BISMARCK, N.D. (KFYR) – You’ve heard that dogs are descended from wolves, but watching your pet beg for table scraps at your feet might make that hard to believe sometimes. However, there’s just a part of the wild you can’t take out of a dog, and two long-time police officers are using that to help owners bond with their pets.
Instead of training police dogs to sniff vehicles for drugs or how to search the woods, retired K9 police handlers Lyle Sinclair and Dave Cochran are using their decades of experience to train house pets in a different way at Elevate Canine Academy in Bismarck. By using special scent packets in tennis balls, they can help owners train their dogs to track them down using their noses.
“If you have a little Corgi, a big German Shepherd, a Great Dane, a Chihuahua— we don’t care, we’ll work with it and make it the best it can be,” Sinclair said.
They said it was an adjustment, going from training police dogs for field work to teaching scent detection classes. They said the classes give the dogs mental stimulation and help them bond with their owners, which can be especially helpful in the middle of a harsh North Dakota winter.
Lori Korsmo and her dog Isaac came from South Dakota for the class. He enjoys finding scent packets at home, so she thought trying a new kind of class might be fun for him.
“He’s not the typical scent dog— you know, being a Corgi, he’s a stock dog— but he definitely likes doing this,” Korsmo said.
However, Korsmo said he can be a little shy. Sinclair and Cochran said it’s all about making sure the dogs have fun. Before, they’d train dogs to work in high-pressure situations. In classes, they try to make training feel like a game.
Cochran said it’s been a nice way to keep working with dogs after the death of his long-time K9 partner.
“You have a dog in your back seat for over 10 years, you know? That was probably the biggest adjustment. We call them ‘ghost noises.’ Even to this day, you think you hear your partner back there, and you want to reach for them or say something, and you won’t. He’s not here,” Cochran said.
He said he takes a lot of pride in helping owners train their dogs and seeing a pet’s progress. Even if the dogs are a little shy or overwhelmed, Sinclair and Cochran said at the end of the day, being able to find a hidden ball isn’t the main goal. It’s making sure man’s best friend has new experiences he can share with the person he loves most.
Those classes happen every other month at Elevate Canine Academy in Bismarck.
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