Building Focus and Drive in Narcotics by John Brannon

From basic imprinting to a finished detector dog, there is always room for improvement. We will discuss the concepts, theory and practice of a proper reward system from the dogs’ perspective. The class will address the issues of visual, olfactory, and auditory fixation problems that we commonly witness and the solutions to avoid or remedy these problems.

Teaching the importance of conflict training, “consistently inconsistent” training, keeping the dog from becoming patterned into an incorrect response. We will demonstrate how to make the dog earn his paycheck thru channeling his drives, he must believe that imprinted odor equals reward and the handler is not in the equation.

Remember, our job as a handler is to provide our canines the opportunity to work odor and achieve drive satisfaction!

John Brannon has been in law enforcement for 24 years and a K-9 officer for 21years. He retired from the Coral Spring Police Department, Broward County, Florida after working 5 dual purpose dogs. He is a certified State of Florida K-9 Instructor and is a Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) Trainer & Evaluator. He was also an active SWAT team member and K-9 team leader for the past 15 years. John is a Master Trainer for the North American Police Work Dog Association (NAPWDA) and was instrumental with implementing the SWAT dog deployment program. John is the President of Pennsylvania Police Work Dog Association and is presently working his 6th dual purpose PSD for a law enforcement agency in Pennsylvania. John is the owner of Shallow Creek Kennels, importing and training top quality police service dogs for law enforcement. He frequently lectures and teaches several K-9 classes and seminars throughout the country.