of those experiences. I look at the dog’s temperament, confidence, drive, motivation, environment, and relationship with its owner. I want to understand what makes that particular dog tick before deciding how I’m going to train it.

My years in Germany and France, working with some of the world’s top police-dog trainers, importing and placing trained dogs internationally, demonstrating protection dogs in Abu Dhabi, and working with military dogs all contributed to that perspective.

But perhaps the biggest lesson was a simple one:

The more dogs you work with, the more you realize that the dog is always the teacher.

You can learn techniques from a book. You can learn a training system from a mentor. You can learn how to handle equipment.

But ultimately, you have to learn to read the dog.

And after all these years, that’s still one of the things I enjoy most about what I do.

 nnn