10 Best Hunting Dog Training Dvd

Best Hunting Dog Training Dvd in 2023

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

DVD Sniffer Dogs - Can They Beat the Pirates?

Two Irish born and bred dogs specially trained in the war against DVD pirates are proving such a success around the world that the playful, 2-year-old black Labrador retrievers named Lucky and Flo even received death threats during their recent time in Malaysia.

Now two Irish born and bred dogs have been specially trained for a role in one of the biggest war stories the movie studios have ever been involved with - against DVD pirates - and they are proving such a success around the world that the playful, 2-year-old black Labrador retrievers named Lucky and Flo even received death threats during their recent time in Malaysia, one of the world's biggest producers of illegal films and albums.

Authorities noted that there was an undisclosed bounty on offer to anyone who eliminated the dogs, and they were kept in a secret location with increased security: "The dogs are a genuine threat to the pirated disc syndicates, thus the instruction to eliminate them", said Firdaus Zakaria, enforcement director at the Ministry of Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs, told the New Straits Times.

The Malaysian government is looking to obtain their own pair of Northern Irish sniffer dogs, as Lucky and Flo have now finished their K9 Tour. Since their arrival in March, the four-pawed detectives have helped officials uncover more than 1, 300,000 counterfeit DVDs and CDs worth about 15m ringgit ($4.43m) in nationwide raids.

Lucky and Flo's skills are unique: they are the only dogs in the world that can smell DVDs. The smell probably comes from the resins and polycarbonates used in their production and the dogs are determined to find them, wherever they are. They can't tell which are pirated of course, but they can certainly find ones that have been hidden.

Neil Powell from Newcastle, County Down is the man who trained Lucky and Flo and accompanies them on their "K-9 Pirate Smackdown" Tour, and he explained how he ended up working with search dogs, and how he manages to train them to find the good, the bad and the ugly:

"I've been around dogs all my life - I trained my first one when I was 9 - but my interest really began over 30 years ago, when I spent almost every weekend for a year with a Police Dog handler. He was one of the best and I learnt about technique, learning to read the dog, and building up your own responses to each dog."

After that he started training dogs for Mountain Rescue, and he has a clear memory of the moment he knew when he was going to spend his life working with dogs - at the December 1988 plane crash in Lockerbie, Scotland:

"That was my first air crash, my first disaster, and I went there for five days over Christmas with my dogs. We basically were finding human remains, and my life is really defined as before and after Lockerbie. It was that traumatic."

He set up his own business NARCO Dogs soon after, and quickly got contracts to search clubs and dancers in Northern Ireland, but when that ended after a "polite tap on the shoulder" from one of the paramilitary groups, he moved into other areas such as explosives detecting:

"We started out at (Northern Ireland parliamentary building) Stormont, where a civilian dog trainer was preferred over using a military one, and I've done many other events since then. Last year we did the test match at Lords - England versus Australia I think it was - and my black Labrador Charco and I had to do the search for the Queen before she arrived".

After realizing that the Motion Picture Association of America (the organization that regulates the movie industry and awards viewing certificates) were serious in wanting DVD sniffer dogs - "I thought they were off their trolley at first!" - Powell, who had been a teacher and child abuse counselor for many years, realized that DVD piracy would also include child pornography:

"That really was the main motivator for me, and I went straight to a local kennel. I knew I wanted Labradors - they have a good nose and a high search and play drive - and I knew the history of these two already. Also, people feel much more comfortable with Labradors as apposed to other dogs like German Shepherds."

Training took place over a period of around 8 weeks, and over that time they went from being utterly confused in a room of a hundreds of DVD's to being able to find a single one that was well hidden:

"I followed the same procedure I use for explosives and drugs searching, which is known as Passive Indication. It involves rewarding the dogs with a tennis ball, and they will sit and point when they have found something."

Lucky and Flo were first put to work with HM Revenue and Customs and FedEx at Stansted Airport in the UK, and Powell was delighted that they were immediately successful in rooting out DVD's in both small packages and in large containers. The dogs don't always get it right of course, although there was one search that Powell remembers:

"The dogs were going berserk, but when we opened the boxes they were full of dog food. Everyone laughed at me and the dogs - and then we found the one DVD hidden amongst all the dog food."

