Back the Blue K9 Force: Talking Canine Nonprofits, SRO Work, and more with John Gray!

It's been kind of cool because before, so when I, when I was working as a school resource officer and I would go into the schools, there'd be a lot of kids that would engage with you, right? They were just excited to see you because they knew what your purpose was there. And they, a lot of kids, even if they didn't really like you, they felt better knowing you were there, you know, but you walk in there with a dog and you get mobbed, right? Like you can't go anywhere fast. And so even kids that may not normally talk to me are on the floor petting the dog. And before you know it, now I'm building relationships with them. And the next time I walk in there and I don't have the dog, they come up and talk to me. And so that's created a whole new segue.

And that's a great perspective because I think we get lost in we're here to enforce the law and lost in the fact that we really should be here to build community relations. And yeah, we got to take law enforcement action at times, but that community relations is going to go a lot further than, you know, just being one-track-minded all the time. And there's a time and place for that, I fully 100% get it. But, you know, at the same time, our work is being done in our communities that a lot of us live in.

Yeah, yeah, it's great. No, you're right. I mean, I think when it comes to like especially organizations like Back the Blue K9 Force, you normally might not see them doing something that would even be related to the school, right? But now it's given us this opportunity, you know, to engage kids in events that are raising money for a nonprofit, right? So they're excited about coming to— we, we have what we call the Rex Run, and it's a 5K, and it's a family event, and people come out, and if they don't want to run, they participate in other activities. But we do dog demos there. We talk about the program and auction stuff off. But there's, there's kids that are like, you know, they're coming from my school and I don't even see them. I just hear them yelling the dog's name because they're so used to seeing them, you know. And so I'm like, this is cool, because now when they're older, they may be more likely to be like, hey, I want to be involved in, in an organization like this that supports these dogs, because I grew up around, you know. When they see a dog that has a badge— because believe it or not, there's other therapy dogs in some of our schools, but if our dogs are there, they walk right past those dogs because they're like, I want to go pet the dog that has a badge on, you know, I want to be involved with that dog. And so it's, it's been really cool to see that, you know, bringing like a new generation of kids kind of into, into that world.

Yeah, that's, that's crazy, John, because really what I heard you say was those other dogs were like the fire department or the firemen, and everybody wanted to be with the cool kids, which had the badges on their dogs, right?

Yeah. I mean, our dogs are kind of like their dogs' heroes, you know.

That is 100% correct. Okay. I get it now. I'm, I'm, I'm falling in line with that.

Okay.

So, um, I'd like to introduce John Gray to everybody, and he's part of a great organization. Called Back the Blue K-9 Force. We're doing this week's segment on just a K-9 nonprofit, and, and I kind of want to expose our listeners to the nonprofit side of the reality of K-9 in today's law enforcement, right? Because not everybody and not every agency can fund their program as well as some can. And, you know, some of that is budget cuts, some of that is agencies or government agencies in general municipalities and/or county commissioners not seeing the value of dogs. And without community support, a lot of that can't be done. And there's organizations like Back the Blue K9 Force that, for whatever reason— and we're going to get the story tonight on why you guys decided to take on this task, because it's It's a daunting task to, to make all this work. And I think a lot of people see nonprofit and they hear horror stories, or, you know, they hear the stories about much of the dollars not going to the actual causes. So we're going to talk a little bit about that. But there's, there's a reason behind every organization. I think that's the uniqueness of nonprofits, because there's, there's a real need there, but there's also a heart behind the need to fill a gap to help all this come together. And so I want to get into that. I want to let John introduce himself for a moment, tell us about the organization, and just segue us into the rest of tonight where maybe somebody that's listening can also get inspired to, one, donate and support the organization, and/or two, start or become involved in an organization like this. So John, um, you if you'll take a little bit of time to introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about Back the Blue K9 Force.

[Speaker:JOHN_GRAY] Yeah. So, like I said, my name is John Gray. I'm a deputy for Arapahoe County Sheriff's Office in Colorado, and I became affiliated with Back the Blue K9 Force about 3 and a half years ago. And it is a nonprofit organization that was started by Diane Lewis. She's a lady that lived in our community and her and some of her friends saw a need, and that need was originally to provide bulletproof vests for police dogs. That was their original mission. But in, I would say, almost under 10 years, they went from that mission to purchasing over 15 police dogs for agencies that couldn't even afford it. They've provided money for emergency surgeries. They have provided all of our, all of our handlers with emergency medical kits for their dogs. And the, the response has just been unbelievable. So the work that they do, and I, and I loved when you said, you know, kind of explaining that, like, how nonprofits work in the sense that I think sometimes people think that when I donate $5, how much of this $5 goes to that exact cause.

Yeah.

The thing that's kind of cool now, having kind of seen behind the scenes, the best thing is that 100% of the proceeds that come in to Back the Blue go directly to the dogs, directly to the handler needs. The only things that would come out of that would be, hey, we're gonna buy something like, let's say we, we buy stuffed animals that have our dogs' names on them, and then we sell the stuffed animals at events to help raise money for the dogs, right? So again, even that money is just used to generate more money for the dogs and more money for the handlers. So it's incredible what they've done. Um, and you know, the second that we really need something or have something, I can get on the phone and within a matter of minutes Diane is like, even if I don't have the money, I'm going to find somebody who does or find somewhere that has the money. And so Um, it's been incredible. I mean, anybody who can, who has been around police dogs, it's, it's expensive. You know, I would say it probably varies a little bit across the country. I know our agency and in Colorado, it seems like most time a police dog could go from $8,000 to $12,000 without any training, you know, just to acquire the dog. And so it's expensive. And then you tack on equipment and, oh, the handler needs equipment now and we need training. We need to send people to, different things. It's, it can be taxing on a department. And so Back the Blue provides that support, not only for the Sheriff's Office, but for other metropolitan agencies that otherwise they probably wouldn't even have a K-9 program.

Yeah, that's tremendous. And I, I just want to make sure I heard you right. My hearing as I got older is a little bit dampened. Did you say 100% of your guys' proceeds go directly towards the mission that you guys support, which is dogs, dog handlers, and equipment. Yep.

Yeah, it's been, it's been unbelievable.

That's crazy, man. That's crazy.

None of them take— none of these, they're all volunteers. Nobody is taking— yeah, nobody is paying themselves. I mean, I, I'll guarantee you Diane works probably more hours than I do in a week, and she doesn't get paid. She does that out of just, just her own kindness and generosity. And so it's just unbelievable. And so we've done a multitude of different events and we're constantly trying to come up with new ways to, to not just say, hey, we need money, but to say, hey, how can we engage with the community so that when they donate the money, they can either see directly where it goes? I think for me, if I were to donate money and to be able to say, hey, I purchased this for that dog. I think that's cool. You know, I think that provides value to me as a donor rather than, hey, I donated even maybe if it was only, you know, $5 or I donated $50 and I never saw where it went. You know, they told me it went to a good cause. And so I think that that's been kind of cool where people will, you know, we've done some events like canine. We did a canine Christmas event. So people could actually pick items off of a list for a dog and say, I want to buy this specifically for that dog. And then we do the actual event so they could show up and interact with the dog and, you know, bring the gift with them if they'd like. And so it's been kind of cool to see that creativity come into play when it comes to engaging people to, to be a part of it, you know.

