K9 Detection Collaborative

“Ultimately, it is an art. There is an artistic side to dog training.” Our hosts, Robin Greubel and Stacy Barnett, are back with Paul Bunker of Chiron K9 to discuss the finer points of calibration and communication between dog and handler! Paul revisits breed temperament. As a few quick examples, pointers and chocolate Labradors are "pedantic," holding out for their exact target odor, while spaniels and Malinois generalize liberally and are more prone to false alerts. That liberal drift is ex...

“Don't trust your dog. Trust your training.” Our hosts, Robin Greubel and Stacy Barnett, sit down with Paul Bunker of Chiron K9. His path from an English farm to British military explosives work eventually led him into conservation detection projects around the globe. Deemed too short for the London police, Paul joined the British military in 1982 and was later tasked, after a fatal minefield accident, with training dogs to clear a safe path to stranded casualties. It was thanks to that proje...

What to listen for: "The future of leak detection isn't one technology replacing another. It's collaborating with this whole process and working together to save our water." In this second half of their conversation, our hosts, Robin Greubel and Stacy Barnett, talk with Lolita Shaffer to move past the why of water leak detection dogs and into the how. A Cherokee Nation–funded study sent two golden retrievers across 30 miles of pipe in five days, flagging areas where acoustic crews later confi...

What to listen for: “The certification isn't about proving that the dog can find a leak. It's about giving utilities confidence that the professional team can perform consistently, safely, ethically, and competently.” Lolita Shaffer joins our hosts, Robin Greubel and Stacy Barnett, in this two-part conversation to talk all things water leak detection! It’s a growing niche in the dog training world, but a pretty important one. After all, America's water utilities maintain 2.2 million miles o...

What to listen for: “You can still support your dog, but you do not have to step in and solve [the problem].” Our hosts, Robin Greubel and Stacy Barnett, sit down with returning guest Bob Deeds to unpack a week of Intentional Handling and Hide Setting, the detection camp the two hosts built years ago and this year expanded to fifteen students running six searches a day! Held on Robin's working farm, the course throws teams (Papillons alongside Malinois, cadaver handlers alongside sport dog pe...