As for Lucky and Flo's future with the MPAA, Powell is hopeful that the demonstrations can encourage Governments and agencies round the world to invest in some sniffer dogs themselves, or at least make use of Lucky and Flo throughout their working life. The PSNI (Police Service of Northern Ireland) retires their dogs at eight years old, which Powell thinks is too early:

"That doesn't make much sense to me. I have a retriever that's 12 years old, and he can still work for an hour on a search and rescue - and that's in bad conditions."

Over 50 TV channels covered the MPAA demonstration at the Disney Studios in Burbank last year, and on the day representatives from over 40 countries watched Lucky and Flo do their thing:

"The reaction was very positive, and most were amazed that they could do it. The MPAA is thinking outside the box here because they want to do the best they can, but some people said that training and the cost of the dogs was too expensive."

That argument is hard to understand. In an industry that lost over $18 billion dollars to piracy in 2005, of which $11 billion was attributed to bootlegging and illegal copying, the cost of buying and training a sniffer dog is virtually a pile of bones in comparison:

"There's a kennel in Templepatrick that breeds Springers and Labs, and to buy a pup of up to 9 months old and train it do basic search work costs around £1,600 (around $3,000). Then there are another two or three months of training, and it costs around £15,000 ($28,000) overall."

For most people, sniffer dogs are often seen in the aftermath of earthquakes and natural disasters, searching the rubble for people who have been buried:

"We always work with two dogs, just in case, and I've worked on five earthquakes with my dogs. In the Kashmir earthquake last year we went as part of the UK Government response and Charco helped find a guy who had been buried alongside three dead bodies for 36 hours - he didn't have a mark on him."

On their return, a local primary school presented Charco with a gold medal, and this year two of Powell's dogs received the Dickens Medal, the highest honor from the PDSA (People's Dispensary for Sick Animals) in the UK.

Traveling with sniffer dogs can be difficult though, and the biggest complaint Powell had about his job was the bureaucracy, and especially the need for 6-month-long quarantine on entering the UK, something that all pet owners find almost intolerable:

"Our dogs are micro chipped, have anti-rabies shots and only go to countries that have the Pet Passport Scheme (allowing animals to visit without quarantine if certain conditions are met), but Heathrow Airport is always a bloody nightmare!"

A trip to an earthquake in Turkey was affected by these UK quarantine laws, although it had a positive result in the end:

"The team flew over in an RAF Hercules, but when we landed it seemed that we weren't needed. We asked the pilot to find out if the dogs would still have to go in quarantine even though they never got off the plane, and when they said yes we went out to do a search and rescue anyway. We found three of four people alive."

At the moment, Powell is also training a German Shepherd named Cuisle for something incredibly specialized - recovering bodies at sea:

"I recently did my first search in Glenties, County Donegal. We were out on a boat, in the wind, and Cuisle indicated one spot. The diver went down and the body was there on the bottom, 60 feet down. One of the Garda Síochána (Irish police) was supervising, and he was amazed."

NARCO Dogs is increasingly busy, but Neil still does volunteer mountain rescue work, and finds that lots of people come to him looking for help:

"It's part of the grieving process for these families. I remember there was a trawler that went down in the Irish Sea. One of the two fishermen had washed up in the Isle of Man, but the other was still lost. The parents asked me to help search, and we went six miles off shore in 200 feet of water - and the dog located the body of the second man. He was just 30 feet from the wreck, but the divers hadn't found him. The family donated lots to our search and rescue after that".

Powell did not have much time to look around Los Angeles during his visit to California, but he did have an extraordinary experience:

"I went to mass in a chapel in Santa Monica, and I was blown away by it. It was most lively - music, a full band - not what I'm used to in conservative Ireland!"

Powell also found that there is currently a lot of dog protection work in Los Angeles. Apparently robbers have become wise to them and have started wearing leather arm guards, so dogs now have to be re-trained to bite anywhere. This technique is called Schutzhund and originated in Germany, where it is also a competitive sport:

"German Shepherds are great dogs - they're actually my favorite - but when they get this special command (to bite), they turn into a real mean machine! I was really impressed!"

L.A. dog trainer Daryl Hall presented Powell with a black shepherd pup as a gift, although Neil can't introduce it to the delights of Ireland until it's old enough to be flown over:

"I thought I'd name him Angelo, because I got him in Los Angeles".