Yeah, I don't know too many people that work for free, right? But when you have a passion and a heart for something, right, it brings on a totally different perspective, and then you see the vision unfold in front of you. The other thing I thought about as you were, you know, talking about Diane and kind of what she does and how much she gives to this organization— but think about the cool thing that she's also done is she brought you in, which gives her a unique perspective from somebody that's not only a recipient probably of some of these proceeds, but also gets to relate to the people that it's going to, right? Because I know, like, for me, if I was, you know, involved in an organization but I didn't have the background in that organization, it would be kind of difficult to relate to some degree because some things I don't understand about, you know, let's say the medical field or whatever, right? Right. But if I had a doctor on staff or a doctor that was helping us, then that's brings in a whole different perspective. And I would believe that you lend a lot of that support to that perspective to help the organization fully understand how much support they're really giving to these dog handlers and the— and these dogs and how important it is. And I bet you play a vital role in that and really don't even realize that.

I, I think what's kind of cool is You know, Diane's brought in people that she's known for a long time. And when it, when it comes to like our dogs, we are, we are so blessed in that there's been so many people who have even full-time jobs that work with Diane, that work with all of us. And, you know, let's say we have an upcoming event like our Rex Run, and we could talk about that later, but we have, you know, that event and we'll have all sorts of people come together to plan that. And they all have full-time jobs, you know, and they're there just to help us. And it's unbelievable how many people are willing to to give that time. And I think we're kind of lucky too in that, you know, there's a lot of agencies that may or may not have had, or, you know, had an SRO program that had dogs, you know, and maybe they had a K-9 program already. But, you know, it's kind of cool that our K-9 program and our school-related K-9 program kind of works so well together because if it didn't, you know, I think we would just be, you know, we all work for the same place. We would be kind of battling against each other, but we can kind of all get ideas and then we all kind of work with Back the Blue K9 Force to provide that knowledge. Because sometimes they know a lot of, you know, stuff about patrol-related response stuff that I might not have any idea in terms of how they deploy their dog, you know, other than my exposure and just working with the dogs when I worked on patrol, you know, which is much more limited capacity. So, um, it's been really neat to to see how many people it really takes to come together, like you said, to provide different perspectives on things. And, you know, we do the events, um, you know, sometimes it's cool because you'll see, okay, the therapy dogs are out walking and interacting with everybody, but hey, you know what, the dogs are going to go do a bite demo over on the field. And it's like everybody's like right over there, right? And it's cool to see, no matter what the dogs are doing, people are just invested because they just want to, want to be a part of it. And I think it's really cool to see that civilians have had enough passion, like you said, to put in their personal time to be involved, to help us to make all this possible.

Yeah, that's— it's remarkable when you sit back and look, you know, 2016, uh, was when, uh, this organization was formed, and to see where it's at now you know, it was probably beyond the vision that was ever imagined, right?

Yeah. I mean, when you go from purchasing a vest to buying a dog, you know, to—

Yeah.

When our, in our last Rex Run, it's that 5K that we do. And when we started that, that was to help raise money to get more dogs onto the Ethro unit so we could get more dogs in schools. And just with that event alone, the first year we raised over $30,000 in a day. And that's unbelievable. And so again, that money provided 2 dogs. We were able to put 2 more dogs in, um, in our schools. We were able to provide equipment for all of our, you know, for all of our dogs. They were able to buy vests for our dogs. It, it was just, it was unbelievable. And so we just had our second Rex Run this past summer, and again, it was, it was over a $30,000 day, and it takes a lot of volunteers to make that event happen. I had no idea how much went into planning an event, but it's way more than I ever expected. I could tell you that.

That's right. Yes, it is. Uh, Maya does and coordinates our events. And, uh, you know, even if it's just something small, you know, like a lunch or, you know, a meeting dinner or something like that, it, it just— there's so much little minute details that go into making it all smooth. She did the Christmas party this last year And yeah, she, uh, she saw the full wrath of how much goes into just coordinating people, you know, herding sheep, right? She like trying to make sure everybody's there on time, making sure the vendors got their stuff together. Yeah. And you know, the pressure of making it a, a successful event and really honoring what you're representing. Yeah, there's a lot that goes into it. You're absolutely right.

Yeah. And it's been really cool because we've actually had kind of a shift in our agency in that our canine program is actually all— I don't want to say new, but, you know, we don't have anybody on right now that's been on for 25 years as a handler. Right. And so, yeah, while there can be some negative things, that the good thing is that with that, they're sending us all over the country right now to get training. Right, that we haven't had at our agency in 25 years. And there's great training out there now. And so we're able to adopt so many new things that have come to light when it comes to, you know, how to deploy a dog or how to train a dog and different philosophies that we would've never considered in the past. But now, now our agency's like, hey, this is a good time to get everybody to training. And it's cool that that can be part of the mission through Back the Blue too, is, hey, let's get officers get our handlers better trained to better train these dogs, right? And that ultimately could keep a dog safe, right? I mean, and it's, it's been a really fun process in seeing how, you know, how both the school team has formed. We have 5 dogs now and all of them have been, you know, because of Back the Blue, K9 Force has purchased all of our dogs, all of our equipment. And so, Really, our program might not even exist if it wasn't for some of that funding.

Yeah, that's awesome. You look at the operation, the formation of an organization, then you look at how the organization operates, but the reality of it, what keeps it going is the donations, right?

Yeah.

So can you speak a little bit on what do you, what does Back the Blue K9 Force do to raise funds and how, how, what's the process that they go through to do that?

Yeah, that's a great question. So I would say a majority of things that we actually work on to generate revenue are, you know, like I said, we have all these custom-made stuffed dogs. That's probably, while that seems like it'd be a small thing, it actually generates a lot of funds. So we purchase all these dogs, we take them to events, whether it's our county fair, sheriff's office open house, and we'll have other agencies kind of come partner with us and we sell dogs. Obviously donations where people just donate just 'cause. But then we also do different, like kind of unique events in the sense of we've done, you know, dog demos and stuff at the Sheriff's Office open house where we're actually showing and kind of showcasing what the dogs do. And then maybe we'll talk about, hey, these are the needs of the dogs. So then we're getting, we're, we're targeting exactly what it is that the dogs may need so that we can get more specific donations there. Um, our newest, I would say kind of our newest venture is that me and another deputy that I work with in our kind of in our spare time had illustrated and wrote a children's book about our dogs. And so we self-published the book. And we are going to give all the proceeds from the book sales to Back the Blues so that that can support the dogs. So again, just another way to raise funds for the nonprofit. So I think we're trying to always think of stuff like, I would say right now one of our biggest events is the Rex Run, which, you know, we're going to do that every year. And hopefully, you know, with there being a vendor fair there, we've had people from other states travel in, which is really cool. But I'd say a lot of people don't realize, but it's just even our holiday events, just events that we plan to where people can show up and interact with the dogs, see what those needs are. Maybe they purchase— we have poker chips that have our dogs' faces on them. I know they do those all across the country, right? But those sometimes are a hot item to where people are like, oh, that's really cool, you know, I want to, I want to buy a stuffed dog and a poker chip. And I know that that money goes directly towards supporting your dog. And it's kind of cool working in schools because we had one of our elementary schools say, hey, we want to sell the stuffed dogs for you. So they sold— in, um, just a few weeks, they sold $3,000 worth of stuffed dogs.

