The Role of K9s in Law Enforcement, Protecting Your Jurisdiction, and more with Lt. Paquette

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00:15
I don’t know if you’re ready for prime time or not, man. I just wanted to make sure you’re ready for this. I left my sunglasses at home today. I had them, Deion Sanders, the gold ones. But I said that it’ll be a little too much for the podcast. Yeah, we’ll bring that in on the next episode when we talk about our next topic, which I think we’ll draw everybody in. We need you full scale, fully, fully, fully ready. Fully, fully, fully. Okay, all right.

00:44
Well, man, I’m excited to have you on. You know, we wanted to do this earlier as we know circumstances. So I’m excited to sit down and not just talk, but also give everybody that’s listening a, uh, an in-depth look at our friendship and, um, the things that they can learn from Patrick Perquette. Yeah, absolutely. Hey, I saw that letter you got today from the governor.

01:14
That’s remarkable. It was a huge surprise. I mean, we all know that the first lady, Ms. Marty Kemp and Governor Brian Kemp, they’re huge supporters of not only law enforcement, but they are huge animal lovers, dog lovers. I can honestly say they take good care of the canines in law enforcement. So I think you and I both can attest to that, AJ. And for them to send that, it was amazing. So.

01:46
Yeah, you know that’s crazy because it just goes to show the heart of the governor and his family on what he does in the background that nobody ever sees right, but that’s really what it’s about. And I’m going to do some remarkable things for Gwinnett County, in particular, and one of the handlers there. Carlisle and his dog, and just step up, but that’s the things that don’t hit the media right, but it’s just remarkable to see those types of things happen.

02:14
That’s right. That’s right. And again, just the simple, the smallest thing in his mind that he sent means the world to somebody who, you know, a canine handler who has recently lost his partner and is trying to move forward. And then all of a sudden, a representative from his office shows up and has got this this this letter and not only was one for me, it was the one for OB2. So, you know, it was very well written. It was well thought out.

02:44
It wasn’t something that was just simple script, something that’s just kept on file and we print it out and give it to everybody. I mean, it was, he had, he had everything that he had in both of our letters was something genuine about the both of us. So it was a huge surprise to say the least. Yeah, that’s awesome. That’s awesome here. People need to know that, you know, and it doesn’t need to come from his office because how everybody always thinks that, well, he’s just doing it for the publicity. But I know.

03:13
of several instances where he stepped up for the K-9 community and nobody ever knew about it. And this is an opportunity for people just to know that the governor of Georgia not only supports law enforcement, but also supports the K-9 community. And that’s not an invitation to take advantage of it. It’s to say that he really does, him and his wife really do have a heart for what K-9 does and really does do care about those that serve in that capacity. They really do.

03:44
That’s right. Yep. Well, that’s awesome, man. We’re on the source podcast, and I’m happy to just be a part of this. This was something that we thought was an idea. And just the feedback that we’ve gotten off this is just remarkable. And it’s not going to go unnoticed, even in this episode, on the amount that somebody is going to learn during these times where we can just get to sit down and talk for real, for real. Canine stuff, whether it’s business, whether it’s

04:13
You know, being a handler, whether it’s being a trainer, you know, my vision is always one to help people. And I’ve always had that from day one. That’s where I, that’s the reason why I gravitated to training and teaching. And I know where your heart is and you take every opportunity there is to share something from our past or from your experiences because it will help at least one other person. And I know somebody listening.

04:41
to this episode tonight will get the same effect. I know they’re gonna learn more than one thing, but I know at least one thing, if they’ll stay tuned, will learn one thing that they can take home and put in their tool bag or use at a later time, or they’re gonna reflect back and go, man, I remember when Pat talked about that. And that’s the remarkable thing when we have the opportunity in the stage to just touch one life. And that’s really what we’re about.

05:09
And so I’m glad that we’re able to do this. I’m glad that you’re on with me. But for those that don’t know Patton, there’s not many out there that don’t know you. I mean, I gotta admit it. I’m blessed just to have a friend that’s so well known, but we know you either love or you hate Pat Perquette, right? That’s it. That’s right. There’s nothing in the middle. Nothing in the middle. You can’t like feed her on the line. A lot of friendships start out with a hate and then they realize, wait a minute, I love this guy. So.

05:38
I think if we ran a poll, I think a lot of my close friends and close friendships started out with the hate and it turned into a genuine friendship. Yeah, but that’s great. You can, and we talk about this pretty often where we don’t talk for a little while and we just pick up, man. It’s family. And I’m just blessed to have a friend like you. And I’m blessed to.

06:06
learn from you every chance I get. But most importantly, man, we bring handlers to your agency. And with the blessing of the sheriff, just welcomes us, he allows you to do what you do. And it’s amazing to have that cohesiveness and that relationship because it really does pour in, especially to these young handlers. And it’s just amazing to see that. And the funny thing is, is, you know, I said that earlier.

06:36
But it’s funny how so many people come back later throughout their career, years later, and they talk about things that they learned at Greene County Sheriff’s Office through you guys. And it’s just amazing, man. We’re into your program. We’re into custom K9 from the top down, just like you said, from the top down, just with the sheriff. It’s never known when it comes to anything to do with custom K9 or the, or the K9 program. I mean, you know, when

07:05
Uh, we jumped on board on your program early on and we developed a relationship and, and we bought into a program that has worked for us, has worked for, for, for many, for several guys, for, for, you know, our unit has been very successful. Um, you know, with the K-9s and, and so it’s just like any other, any other vendor or any other thing we, we’ve had numerous dogs come from there. We’ve, we’ve, uh, you know, and, and, um,

07:33
And we’ve never had issues, you know, and if we have had issues that’ve been resolved really, really fast and, and that’s something you stick with, you know, and, and when you talk about the program here, uh, we pride ourselves and, and, and you’re going to hear me talk a lot throughout this thing, AJ. Yeah, I’m hard, right? I’m hard on the guys. I’m hard on myself, but, uh, I’m only that way because I want the best, right? I want the best. And you’re exactly right. Uh,

08:00
I was just in Atlanta the other night. There was a handler. He’d come through your program. He’s with Forest Park, I believe. And we hadn’t seen each other in years, but he’d come all the way across the parking lot from where I was standing and talked about a track that he ran down here at the lake. And so you’re exactly right. And that’s something for us that we love to hear about. We love to hear about guys being able to come here, guys seeing amounts of drugs.

