I can't wait. Whenever we watch cops (the show) we always root for the dog, and cheer when the bad guy gets bit. Terrible, I know.

Well you will see our dogs catching badguys . Hopefully they will be better apprehensions then most I've seen on Cops . I've only seen a few on cops that were very good . With that said I think you will see some very good dogs apprehending badguys and others not so impressive .

We have 21 patrol K9's and they run the gambit from great to average . All have different personalities and strengths . Some are great battling badguys others are great at tracking , detection , etc. . So I think you will see a true representation of our K9 Unit . We didn't just put our dogs forward doing what they are the best at . All the dogs are shown doing what they are expected to do everyday whether it's a particular strength or weakness didn't matter .

To be honest I'm more worried about my policing skills then the dogs . It was tough having a camera in your face all the time and a 2nd sound guy chacing me around while looking for badguys . It threw me off my game a bit . I just had that much more to worry about (protecting our camera crew) while doing my job . It sucked being micced all the time too . It's always on and they have quite a range on them .

Hi Jim, I am looking forward to seeing you and Bingo do your job. I think it's great the public will get to see what you do everyday! Doe's your group also take part in the National Police Dog Championships (or something like that)? I vaguely remember that being televised. Will that be on again?

Stay safe.

Yep. We've won the USPCA championship several times . They had a show on about that a few years ago . I don't think they will have that on anymore . We won't be competing this year because we didn't have the time to train for it with having to deal with the Republican National Convention . We will be back next year to compete .

They held the k-9 trails here in Lakeland, FL last year, and I went to watch a few days. Very cool nothing like you see it on TV. I got to meet some of the dogs and handlers. It was alot of fun.

I've met the Lakeland guys several times , along with Polk Cty , Charolette(sp?) Cty , Lake Cty and many more Florida K9's .

There are alot of good K9's down there . Punta Gorda in 2000 was my favorite trial . I remember taking my partner for a walk and just hanging out looking over the ocean . I was sad to hear the hurican a few years back damaged that city . My first K9 got very sick at the Plant City trial in 2002 and I had to put him down on the way back home . I love it down there and I know I'll be back with or without a K9 .

Who knows with all the good dogs down there Animal Planet may venture down in the future . I think they are looking for different Police Departments to work with.

When the cops guys were running around the albuquerque area i ended up throwing them off my scenes. They weren't too happy about it but being backlit by cameramen and having civilians running around while looking for bad guys worries me.
I have never figured that reporters were exempt from my protection and I would never dream of taking someone off the street in a search for a felon.
It would certainly interfere with the way we search! Most of the time I search with dog handlers and we have sometimes worked together for the better part of the last 10 plus years. We backfill our searches with field deputies we trained back int he academy how to work with us. Adding more is rough and still keep control on the search.
I know everyone is excited about the program and I certainly will try to watch but whew...there are some concerns with it that I am sure impact you now and especially during the job when they were filming on your scene.

That's pretty much how we search also . It usually goes #1 another K9 Handler , #2 SWAT guy and #3 Street Officer . Having lost Officers in the past and had to search for these scum we also have search formations and procedures in place to do these very high risk searches .

I've got a Type A personality and it was tough adjusting . I have a certain way I like searching and it threw me off when I couldn't have that . It was very stressfull on whoever had the crew on any given day . We all commented on how exhausted we were after a night of that . For the most part they used a night vision camera at night , so no backlighting . Still tough having a camera guy , sound person carrying about 20 lbs. of gear and 2 backup officers during a search . After awhile , I looked at it as being no different then having reporters covering the wars , present and past . Yes they are civilians but they are there to let the rest of the public get a better idea of whats going on . They know the risks but are willing to take them . My back up officers and I also knew the added risks we were taking but I never came across an officer that didn't want to help .

We all had concerns and they were discussed before , during and after they left . Overall I think it was a very good thing that will give the public a better idea of what we do , how awesome these dogs are at what they do and how these dogs keep the public safe by finding badguys , drugs , evidence , etc. .

I hope this will help other departments who are thinking of starting a K9 unit make the right descision .

I am looking forward to seeing it. I can imagine how stressful it can be. I had to work with a crew who was working for Court Tv (Tru tv now) show in the line of fire.

This actually was a reenactment that took about 4 days of filming for a 7 minute portion of an episode. . Did they ride an entire shift with a handler when filming?

Steve,
It's amazing how much footage they need to shoot in order to get just a few minutes of usable stuff .

Yep , they ride the entire 9 hour shift . 2 camera crews with different K9 teams each day .

I just saw the commercial . Went by quick but I remember that incident . It was very busy that night .