Wow.

Just that one school. So our county services almost 40 elementary schools, so, um, and that's across two districts. You know, it's been incredible, the support from the schools. And then we also, one last kind of thing we do to generate money is we auction off experiences. So in the schools, the PTOs will ask, hey, will you donate? Well, what we'll do is we'll donate a, I call it like a Rex experience, or if our other dogs, you know, they'll plug in their name. And what we can do is we have a basket with all the swag related to our dog. We bring them out to the sheriff's office, we give them a full tour, we do dog demos, we show them, talk about how we train the dogs. They have dinner with us, um, they get to play with the dogs. And so that's kind of an experience that we auction off. And it— and I mean, honestly, that, that one experience alone in one of my elementary schools, which was advertised through the PTO, raised $6,000 in one night. So, so some of these things, wow, are, are cool because in the grand scheme of things, right, that doesn't cost us a lot, but we can bring people out and give them a really unique, really cool experience and, and it raises a lot of money. So it's been kind of cool to see what different avenues we can utilize to really fund because medical bills and things like that for dogs get expensive. Fast.

Yeah, you know, you have one slip up or a torn ACL and that's thousands of dollars. You break the right teeth and that's thousands of dollars worth of work, and that's not even like life-saving, right? You get into something like bloat or other ailments that, you know, require surgery, recovery, all those things are are highly regarded when it comes to funding in order to, you know, save a dog's life or to help a dog through a difficult situation.

Yeah, no, you're totally right. It's, it's crazy how fast it, it adds up and gets expensive. Um, but, you know, I will say it's, it's better when you can have a large group of people trying to come up with new ways on how we can, how we can engage the community to raise money. Because, you know, not everybody wants to buy something. You know, sometimes people don't want to blindly donate, but, you know, how can we show them what our needs are and how can we do that creatively? And, you know, whether it's coming up with a new shirt that we want to sell or, uh, you know, different, I guess, just different ways to you know, different ways to raise money.

Yeah, absolutely. Now, I do have a question. The name of the organization, Back the Blue Canine Force, where did that come from?

So I think initially, um, you know, it started out just being an organization just for police dogs, and Diane and her, and her group of friends came up with that name. So I don't, I don't want to misspeak on how the name formed exactly, but I think it's just honestly them bringing together their force people from the community to back the dogs. And they always use the slogan, which we all know, right? Let's support the paws that enforce the laws. That's what they're here for. They just, you know, they want to um, show that they— that our community supports its law enforcement. And, you know, and they saw a need, and I thought it was really cool that, um, you know, they, they saw actually dogs working and saw that they didn't have proper equipment, and that's what inspired this whole thing, you know. And it's crazy to see that, you know, you went from that to, to now you're making things happen for police agencies that You don't even realize it, but some of these dogs, they're saving officers' lives. You know, you can send a dog in to clear a house or to clear a building or to, you know, search for an explosive that otherwise you'd have an officer in there, or, uh, you know, somebody trying to manipulate a robot or do something like that, right? So it's a huge deal that they're able to provide a dog for an agency that can't afford it.

So, but John, I don't know where you grew up, right? But where I grew up, I was never exposed to dogs, right? And what I mean by that is, is because of the exposure of these dogs in an elementary school, we talk about the D.A.R.E. program and other programs that have kind of shaped the vision of some young kids, especially from a law enforcement perspective, and exposed them to a law enforcement career. That maybe otherwise was never exposed to that. But think about that for dogs as well, right? You're helping kids. You may bridge a gap between a kid and yourself or a kid and a dog that would've never opened up or never utilized that resource to make big things happen. That dog bridges that gap. On top of that, you're exposing them to things that they may want to do as a career later on. I also want to be a K-9 handler, police officer, to one day become a K-9 handler. And I hope that I can influence somebody in, in another school with my dog one day. And so we're giving these kids opportunities to be exposed to an industry that they may have only seen the negative on the news.

Yeah.

Now, now they really see the real side of law enforcement that we all see. That oftentimes is never reported on.

Yeah. And I don't, I mean, I'll be honest, I don't know that I was very knowledgeable on or ever really interacted or knew much about police dogs until I worked at the sheriff's office, you know, other than maybe seeing them on TV, you know? And so this is, you're right, it's opened up a lot of doors and started a lot, a lot of conversations for kids cuz they genuinely don't know. They don't know what some of the dogs do. They don't— they even ask questions about what our dogs do. And, you know, so it's— I have that chance to explain, you know, hey, this is how they keep us safe. This is how the dog works, right? And, and I think we get a lot of questions too on like, well, you know, I think with how the— how therapy dogs started and everybody wanted to put an emotional support dog patch on their dog, you know, on their Chihuahua, and bring it on a plane. There, there was a lot of mud there. And so now that we're trying to clear up those waters, I, I try to explain to people too, like, hey, there's a whole side of this training and patterning this dog into understanding how to detect the hormonal change in somebody, right? I want to— I want an actual trained scientific response from my dog. Just as if he was searching for an explosive. I want him to use his nose to, to find somebody who is hormonally impacted in a room where nobody's crying, and then I know I've succeeded, right? So people are like, what does a therapy dog do? I'm like, that's what we're doing. And it has been awesome to see him engage with somebody. We'll go into a classroom, he'll pick one student out and just sit by them, and they're like— you go up and you start talking to them, they're like, that's weird, I had a really hard morning. You know, sometimes they're tearing up and they're like, I I don't know why he came and sat with me and I'm like, why? But, but, you know, um, you know, and then, and then next thing you know, it's like you said, we're, we're building connections that otherwise might not be there. Because even our handlers that have patrol dogs will tell you it's nerve-wracking for them taking their dogs, even though they're well-behaved, even though they're trained, around kids, right? Because they don't want anything to happen, right? Kids are brutal. I work around kids every day. I know they're brutal, right? They pull the dog's ear even if they're trying to be friendly because they, they're gaining that understanding. It's like you said, you know, they may have had limited exposure. You know, I had a girl walk my dog to class. She had never seen a dog before. She was from another country, never seen a dog before, and she was scared to death. And after, I would say, 5 minutes of hanging out with us, she actually took the leash and walk the dog to class. And so I think those experiences are, have been kind of really impactful, you know, not only on me, but I think on even the staff in the school, right, to being like, wow, I really see a huge need for, for this program. And, you know, again, with a program like this, now a lot of other agencies are trying to do it. And so that's right, we're getting a lot of questions on how do we raise funds, you know, which is why I think this is This is an awesome podcast because I get this question a lot. How do you guys fund your dogs? You know, and I'll be honest, there's a, there's a lot of stuff that the sheriff's office purchases. We are very, very fortunate in that our sheriff, I, I don't even know that it took him 10 minutes to make the decision to approve this program. He has been, I have never heard the guy say no to me. You know, our sheriff Tyler Brown has been supportive from day one and That has not been the case for some people who are trying to start up a program. And so if you don't have that backing, right, if you don't have support and maybe there's a little question there of, well, this seems expensive, you know, without a nonprofit, where do you go? Right? If you don't have your agency funding, you don't have a nonprofit, where do you go? Right? And so having that collaboration together, and so that's brought up, you know, just now agencies out here, I think, even though maybe it's been this way for a little bit, are starting to kind of adopt that, hey, let's start our own nonprofit, right? We can start our own nonprofit to fund our K9 or to help. Maybe it's to, you know, provide better SWAT gear for when they have a critical incident or whatever it is. But there's people out there that want to donate, you know, or that say, hey, we'll host an event, right? We've had people reach out and say, hey, we would love to host an event at our restaurant for you guys, or hey, we would love to host an event here. And so I think, you know, it's really neat to see, like I said, you know, back to Blue Canine Force and all these volunteers just jump right in and say, hey, you know what, we're gonna help you set this event up and we're gonna help raise money for dogs.

