Dog Blog Issue Twelve
Behind the scenes with our K9MD Trainers
As you’ll know if you follow K9MD on Facebook, Instagram or TikTok, there’s not a day goes by without a photo of one of our gorgeous dogs, and sometimes we even get the odd glimpse of one of their two-legged workmates, too. It’s such a joy to witness the human-dog working relationship in action - that seamless harmony between them. One of the questions our team of trainers are asked regularly is “which dog do you work with?” so, we thought it might be time to go behind the scenes at K9MD and explore further some of that bond we’ve talked about in a previous issue of the Dog Blog.
For the next few weeks, we’ll be talking to our team of trainers and getting their perspective on what it’s like to work with this elite group of dogs and the responsibility of developing a life-saving test for New Zealanders. First up, it’s Senior Canine Trainer, Sam.
K9 All Black Coach Makes Champions
Sam joined K9MD about a year ago as Senior Canine Trainer and has a truly impressive background in dog training.
After leaving school, Sam’s career began with much larger animals. She started out in the horse racing industry, training yearlings. She had a long experience of A&P competitions with her own horses growing up, so horse training was a natural progression for her. There came a moment in her life, though, when her love for dog training meant she had to make a choice between horses and dogs, and the dogs won!
Sam came to K9MD with considerable experience in obedience training, having successfully started her own business, Recruit Dog Training, focusing on competition and obedience training. The name of the business inspired the names of her own dogs at home - more about that later.
Sam says she has always had dogs from about the age of four. Her first dog was Chad, a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel. Chad was followed by Ninja, a black Cocker Spaniel. These were lovely natured dogs ideal for young children. Then, Sam fell in love with boxers, and has shared much of her life with them, beginning with Bruno, then Saffi (Saffron), followed by Schultz and lastly Zeus. Sam says, “Boxers are big goofballs, big kids, the class clowns, but loyal too. I took Saffi to breed shows and started obedience work with her."
Since you can never have too many dogs, and wanting to exercise her obedience training skills, Sam added Husky Shiloh to the family. Sam built Shiloh up to be a New Zealand Obedience Champion and has added many more champions to her family since. Olly came to her as a very sickly orphan Huntaway who she nursed back to life and took him through to being a New Zealand Grand Champion in obedience - the highest level of achievement in NZ. No-one has ever achieved that with Huntaways, so this is the measure of Sam’s skills as a trainer. Olly was definitely a sporty kid.“Olly did dry land sled racing, too, mainly through forestry, and he did agility and rally-o. Huntaways are loyal, cruisy and chill, but they’ll go on forever when you need them to. They’re friendly with everyone. Good natures, and good-looking. But I’m probably biased!”
Sam now has Rookie (5) and Cadet (2) at home - names that fit very well at Recruit Dog Training. Both are Huntaways and both are New Zealand Obedience Champions thanks to Sam’s careful guidance. To take Huntaways to this level of excellence is very rare, since they are not natural obedience competitors. Cadet achieved his award just a few weeks ago, and is one of the youngest dogs ever to have secured the title. Rookie also does scent work trials competitively, so it’s clear Sam likes to take her work home with her.
K9MD Hero has now successfully completed his validation and is able to move on to the next level, working with patient samples, which means the entire bowel cancer team, Levi Weta and Hero are now working with patient samples.
Sam says all three dogs are very different and have their own distinctive personalities. For that reason, Sam took care to get to know them well. “All three have a good work ethic and know their jobs. Their personalities come through outside the training room, when we go outside for a run about in between work sessions. I call Levi ‘His Lordship’. He’s very focused on work and duty. ‘Princess Weta’ works hard but loves a cuddle when she’s not working. And young Hero is the ‘Court Jester’ who carries his blanky around with him when he’s not in the training room.”
A typical day for Sam begins with the ‘school run’ when each of the trainers drive to work and collect the canine team members on route in our fleet of specially adapted vehicles. Sam is responsible for driving Hogan and Hero to work, since they live with foster families on Sam’s route. On arrival, she’ll take Hogan and Hero for a ‘toilet walk’ and then she checks the work board to see what lies ahead for the day. There are usually three scenting sessions for each dog, but during validation weeks, that can rise to five sessions for the dog undertaking the validation. In addition to scent work, Sam helps with preparing the training room for detection sessions, and throughout the day will assist with changing the scent plates in the room, setting up the video to record detection results, and also oversees the work of the other trainers. It’s a busy day, and she also needs to find time in between to write up the results of the tests in between detection sessions. In her breaks, she likes to spend time with her canine team, ‘the Three Blacks’ outside in the K9MD gardens, getting to know them more and introducing fun to contrast with the sensible side of the work day.
Sam admits to being particular with her training style at K9MD. She is firm but fair, patient and consistent. But she says she is even more fussy with her own dogs because she is competing at the top level in obedience championships. But just like introducing a bit of fun for the dogs at work, she loves to cycle with her family dogs in their downtime, letting them splash around in puddles and bark for the sheer pleasure of it. K9MD dogs, though, have a different purpose, and training for scent work is quite different from obedience work, so Sam has adopted different techniques to get the very best out of the K9MD team. She knows what a huge impact their work will have on cancer healthcare in New Zealand.
Sam says she has a great human team to work with at K9MD, with whom she has such a good working relationship. “We support each other, but we can also have a laugh together. It’s also great to see the other trainers’ progress with the dogs, and we always have a cake to celebrate when the dogs achieve their validation.”
Asked what she is most proud of, Sam is typically self-deprecating. She looks back on her time with K9MD with some surprise about how far she has come in barely a year. She has had to learn a lot over that time, as she says there is a lot more involved in the dogs’ cancer detection work than she had anticipated, including the laboratory side of things. She has achieved a great deal of personal growth in the last 12 months.
“I’m proud of all the dogs and how far they’ve come. I love working with them and seeing them develop and achieve such amazing results. It’s wonderful working towards such a vital outcome, and I want to do whatever I can to help.”
Sam is most definitely the trainer of champions in all walks of her life.
