TOLEDO, Ohio — Work as a police officer can be stressful, even for K-9 officers and especially if they work in a busy hospital.
That's why ProMedica is partnering with Glass City K9 to offer obedience training for Toledo-area K-9 units.
The Glass City K9 training company had a goal to help relax Toledo's K-9 first responders. They are doing that work with two German shepherds on Promedica's K-9 unit: Storm and Joseph.
The K-9 unit is learning to leave their stress at work.
Dave Johnson, the owner of the Glass City K9, said their goal is to improve the quality of life for dogs and their owners.
This is why they were excited when ProMedica offered them the opportunity to advise their K-9 unit.
Since partnering up, Glass City K9 has helped the officers strengthen and maintain their skills while coaching their mental wellbeing as well.
Johnson says for dogs who see large volumes of people every day and deal with the dangers of protecting the hospitals, obedience is just one way they are taught to take off their work hats and just be dogs.
"So basically, they came trained for detection, for things like that to do a job. Our training kind of helps them balance that better where they can handle distractions better," Johnson explained.
"We train here, we do some in public as well so when they are at the hospital doing their job, they are able to ignore the distractions and pay attention to the handler and perform their jobs better."
And the obedience skills are also useful at home when it's time to just be a dog.
"What we do is we teach the dog how to listen, behave, walk on a leash, come on call, all of the basic stuff you need with their dogs when they are at home, we teach them how to apply it every day," said Johnson.
Johnson also said these everyday obedience skills give them an off switch that allows for the handler to calm and teaches the K-9 if they sit and stay, they too can relax. The training facility now plans to work with other first responders in the future, just recently they added a K-9 from the Toledo Fire & Rescue Department to their program.
"We are working with the fire department and we have one dog we are working with with their therapy dogs - being able to work and then go home and relax, we are hoping they get more dogs as well," said Johnson.
The training is personalized and begins with a free evaluation. Their prices range between 400 and $4,000.
For more information on dog training through Glass City K9, click HERE.
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