[Speaker:AJ VARGAS] And that's crazy because you bring up an interesting point because without the sheriff's support, without your school system support, yeah, yeah, it doesn't matter how much money you have or, you know, what the cost is. It could have got shot down before it ever got started. Yeah. And so that puts and moves to the forefront the ability to have leadership that recognizes that this is non-traditional, but I'm interested. And let's see what we need to do to make it work. And, and most times from an admin perspective, it's just the support.

Yeah.

You let these go-getters go.

Yeah.

And they're gonna make you look good. And so have a little bit less control and a little bit more freedom and allow these people to excel in the things that they really want to do in their career. And you'll be surprised on the, on the leaps and bounds that they make. Because you've allowed them to do that, you know. So that leadership is important as well. Absolutely.

And I think, I mean, taking a chance for, for a, you know, a government organization is scary, right? Like, they're always looking at what's the liability, what is the potential, what could go wrong with this, you know. And, and there's that risk, right? But again, it's like you said, when you have that support, and like I said, we were fortunate that our sheriff's like I, I like the concept. I like where your guys' minds are. This is something that we can see our agency putting a huge emphasis on community policing, which for a long time, right? It's not that we haven't done community policing, but as long as I've been in law enforcement now, I haven't seen revolutionary ways of, of bringing forth problems to the people that we're, we're serving, right? And so, you know, it goes back to when we looked, you know, back at like the broken windows theory and things like that. They stayed around for a while, but every once in a while we have to come up with new ways, you know, to, to community police or new ways to engage the people that we're trying to serve and protect, right? And so it's kind of neat to have you know, to work with an organization that's like, yep, we're going to take a chance. We're going to take a chance. And not only that, something else that you said too is not only do they have to be willing to take the chance, but they have to be willing to invest that money to take a chance. Right. And for a sheriff's office that has board of county commissioners, we have other— there's a lot of things that go, you know, in at play there when it comes to funding. Where that's the fortunate thing about a nonprofit, right? If, if you can get support from your agency and you can get funding elsewhere, it will make it so much easier for you to start a program or to operate a program without it being a burden on administration.

Yeah, that's, that's exactly right. And, you know, you're also finding A lot of naysayers that are in the background saying, oh, you know, I don't see the reward for this, or wasting a bunch of time in training, or training these officers that are going to leave next year, or we're investing all this money, what's the return on it, right? Yeah. Then when you get rolling and it starts snowballing and the community starts jumping on board, then you really see the, the, the multipliers of investing those 1%. That 1% equity into this, you know, for a period of time until it really makes something big. It took a little while, but now looking back and you're going, wow, yeah, in essence it could have been stopped before it ever got started because leadership could have cut it out. Yeah, but instead they supported it and, and now you guys were, are able to grow it to what it is today, and that's, that's just awesome to see. But I think it's a testament on what we need to be forward-thinking in, in community policing and the ways that we approach things nowadays.

Well, and it's kind of like, you know, I think a lot of times we look for proof of concept, right? I need to know that, I need to know that this is actually working, right? And so we want, in law enforcement, you know, we always want data. How can I get data? I want qualitative data, right? It's hard to always quali— you know, to get actual, you know, and I put a number on it, right? Whether it's qualitative or quantitative data, whatever, whatever it is you're looking for, sometimes it's hard to get that data. But the cool thing is, is that when the community started, when we started with my dog Rex, who was an 8-week-old puppy, we bring him in, swear him in, start training him, and within 3 years, right? It hasn't even been 3 years yet, we have expand it to 5 dogs. There's your proof, right, that were all purchased by our community, right, that were all requested by the school districts that they service, right? And so I think it's really cool to see not only the need of the community present itself, but the solution for some of the problems show its, you know, show its benefit and show that it's actually a necessary tool. And I think that's the thing that's really cool too, is when I just went to a training recently in California and, um, we went with some of our other canine handlers and, and it was really cool to see the perspective of like, hey, just, just because a dog is in police work doesn't mean it can only do XYZ, right? Dogs are incredible, right? I mean, they can be trained for a multitude of things that, I mean, that you say something like, oh, well, there's bed bugs, you know, in this place. There's a bed bug dog that can detect that, and people are like, what? You know, so you get a lot of shock from people, right? That's just because dogs are incredible. So now, you know, when we were at this training, it was cool to see people like, wow, you know, like, I wouldn't have thought of using a dog that way, right? We've always had drug dogs and bite dogs or tracking dogs or You know, and they're like, we've never thought of using a dog. And I'll be honest, right? Even some of our canine handlers, I'm sure were scratching their heads at first. Like, wait, what do you guys want to do? Really? You know? But I think now that it's played out and we've seen where we wanted it to go and we've seen it get there, now we have a good understanding. And it's cool to see other people like, hey, I've been working around law enforcement for a long time and it's cool to see them taking that chance, or it's cool to see them give you guys that opportunity, right? And it's, it's really neat to see people that maybe would've never thrown a dollar bill in support to the sheriff's office are like, here's $100, you know, we appreciate your dog working in our kids' school, you know?

Yeah. Dogs have always been there to bridge the gap, you know, but it's not for everybody. You know, it's not for every handler to work a therapy dog and to be around kids, right? Because, yeah, let's be quite honest, you know, most K9 handlers get into it for the excitement of, you know, the chase and all those other things.

Yeah.

But there's a definite need for those, you know, resource officers that are there every day meeting our kids and taking care of them. I wouldn't send my kid to a school that didn't have a great SRO program because I know there's an absolute need for that.

Yeah.

