I've been pondering my career options

[skittledoo]

This may or may not be something attainable, but I was really thinking a bit today about what I'd like to do career wise. I know I want to train dogs and I've been working towards earning my hours towards my CPDT, etc.

But... as far as training dogs... I don't know that I necessarily want to be a pet dog trainer.

A lot of people in my family are on the police force and my sister had mentioned a while back ago that when she finally gets on the force she wants to work towards having a K-9.

I'm fascinated by the work that K-9s do and not far from where I live is The Canine Enforcement Training Center where they train border patrol dogs for narcotics detection, search and rescue, etc. I've checked out this place quite a few times over the past year, especially since it happens to be in one of the top choice areas that Josh and I have looked at for potential housing.

I have no idea how to get into this type of work, but I'm really really interested. I'm tempted to call the training center to talk to them and ask them what I would need to do to get into this type of work and to see if perhaps I could shadow them for a day or two to really see if this is something I would want to do.

I'm also still browsing different dog training programs and just getting a feel for what my options are, but I definitely want to do something that I personally feel is rewarding and how rewarding would it be to train these amazing working dogs?

I don't know... it's just something I've been thinking about a lot lately....

[Romy]

Definitely check into it. Weirdly, I was looking into the same sort of thing last night. In our state jurisdiction of bomb and drug dog training was handed over to homeland security, but we also have an international border. You might check out the employment section of your state's state patrol website to get some leads on where to inquire about it.

[LostAndConfused]

Originally Posted by skittledoo

I'm fascinated by the work that K-9s do and not far from where I live is The Canine Enforcement Training Center where they train border patrol dogs for narcotics detection, search and rescue, etc. I've checked out this place quite a few times over the past year, especially since it happens to be in one of the top choice areas that Josh and I have looked at for potential housing.

I have no idea how to get into this type of work, but I'm really really interested. I'm tempted to call the training center to talk to them and ask them what I would need to do to get into this type of work and to see if perhaps I could shadow them for a day or two to really see if this is something I would want to do.

Call, ask, the worst they can do is say, "no." and then you can always ask what sort of qualifications they would be looking for and investigating those. I think it would be awesome to work some place like that for a while.

[Sekah]

I think here in order to be a police dog trainer you need to be a police officer first. I'm not sure if that applies elsewhere, or for military or detection work, but it's something you may want to keep in mind.

[Lizmo]

I believe Falon (FG something is her username, I'm so bad with usernames! Lol) does this type of work, you might ping her about how she got started!

[AdrianneIsabel]

Originally Posted by Sekah

I think here in order to be a police dog trainer you need to be a police officer first. I'm not sure if that applies elsewhere, or for military or detection work, but it's something you may want to keep in mind.

In many places this is true, however there are private contractors (like Falons company, I think) which train and sell/work dogs on contract. That may be the best option.

We looked into the airport detection dog positions, both trainer and handler, when we were in Vegas but they wanted military experience.

[FG167]

Originally Posted by Lizmo

I believe Falon (FG something is her username, I'm so bad with usernames! Lol) does this type of work, you might ping her about how she got started!

Originally Posted by AdrianneIsabel

In many places this is true, however there are private contractors (like Falons company, I think) which train and sell/work dogs on contract. That may be the best option.

We looked into the airport detection dog positions, both trainer and handler, when we were in Vegas but they wanted military experience.

I'm late to the party but here I am!

Jason and I both have a job similar to this. We train and handle (primarily train) tracking dogs, bomb detection dogs, and eventually probably human detection dogs.

Jason was "discovered" off of YouTube. No joke. Someone saw all of his training videos on Ikie, asked him to come do a demo, offered him a job as a handler, saw his skills as a trainer and bam, job. They saw my handling/training as well but were a little unsure about the both of us working together...and then got to know us, two weeks later, bam, job for me Pure luck haha

My company is a private company that is subcontracted with the security area of Y-12. We "guard" Y-12 with the K-9s. My company hires a wide variety of people, not just those with past K-9/military experience. However, we do that for handlers. They do not hire trainers - Jason and I were just a lucky fluke (for us). I guess if you are interested in training, I would try to get a handling position first and then you have something similar to list on your app if you apply for training positions.

I am probably not much help since we kind of fell into this. I was previously a Medical Technologist working towards titling my GSD in as many venues as I could. Jason was a substitute teacher haha