Airports And Dog Training Geekery

Decided to go to the airport today to reintroduce Journey to the scents and the hustle and bustle so we're ready for our flight out on Wednesday. They had a live band playing New Orleans style music, which was awesome.  While we sat there, several people stopped to say hello and thought Journey was awesome. One of them said her neighbor works for the sheriff's office and trains their cadaver dogs, which I thought was really neat.  Later an officer wandered over and I grinned when I saw K-9 on his uniform and he complimented on Journey and we started chatting about Shepherds and Malinois and other dog training geekery, which is awesome because there aren't as many really dog geek people down here as there were in Minnesota!  Turns out he's the K-9 Commander for the JPSD. I had to try really hard not to die from uber respect happy and ask him a ton of questions.

Many people know that tactical and law enforcement K-9 training has always been a huge interest to me since I was a kid and grew up watching Rin Tin Tin, and movies like K-9 with James Belushi and Turner & Hooch with Tom Hanks.  Back in elementary school the D.A.R.E officer I was friends with even got one of the local department's K-9 units to come to my house and do a demo with his dog partner, which is one of the huge things that inspired me to work with and train animals ( and why I trained my amazing childhood dog Norton with German commands! ). For a long time I have wanted to get involved in that area of professional training, but things got mixed up and dreams put on hold when Katrina turned everything upside down and in the years that followed things were so rough I never had the opportunity to pursue it further.

I almost didn't go today and decided at the last minute to swing by the airport while waiting for my prescriptions.  So that inner voice and gut feeling kicked in, telling me it was meant to be that I met this awesome gentleman today and got to share stories and dog training humor.  Funnier, he made a comment about almost getting the cadaver dog job and it just wasn't his thing, and I laughed and told him about the lady who said her neighbor was that trainer, and he laughed too and said it had to be the same person because she was the only one in the area.  Small world.  Huzzah for meeting awesome people!