With that being said, now we incorporate dogs and build gaps and bridge those, those maybe, uh, disgruntled kids that really don't understand and only getting fed from one side of the house, if you will. And now they get to see a whole different perspective. You know what? That police officer's not a bad guy. He's actually pretty cool. Right? And he has a dog. And, you know, so you just continue to multiply that tenfold. And the real proof in the pudding is— and I would venture to say this— wait, wait about another 5 years, because the program's been running about 3. So let these kids grow up. Yeah, right. And I would almost assure you, you're going to start seeing them come back and start seeing them and giving you feedback. Man, I can remember the first day I met you guys. I can remember the first day I met this dog or this, and I'm doing this now because of this, and you know, I was really heading down a bad road and this really helped me. And I, I can almost guarantee that we're going to start— or you guys are going to start seeing this come to fruition and really seeing the fruits of your guys's labor.

Yeah, and I'm excited for that day. I mean, we've, we've done like, you know, I know I kind of talked about some of the things we've done, you know, raising money-wise, but You know, the things that we do in the schools, whether it's, you know, I, I do a reading program in my school where we do Reading with Rex, and I bring the dog in and kids can practice reading to him. And it's not reading to their whole class, so kids that are afraid to public speak, it's a great way, right? Or there you go, you know, the dog's not going to judge them, right? And so, um, or I'll read a book with Rex to the students, right? And so they're like, oh, police officer came to my school, read us a book today, right? And either that or we incentivize kids to have good leadership and good behavior by I'll have lunch with the kids. So we'll take a table full of winners that like, hey, these are students that were nominated this month for leadership and I'll have lunch with them and I bring the dog in and they get to have lunch with the dog. And so it's— there are so many like levels to this program that I tell people all the time that are SROs that are looking at developing a program like this. I'm like, hey, You're going to be only limited by your own creativity. I mean, the sky's the limit, right? Whatever program you can come up with. And you're right, the more we come up with things like this now, you know, the more we get those responses, which is cool because even as just an SRO before I had a dog, you know, some of the people that went to my school that were middle schoolers when I used to work in a middle school, were now explorers for us, or some of them were at the high school and now they're police officers that work, you know, they're sheriffs that work with us, you know. And I'm like, I remember when you were in high school and now you're a deputy. This is crazy. I'm getting old, right? But, but I know what you're saying though, you know, those, those connections I think could be even strengthened with the dog program. So I am really excited to see where it goes, and I encourage people Truthfully, I really do. I encourage people, if they have any support, if they can find ways to fundraise, if they can find a nonprofit to work with to make something possible to get, you know, whether it's an SRO canine program going or a dog, you know, canine program going on, it's amazing what these dogs can do to save officers and to interact with the community. It's amazing.

Yeah, I mean, I, you know, going back to our earlier conversation, I've already heard 3 ways that another program can use to, can do to raise funding, right? One of which is your poker chips, right? Sell a souvenir that's related to your unit, come up with some other stuffed animal or something that's recognizable to your union, a little bit unique, and then also to have specific fundraising events such as the Rex Run.

Yeah.

Where they're doing a 5K or some other type of race. Right. But the underlying factor here is to build those community relations and to really bridge the— or forge that relationship. Yeah. And because that's where you're really gonna get your support and your traction is from having that community relations. Right.

[Speaker:AJ VARGAS] Yeah. Yeah. And there's, I mean, you can see the, like, I've seen the benefit recently with community relations when it, when it comes to the book, right? So when we started looking at how do we make this book happen, we needed a lot of sponsors. So reaching out to the school districts, there's a lot of businesses that support Back the Blue K9 Force that will often donate lots of money to say, Hey, you know what? We saw this dog had a surgery. Our business wants to donate $20,000 towards that surgery. You know, it's, it's crazy because you can see all these places within your community step up, you know, rise to the challenge and say, hey, we're going to, we're going to donate. Right? And so that's been really powerful. I know that there's even like the grocery stores by us or Amazon. There's different ways that you can tap into your account so that when you're making purchases, a small amount of that purchase goes towards Back the Blue K9 Force, which is cool, right? That's things that you don't even realize, right? Every time you go to the grocery store and then the grocery store donates 1% of my grocery— well, that's awesome, right? So there's other ways of engaging that, but so much of it comes from those community partnerships that you develop along the way. And so, I mean, that's powerful, especially when you're going to run events, right? If you're going to run an event, you know, and I'm sure that you guys both know this, when you start looking at, hey, what all do we need? Let's say we're going to do an auction. Well, now we need auction items. If you have good community relations and good community partnerships and you have people that are like, hey, I want to donate this item to your auction, you know, so that you can raise money for your nonprofit, it's unbelievable. You know, and so for the Rex Run last year, we had so many items that I'm like, I'm going to be broke because I'm going to have to try to win all these items myself. And so, but it's cool because we were able to get so many unique things that were because we had volunteers that had good partnerships with people. And so I encourage, like, I see there's a lot of really awesome agencies in Georgia that are killing it on social media and that are doing a great job when it comes to events, right? So much so that here we can be in Colorado and know exactly what's going on in Alpharetta, right? Or we can go know exactly what's going on with other dogs out there. And it's because, again, you have good partnerships, you have good social media, and you have all these things that culminate, and you can get support from people that may not even know you exist. You know, and it's just unbelievable.

Yeah. And that was the other thing I was gonna bring up, John, you know, besides the money, right?

Yep.

There's other resources that people donate. You already named items for auctions and things of that, but I'm sure there's also people that donate the resources they have. So I want to make sure that people understand that, especially those that may be listening that want to support you, but maybe they don't have the money to do that, but they have other things. Yeah, you know, I can give you money, or maybe I have this gold nugget that I have that I could give you too that could be worth the weight of money for the organization, right? Um, off the top of your head, and I know I'm putting you on the spot with this, but are there some items that maybe somebody could, or resources that somebody could lend to you that would help the organization.

Oh, absolutely. I mean, I think of, I think of like, okay, when we need to run events, oh, it's endless, right? Like we could, we could use a golf course that's like, hey, maybe we don't have any money, but you can, you can borrow 3 of our golf carts that day. That's a huge savings for us, right? Or it's even as simple as a company that can, you know, hey, we're going to, we're going to donate our bouncy castle to you for a day for your kids event, right? Things like that, right? So you're like, you're saying sometimes it's not always even just the financial, but sometimes it's the time. We've even had people that are news anchors or that are radio show hosts who are saying, I will donate my time to you and I will come emcee your event.

So there you go.

