WEBVTT

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- Today, I worked basic obedience with my dog,

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did long bumper drills,

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and then a directional which was about 300 meters.

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And that's really pushing our dogs.

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You know, 300 meters away from the handler,

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still being obedient, it's a pretty big thing to us.

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- I trust that dog 100%.

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If he is near something and I believe it,

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I'm gonna call it up.

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So knowing that, having that confidence,

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I just truly work on myself.

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So during these trainings they have visual aids.

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So while my dog is searching, we also plant visual IDs

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with no explosive odor, so that's for me to see

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before my dog even hits it.

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So basically I would have my dog in my peripherals,

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I'd be pretty much scouting, doing pre-search assessments,

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looking for those IEDs.

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I got my dog to respond on a mass plant,

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which was probably seven, eight pounds of explosives,

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from about 300 meters away.

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So that was a pretty big gain for us

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because we're a young dog team.

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I've only been on her for about three weeks now,

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and she's a three year-old lab.

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So it's pretty big for us to do that.

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Our dogs, we can cut some of them off-leash capability,

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to have them a good 30, 40, even,

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especially our search dogs, really far away from us,

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and give that extreme change in behavior

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to find the odor and keep all the Marines behind us safe.

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That's what we do, we save lives.