Meet – Getting to Know Each Other

After our customers contact us, the first thing we make sure to do is to get to know your security concerns.

Why do you feel the need for the personal protection dog and what were your experiences that made you contact us.  Are you concerned that someone would rob you or physically hurt you, or even afraid of your life?  Do you expect the dog to protect you at home, or in the place of business, or when you travel, or all the above?

The next most important thing is for us to understand your lifestyle.  Are you a physically active person, do you have small children, do you travel a lot, do you live in urban, suburban or country?

It is also important for us to understand your expectation and preferences for the personal protection dog (PPD).  For some people the physical appearance of a dog is not important, but others have very specific ideas of what they look like and do not like.  Details such as length of dog’s coat, color, dog size, pointy ears versus floppy ears, etc.   After all, you and your family will spend a lot of time with your new protector, and we would like to make sure you and your family are as comfortable as possible.

At the same time we are getting to know you and your preferences, we are trying to be transparent about our approach and philosophy.  Our policy is to tell you the facts they way they are.  We do not want to mislead you with unrealistic expectations.

Our Search Process

Once we got to know each other, and once we both feel comfortable starting this journey, we start our search process.  Depending on your requirements and preferences, we may have a personal protection dog already available, but this is very rare.

Please note that it is just not possible for any company that trains and sells PPDs to have a large variety of size, looks, character and training dogs on hand.  Be careful with vendors who claim otherwise.  Vendors with a large inventory of dogs have a higher motivation to sell you what they have rather than what you need.

K9 Technology has a large network of the best kennels and trainers in the US and Europe.  If we do not have a dog that fits with your requirements that we identified in the previous step, we will start searching our network.

Training Phase

We typically select dogs that are 1.5- to 3-year-old and those that already had at least some basic training.  We must be sure that dogs have the required basic obedience and bite skills and proper drives.

Please refer to our News/Blog page for many articles about protection dog drives and character traits.

Every dog that we get for you — even those that are best trained — will go through an extensive testing and training period with our dog trainers and staff.  After the testing period, we will determine what type of training and how much each dog needs to meet our customers’ needs and requirements.   This training can take anywhere from 1 to 5 months.

After our trainers are comfortable so that the dog is trained, we will place the dog at the home of one of our staff members for final evaluation.  We will try to handle this dog in a similar way to you.  When we are confident that the dog is ready to be placed with you, we are ready to move to the next critical phase of our process.

Delivery

We visit in person the house of every one of our customers.  The visit may happen even before we introduce the dog to you, or we may combine the introduction with the first visit.  We will make sure that your house is ready to accept your new protector and family member.

Customers with more dog handling experience may require less help for setting up their house, but customer with little or no dog handling experience will get as much support as they need to make sure they are comfortable and ready.

We deliver the necessary equipment each of our dogs needs such as leashes, collars, vests, crates and cots.  We also make sure you have enough food and supplements to feed your dog in the first several weeks.  We help you identify appropriate veterinarians and other health support people in your area to keep your dog healthy.

It is important to remember that you are not getting a pet.  You are getting a highly trained working dog that was trained to respond to your commands and potentially attack someone who wants to do you harm.  Therefore, we will make sure that you understand the basic working dog training and control approaches, how to command your dog, how to handle your dog and how to handle dangerous situations.

This working dog handling course will take anywhere from 3 days to over a week.  It depends on each customer’s experience level with dogs and comfort level handling the dog we delivered.  We will practice situations where you need to instruct your dog to defend you.   You must see firsthand how your dog will turn into a protector and may violently attack someone who tries to harm you or your family.

As part of this process, we will spend time in your area and spend time with you at home and everywhere you go to make sure you are comfortable to take over the relationship with your dog.

As this is an extremely important part of our selling process, please refer to this page for a more detailed information about our integration process.