I think there are so many things that go into this that we just literally don't even think about that are like, hey, We don't always just need financial support. We need community support. So if you have something, if you own a business and you have something that you can bring to the table, I encourage people to reach out and ask because, you know, that, that's a huge benefit, right? If when we're planning an event and somebody's like, hey, I got, like I said, I got a golf cart you can use. Hey, we make signs. Would you guys like to use the the frames for our signs for your event. Yes, please. Would you guys like to use this? Yeah, you know, or even we've had food trucks say, hey, we'll just come out to your event, right? We won't make— we won't charge you to come out. We'll just come out to your event or different things like that. It's just unbelievable, you know? So I think so, so often we get zoned in on one thing, right? Or we get hyperfocused on one thing, like, okay, well, we need funding for this, but You're right. There's a lot of resources that, you know, maybe it's even a discount on something. We have some really good, I mean, here in Colorado, we have Ray Allen, um, who's probably one of the biggest canine equipment manufacturers that I'm aware of. Um, and they honestly, they do, they work with us a lot. You know, they work with us a lot on different things, whether it's pricing on things. And, and there's a lot of even smaller you know, I can even think of like some boutique style dog places that work with us, you know, that are like, hey, we just made these dog toys and they just brought them to our agency. And you know what? That's huge, right? So yeah, I'm glad you said that because there are so many things that you're like, I wouldn't even thought that you guys needed this. But, you know, now, you know, now maybe we can, we can partner on something that I never knew I could have provided, you know.

Yeah, and I even think about skill sets, right? People can donate their skill sets. Hey, I can create the flyers for you guys, or I can post this or repost this on my social media to help you guys promote this event. Or, you know, you mentioned the DJ, so it's not just money, it's just not items. Also, when you talk about community I want people to understand that it's just not the community where you're at, John, but yeah, we say it's our community because it can be anywhere in the country. You're still part of our community, you know, because we're all here to help each other out. And I'm sure if somebody needed your help, yeah, they could call on you, right? Because that's what you guys are there for. So it all comes full circle if you think about it. It's not just a one-way track. Oh, we just need your money so that we can support this and this and this. No, it if you need us as well. There may, may be a need that you have, or maybe it's a need for a dog in your community, um, and we'll get to that portion here in a minute. But people can then reach out and go, hey, I just know there's a canine handler in my area that really could use this. Is there a way that we can help them? And I'm sure you guys would consider that.

Oh, absolutely, absolutely. And I think to the, like, the cool thing working with dogs, like I said before, it's like the connections you make are unbelievable. And so when it comes to, you know, even, even resources for, um, you know, hey, we're, we're hosting an event. Like you said, sometimes I don't, I might not even need somebody to MC something. I might just need them to share something on social media because they have a million followers, right? A shout out like that is huge, and that took them nothing other than a click. So there are so many different ways. I kind of go back to, and I always like overuse this thing, but again, you're, you're limited by your creativity, right? So whatever you can come up with. We had people donate paintings to the Rex Run. Unbelievable. She was an unbelievable artist, donated paintings that she did of the dogs. You know, so it's like, hey, whatever skills you have that you think might have nothing to do with dogs could totally be related to helping us. You know, you could totally— and, and I think too, like, recently we've had to— there's a lot of agencies that are like, hey, we don't have training resources. Like, if I'm going to get a dog, I don't have any ability to train it, so I'm going to have— I have to then rely on somebody else, right? So It's just like you're saying, there's people that are driving. We, we have people that are soon going to be driving from both Utah and Wyoming to come shadow us and to kind of see what our program is all about. And that may ultimately come train with us, you know. And so you never know what that resource is that you may need or that you may have available. And I think just keeping an open mind and what you can bring to the table is huge when it comes to, you know, all things law enforcement, even though I don't— I know we don't typically think like that, right?

Yeah, yeah. So yeah, but there's a true need, right? And it's evident in the growth, right? Because if there wasn't a need, you wouldn't grow. It would have already been dissolved and it would have never gained traction. But there's a definite need, and you're filling that void —based on an idea that has evolved. And, you know, the imagination has taken you guys in ways and in directions that you would have never imagined. Now possibly influence other agencies and other programs. And, you know, by all means, I know it's, it's never perfect, but it's a work in progress all the time. Absolutely. And the recognition of that is, is important as well.

Yeah, and I think the more we can— I always, you know, especially now, now I've learned, like, it's better to have the thought process that I know absolutely nothing, right? If I, if I think I know nothing, then I'm going to soak up as much knowledge as I can from everybody I'm around, right? So when I'm in— when I'm training around other people and I might not, you know, maybe I'm not saying a lot or doing a lot, but I'm watching and I'm observing and I'm soaking up stuff, right? I'd rather learn as much as I can from other people. And, you know, yeah, you bring up a good point in that, like, hey, you know, there are so many agencies out here, right? There's so many dogs, and there's, there's a need. There's a need for a lot of these dogs to be working, right? But there's also a huge need for training and for a lot of these other things. And so, you know, I feel pretty fortunate that we are able to get training, but I also feel for those that may not, right? And so I'm excited moving forward, you know, to hopefully— I, I'm sure we're going to go all over the place and train with all, all sorts of different people and, you know, hopefully soak up as much as we can.

So yeah, if you can, uh, just think back for just a moment, John, like, yep, Dogs have influenced a lot of people in your schools, right? Obviously. Yep. Now you're reaching out to other agencies in your area, but if you think about it, we would've never came together if it wasn't for dogs.

That's true.

Yeah. Right. So dogs bridge the gap around the world. I come from a law enforcement background. That's where I got my start and I can, Literally imagine myself in the desert of Dubai training dogs, on a boat in the Caribbean, sitting next to a Dutch Shepherd. But I say all that to say that dogs bring us together. It's the catalyst that we can have influence on others. It's not about the training, it's not about who has the best dog or who's the best trainer or whatever we want to say, right? Yep. It's really about how we can impact others. Exactly. And we have opportunities to do that through dogs, and people oftentimes don't seize those opportunities. They, you know, spend more time trying to prove themselves being the best than it is to spend time to say, hey, listen, we're all in this together no matter what the avenue is, right? Because I can— I'm sure there's a lot of naysayers that were against the program. Oh, this is stupid. We don't need dogs from this. Let's put dogs on the road, let's kick in doors, let's stop everybody and lock everybody up. You know what I mean? And so having that vision and having to fight through some of that stuff, I'm sure was difficult too. And that's just the reality of law enforcement, man. I, you know, it doesn't matter where you're at in the world, it's all the same.

Well, there's people you can work for the same agency, right? You can work for the same agency and have a different perspective. Yeah, absolutely.

So it, it's just great and refreshing to see that, right? But for those that are not in the canine community, they don't understand any of this, right? Because they don't see— when we talk about community, we talk about the other canine handler, and hey, we're willing to help you. We're willing to, you know, hey, I know a guy, let me tell you about him, you know, or I know this, or I know this person that can help you, go see them, give them a call. Doing your area, whatever. And we need more of that. We need— yeah, I agree. Uh, that builds around that in order to get to the levels that you guys are at right now. And I'm proud to say that's our industry. If we'll allow it to be our industry, that's our industry. Yeah, oftentimes we don't, and we, we just got to be mindful of that as we move forward. And I hope this inspires someone else that may be listening to this that's, you know, maybe doesn't have that openness, that open-minded approach, and maybe, you know, well, that's stupid, you know, I don't know why we're wasting this, or I don't know what. But look at it from a different perspective, because we're not in law enforcement to, to, to really, um, lock people up every day or to shatter lives. We, we got into it for the best intentions, and we really need to look at it from that perspective. Of that, whatever that intention is and whatever the best way to approach it, if it's meeting kids at a younger age and really helping them to be better leaders as this program does, to give them a reward system and teach them that through hard work and dedication and maybe even communication when you're not feeling the best, that there's always someone there around you that can help you.

