LawDog
The Invictus Tactical Lawdog seminar in Las Vegas is the biggest K9 seminar of the year. This year’s seminar is scheduled for February 23-27, 2009. The teaser video for it is below.
Advantages
Police canine seminars can be judged by the quality and number of instructors. The LawDog seminar has the highest number of quality instructors around. Some of my favorite are Terry Fleck, Steve White, Lane Critser, Brad Smith, Stewart Hillard, Kevin Sheldahl, Bob Eden, and Bob Wright. LawDog has only been in existence for a few years but has grown quickly because of creator Danny King’s efforts at marketing and bringing in the top names in the industry to teach. Danny also takes advantage of his department’s location in Las Vegas and that city’s great conference facilities.
Lawdog is a seminar that you can attend year after year and still learn plenty every year. The size of the seminar contributes to this because there are so many different topics, you can’t go to all of them. Also, several of the topics and instructors change from year to year.
Disadvantages
Cost. Because there is a conference fee, a workshop fee, travel and hotel expenses, this conference can break the small budgets of most canine units.
International Police Canine Conference
The International Police Canine Conference is produced by Bob Eden. This seminar has been around longer and is more established. Also, Bob Eden recently started a blog called Police Dog Training and Deployment.
Advantages
One benefit of this seminar is it’s ability to travel to different locations which can decrease travel costs. This year’s conferences are at West Coast Conference – Alameda County, California – May 30th – June 5th and Southern States Conference – New Orleans, Louisiana – April 19th – April 24th.
This seminar is an excellent one for a handler that has been working the street for a year or two and has mastered the basics of handling. I think this seminar works well as an advanced handler school. It can show handlers their weaknesses especially with tactics and how to correct them.
Bob Eden supplies plenty of high quality instructors and the training sessions stretch into the night, so you get your money’s worth.
Disadvantages
The format is pretty standard and a handler will not get much more information with repeated visits. Going once every 3 or 4 years will help refresh handlers but there are not enough changes in the topics or instructors to justify going every year.
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Law Dog 2009 was awful. I will not go again. There are much better National Seminars out there. Don’t waste your money.
Ralph,
Can you give us some more feedback? What specific parts or instructors did you not like? What national seminars would you recommend and why?
Sure no problem:
It was very unorganized and because it was unorganized, speakers were late to their lectures. The equipment provided for the lecture did not work. Lecturers could not find what room they were assigned to. You can spend your departements money in much better ways. Vegas is a great location. The Hotel was poor.
Scott,
I have a question for you….Where did you get your information that LAWDOG was the Biggest and the Best dog Seminar around ? You must not have attended LAWDOG because you would have seen it first hand. So, where did your information come from ?
That is unfortunate that this year’s LAWDOG was that poorly organized.
I was set to attend the first LAWDOG. I had been to a variety of other national conferences and canine training seminars over the years including Eden’s International Police Canine Conference several times, USPCA’s National Training Seminar several times, Brad Smith’s SKIDDS program, and several smaller regional level training events. But, I promoted and went back to patrol so I didn’t get to go.
Several of my friends that I trained with went to the first two LAWDOGs and thought they were great. As I said in the article, instructors make the seminar. All the instructors I listed in the article have taught at the K9 training I have attended, they are well known names in the Police K9 community and most of them have been instructors at LAWDOG. I can’t see them doing a crappy job.
None of my friends attended LAWDOG in Vegas this year so I can’t attest to how organized it was.
I do appreciate your comments because if LAWDOG has become crap then that information will keep other K9 officers from wasting their money. If anyone else attended the 2009 LAWDOG Vegas, tell us what your experiences were.
Next, give us some alternatives. If another K9 conference is better, then tell us what it is and why. One that neither me or my friends have been to is HITS because it is new. It looks pretty good from the instructor list and Police K9 magazine is the best source of good information in the industry now.
Ralph, could you be specific about what you did not like about the seminar? It is so unfortunate that you are biased. I attended the 2009 LAWDOG seminar in Vegas for the first time and i thought that it was a great seminar. It was well organized and was attended by K9 handlers and trainers from all over the world. I personally met folks from the US, Canada, Israel, Turkey, the UK and others. It was a nice event with little problems. The only problem was with the XScent vendors and they were thrown out for displaying unprofessional behavior. I attended most of the lectures and the instructors gave very good lectures..they were really all top-class instructors. It ended with a nice banquet and a raffle drawing. It was a good seminar and i will recommend it to anybody. since then i have been to other national seminars. i have been to over 8 seminars this year and LAWDOG and HITS have been the best. Get you facts straight “ralph” and stop hating. Even if you do hate, let’s keep it professional and still provide the K9 community with the right opinion so that they can make accurate choices.
Went to HITS in L.A. this years. It was a great Hanlder Seminar. Nice hotel, good speakers on many subjects. Two speakers were from England and Holland. This Seminar was well put together and fun. I learned a lot and I would attend this event again. I highly recommend HITS. Thanks Scott for pointing this Seminar out to your readers.