Yeah, no, you're right. I, and I think I think it's cool to see, you know, even just for our own organization, right? You're right. There's a lot of, lots of noise, right? Lots of, of naysayers, I'm sure. But, you know, now to see how, how the program's developed kind of, kind of reiterates the fact that, hey, you know what, you may not be totally on, on board with this idea, but we've got to, in law enforcement, we've got to be a little bit more more open-minded, right? It was just like before, you know, before our canine kind of had a shift, right? There's only one way of doing things. Well, there's not. There's lots of different ways of doing things. As soon as we can break away from this— there's— this is the best way, and our agency does it the best way, and it's better than your agency because of this— as soon as we can get away from that, we are so much— we are so much better off because we're going to be able to learn and we're going to be able to get ourselves so much further advanced in our own abilities, I think, too, you know. And so I think, yeah, we've had a— we've had kind of a shift in that now, you know, you get a lot of support. I think especially too, like, there's a lot of people like, oh my gosh, we're spending a lot of money on all these therapy dogs, where are we getting all this money from? And I'm like, really, we're not having to spend a lot of money on the therapy dogs, right? The community is helping to fund this program. And so for even our own deputies to know that, you know, like, hey, a program like this, you don't have to think of it as a huge burden on your sheriff's office or on your municipality. It doesn't have to be that way. Even for a patrol K-9 program, it doesn't have to be that way, right? So sometimes you're like, well, why are we getting, you know, why are we getting a bite dog? We're not allowed to bite anybody anyways. Well, that may not be true, right? So we have to still, we have to still think of how do we do police work, whether or not times have changed. We may have to change a little bit, right? But we still have to have this, a lot of similar goals in mind, you know? And so we still have to protect the community. We still have to find ways to keep the community safe. And even if we have to tweak little things here and there, You know, it's cool to see that, you know, I know there's a huge thing in California, right, recently about police dogs. You know, that was a huge thing out there, right? But it was kind of neat going to California to train, to see how passionate people are about dogs out there and how many people are excited to train dogs and excited to make you know, good working dogs. And I think if we can only bring a lot of what these dogs do to light, we can squash a lot of, I think, things that are not necessarily true, right? You know, I think, I think when people think of police dogs, they're just like, oh my, they're just out there terrorizing the city and just biting everybody. It's like, well, yeah, you know, and I think that's what's cool with some of the things that Back the Blues come up with too. Like, hey, Something as simple as a newsletter, you know, if your organization doesn't even have something like that, it's just such a simple thing to— we'll just tell you a story about one of our police dogs, right? Something that they did, you know, we share, share some of those stories. People want to know. I mean, anytime you, you remember being a K-9 handler, what do they always ask you? They were like, oh, well, you know, what's your dog done? Have you done anything cool? Has he chased down anybody? They want to hear the stories, right? And so I think the more transparent we are on what the dogs are doing and how they're working, I think you just get more support.

Yeah, well, you can either tell the truth, and what I mean by that is you can lead the stories, or you can allow the devices of other people's minds to lead the story, which is oftentimes never the truth and so far removed from it that now we get this image of something that's so blown out of proportion that you're like, where did that even come from? Yeah. Or we can lead the narrative and say, hey, this is what it is. Yeah, everything's not pretty. Yeah. But at the end of the day, there's a reason for that. Um, but there's also this other facet to what we do that really also impacts lives in a positive way and impacts our communities.

[Speaker:AJ VARGAS] Yeah, and I think, I think really that's a nice, like, tie-in to where, where our program, we've seen probably the biggest benefit, right? Is that, I mean, a lot, there's been a lot of, you know, different, like, political talk about SROs over the last couple years, few years. And so this has really been a cool program in the sense that I think it clarifies our role as a school resource officer and what we're really doing is not so much reactive, right? But it's not so much reactive, proactive. So taking that stance on, hey, I, I'm not here to write you a ticket. I'm not here to arrest a student, right? I'm here to go sit in the classroom and talk to that kid who maybe just got in a fight and explain, hey, here's a different way we could have worked on this, right? You know, just having control of your emotions, right? We talk about things like emotional intelligence with kids. And I utilize the dog a lot to explain things to kids and to teach kids empathy, right? There's so many screens everywhere and so many, so much technology. So the dog is actually a great device. And so I think seeing all this come together and really make a beneficial change to how an SRO can do their job, it, the dog really pairs nicely with the role of the SRO, that proactive teaching role, right? And it gives us, like you said, it opens a lot of doors. And so for us, I know it has really helped us to gain a lot more support, I would say, in our schools to where sometimes people would be like, you know, this, this is ridiculous. Why are you guys here? And sometimes what I will say is, people like, there's a police dog at my kid's school. I'm like, yeah, you know, he's the one that was on the news and he's the one that was doing this and that, and right. And, and the point of saying that is like, yeah, but he's here not to, not to go find drugs on a kid all the time, but maybe he's here just to sit in your kid's classroom and we could talk about the dangers of drugs, or we can talk about these things, right? And so that's powerful. It's powerful. And dogs are, dogs are a very powerful tool. They're a good partner for a, for not only a police officer, but a natural, I will say.

Yeah, that's awesome. That's, you know, so true in so many ways. And oftentimes if you're not in this industry, you don't really realize that, you know, unfortunately wartime has brought us a lot of PTSD dogs and other service type dogs, but You don't often understand the power of that dog until you see it firsthand in someone you know, or in your case, around all these kids and, and the changes that you've seen and the evolution you've seen take place right here in front of your eyes.

Yeah. And I kind of think we're, we're scratching the surface there and it's getting better, but I think it's gonna be really cool going forward. Like you said, I wanna see in 5 years, where's the program at, you know?

Yeah, absolutely, man. It's, it's tremendous to see it, you know, even to, to just hear the stories and see it play out firsthand and see the power of these dogs impacting these kids' lives. And, you know, you can bring it down to the most simplest forms. What is one life saved with a kid worth?

Yeah, I totally—

so, so, yeah. Yeah, you can't, you just can't put money to that, you know. And again, 5 or 10 years down the road, I'm sure you're going to have many people come back to you and go, yeah, I remember I was in that school. And it is, I think it's going to have a profound effect on those students. I really do. Yeah.

And I think, I think it's just, it's cool right now. Now is kind of a cool time, you know, in law enforcement to see some of the some of these cool ideas coming to light, right? And different people implementing them. And I mean, I've seen some, some really cool ideas. I mean, and honestly, people use social media a lot, right? And that's a really cool way to interact with people too. And I mean, even doing podcasts like this, right? We need to have the ability to have a conversation that other people can can listen to and can learn something from, right? And same thing goes for me, right? I may listen to podcasts all the time about maybe it's dog training or maybe it's how somebody else got their program started, right? Oh, this is how we started our program. There's so much to be learned just by listening, you know? And so, yeah, we're, we're looking forward to it. And I think this is going to be a big year for, for Back the Blue. It's going to be a busy one. Like I said, we, we're getting ready to order 3,000 books, um, and so that's going to keep us busy for, for a while. I know we're— so one of the ways that we plan on kind of using those to raise money is we're going to do book signings with the dogs. So we're going to go read the, read the book to kids after school and even at events on the weekends and take the dogs there, and the kids can listen to the book, and then they can get a a signed copy of the book with all the dogs' paw prints in it. And so I think it'll be, it'll be fun. And so I encourage people, I guess, just to, you know, maybe you already have an established canine program, but don't limit yourself on how creative you can be to come up with different ways to support your own program, you know.

That's great. Source Podcast, all things working dogs. We're talking about nonprofits, canine nonprofits. Nonprofits today, and there's a handful of them around the country that I know of personally. There's probably many more than that. You guys are in a sea of over 2 million nonprofits in the country, right? And you try to stand out among all these nonprofits, right? Because you really want people to be donating their hard-earned money towards you guys or their resources or their talents to your organization. We want to do just a little bit to help you stand out. You know, by bringing recognition and education to what Back to Blue K9 Force is doing on a day-to-day basis in the grind to help law enforcement agencies in their area. I'm sure there's a vision for 2024. John, what's that vision? What do you guys see coming up this year?

I'm hoping that we're going to kind of revamp a little bit and clean up the Rex Run, and we're going to clean up some of these events. And kind of grow some of the ways that we're fundraising so that we're really looking forward to, you know, enhancing some of the equipment that our dogs have. And we're looking forward to really probably growing. I think growth is key. I tell Diane all the time, she works tirelessly with all the people that support her and that help Back the Blue and that help us. And I think growth in the terms of getting the name out there, right? It's like you said, right? You're in the sea of nonprofits. How do you get your mission to be known? And I think the best way that we can do that is by talking to people, right? About what it is that our needs are and what the mission is really I think even specifically, right? So I think for 2024, identifying specific needs that our dogs have, communicating them out to the public a little bit better than we, than we have had in the past. And I think just always getting better, right? How can we get better this year? How can we better our program, better our training, better everything? So I think, um, when it comes time to You know, there's going to be a lot of agencies I know this year that are going to have needs. And, and it's, and it's hard. You don't ever want to say no, but I think '24 will be a good year to encourage people to get involved, especially to get other agencies involved. If you want, you know, if you want a nonprofit to work with you, the easiest way to do that is to find out how you can get involved. Hey, if we need funding for agency, how can I get involved in your nonprofit to be helpful so that you can help fundraise for us? So I think that's going to kind of be, I know I said a lot, but I think we've got a lot of hefty goals for, for 2024. Um, and I think it just, we're going to set our sights on growth. How can we grow Back the Blue K9 Force to back as many dogs as we can?

Yeah. Well, if you're sitting still, you're dying. So you gotta be growing, right? You're right. We gotta, we gotta keep pushing. And for those that are listening, I think it's important for you to understand that the wheel only turns if you get involved in some form or fashion, right? Everybody wants something, but we also gotta donate our time and our resources and the things that we have and we've been blessed with. And some of those are skill sets, some of those are money. and some of those are talents. So guys, don't be scared to get involved. We're going to have in our show notes how to contact Back to Blue K9 Force. We're going to give you directions in the show notes on how you can donate. It's important that even if you can't donate now or, you know, you have a need maybe to get some understanding on how you can support, even if you're not in the area that you guys are in, in Colorado, but you're somewhere else in the country, or you want to get this program started or get some guidance on this SRR program. I mean, it's remarkable. So the amount of resources that I think that you guys can even lend out outside of just donations is remarkable as well. So we want to make sure everybody has that information.

I appreciate that, and I'm more than happy— trust me, I, like I said, learning a lot— but I'm more than happy to share any information I have or any of the, you know, I do it all the time. I send people policy procedure, whatever you want. If you are growing a program and you need something, I don't care, call me. I give my phone number out to people all the time. The easiest way to do it is just to reach out to somebody.

All right, John, what's your phone, your cell number, if you can give that out now? Just joking.

I will plaster it out there.

Just joking, John, don't do that. Yeah, no, we appreciate it though.

I mean, it's one of those things that's like sometimes you're like, how am I going to get in touch with somebody in, you know, some other state? You know, I'm never going to hear back from this person, right? So sometimes it's nice to have somebody you can actually get a hold of. We appreciate you guys having us on the show. Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, it's awesome. Yeah, it's great. You know, the biggest focus of The Source, uh, is to be a resource for other people, whether it's starting a kennel, whether it's training, whether it's— we run our short sets on Tuesdays and then our long, um, podcast on Fridays. But it's really about content of canine-related industry stuff. And it's stuff that we've learned over the years. Yeah. Because just like you guys and your organization, some things we learn through punishment and some things we learn through reward. And we want to share those, those avenues with other people that may not be as blessed as we've been to have a full team to, to build it essentially out of a garage to what we are today. And it's, it's amazing to see that unfold. Just like you have those resources that you guys can share on the nonprofit side, on the SRO and that dog program side, like that, those are things that are unheard of, and the value of that is unheard of. And, and for those that are even thinking about it, like, this is a valuable resource that, like, it's a, it's a gem just sitting there that nobody's even tapped into yet, I feel like.

Yeah, I think the more, like you said, the more we can utilize information that other people have and kind of work together, especially when it comes to dogs is massive. You know, I'm always willing to steal somebody else's tip or trick.

Always. Yeah, of course, I'll give you credit for it, but I'm going to take it.

Yeah, yeah, that's fair. Yeah, yeah.

So, uh, not ashamed at all. Like, this, you know, this is the culmination of information that you've gathered now that people can tap into. And before we get off here, I want you to give a shout out one more time to your agency because I'm sure you guys need people. And who wouldn't wanna work for a forward-thinking administration?

Who wouldn't wanna work for that? Yeah. Yeah. We, we encourage people to, you know, come and apply with the Arapahoe County Sheriff's Office. We are always looking for people and You know, like I said, I worked there for 14 years and I know in law enforcement a lot of people always think the grass is always greener. And, and, but I will say, you know, I've worked there for 3 different sheriffs and it's, it's been unbelievable to see the level of support that we've had. And I think that when it comes to law enforcement, it's pretty powerful when you can start a new program as just a deputy. I'm not a supervisor. I don't have any special, you know, rank or anything like that. But it's pretty powerful that with me and the help of my supervisor and our team that we were able to do this. And I think that it's awesome to work for a place like that. You're right. Yeah, awesome.

And then, um, again, that contact information will be on the show notes. So we appreciate you, John, and the work you guys are doing, and I appreciate you spending an evening with me.

I appreciate you guys. Thank you for having us on. For real, it's awesome.