08:28
that they normally wouldn’t see somewhere else. Guys being exposed, these dogs being exposed to that amount of drugs, the guys being able to go out to the interstate and train on the interstate. We have a lot of resources. That handler, I’ll give a shout out to him, is Jamal Hunter. Jamal. Yeah, old Jamal. But the great thing is, is we joke and laugh and it doesn’t matter where you’re at, right? Who we run into.

08:57
It’s like we’re family and being able to teach from those experiences is just remarkable. And that’s really where the rubber meets the road, right? I can watch a video and teach something. We can all learn from YouTube per se. At the end of the day, we got to go out and get the experience and allow others to learn from those experiences, good or bad, because I’ve had a lot of failures. I’ll be the first to admit both in life.

09:23
in my deployments and in my K-9 career and my training career and my business. Career. I’ve made a lot of mistakes. I hope to learn from those. I hope to be able to teach others from those mistakes. And that’s really what separates a lot of us is the fact that I’ve just been through more crap than other people. And I’m able to give that to them. And that’s one thing that, that I pride myself on is not being scared to share those failures as well. And then.

09:53
with that opportunity to bring them up to you guys, it gives them that perspective that I can’t give them because you guys are in the mix every single day and seeing the ever changing law enforcement community and today’s law enforcement, right? And luckily you have a sheriff that supports that. And just an agency that just says, hey, we’re in it.

10:19
to help others, whether it’s our agency or someone else. And it’s just remarkable to see that it really is. That’s right. And we’re proud. We’re proud of that. And AJ, you said it best. I mean, we’re in the street. We’re not teaching folks from something that was sent to us on an email. We’re not teaching something from a PowerPoint. We’re teaching from what we’re seeing here. And that’s why when we come here, when you guys come here, when anybody comes here,

10:47
That’s why we put the hides where we just found some dope. You know, if we just found two kilos of cocaine in the trunk of a car up under the spare tire, guess what? We’re gonna put some cocaine up under the spare tire in a car and we’re gonna run those dogs on it. And I want those dogs in the same to that trunk and in the productive areas. And I want those dogs to be sniffing that area. Cause guess what? That’s where these guys are hiding dope. So just like.

11:13
You know that they train every single day. These bad guys they train every single day. Where do you think that the dog can’t find it? What do you think we can use as a masking agent? What do you think that we can wrap it up with that can deter the dog or the dog can’t detect? And we us seeing those things is the same thing that, you know, when y’all come here, I mean, how many times y’all came here and we’ve used actual grease in a package, you know, and the dogs are sniffing those hides. I mean, and so.

11:42
Again, and I can’t say it enough. I mean, we’re proud. If y’all could come here once a week, it would be happy with us. And the sheriff’s captain, everybody would be on board. Yeah, that’s awesome. And I’ve just seen the evolution over the many years. It’s been, whew, over a decade since we first met. And it’s remarkable to see that evolution and to keep that relationship, because it really is. When we show up in the sheriff’s department, man, I really like, I feel comfortable.

12:10
It’s just a family atmosphere and I’m proud to be a part of that, you know? That’s right. So Pat, I want you to introduce yourself to those that don’t know you. And I know there’s probably only going to be like three people that don’t know you that listen to this, but I want them to know you, tell everybody what you do and like share some stuff with them. And then I’m going to jump into some, some, some real talk, if you will. Okay. So, uh, I’m Patrick Parkhead. I’m a.

12:40
Lieutenant with the Green County Sheriff’s Office. I’m over the K9 criminal interdiction guys. We patrol I-20. We are in an area that is a major corridor for the entire East Coast. Our stretch of I-20, Green County is Greensburg, Georgia, which is halfway between Augusta and Atlanta. We deal with people from North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, New York.

13:07
all the way up the East Coast and all types of criminal activity coming out of Atlanta. We’ve had, you know, armed robbery, suspect, wanted people, we’ve had murder, wanted people, we’ve had human trafficking, we’ve had credit cards, stolen guns, you name it, it happens on I-20. So we’re right out in the midst of that. We stay busy. I mean, there’s always something going on on I-20. Yeah, and I, you know,

13:37
Just hearing some of the stories just never ceases to amaze me on, you know, the innovation, the attempt to get over and create criminal acts. And a lot of people think you’re just out there for the money and for the drugs, but you mentioned a ton of other things that really boils down to criminal interdiction. If you’re breaking the law, you guys are out there trying to detect that every single day.

14:05
and really in the mix, you know? Yes, and it’s all, I think the statistics will show that any type of criminal activity is all linked back to the drug game. I mean, bottom line, whether somebody’s breaking in a house to steal valuables to go buy dope, or whether somebody’s stealing half million dollars worth of jewelry off of a parcel truck at the mall.

14:30
to go and pawn to buy dope, whether somebody’s bringing stolen merchandise to a source city to trade it for dope is all linked to the drug game. I’m confident of that. And people ask me all the time, people ask me all the time, do you have a drug addict in your family? Do you have somebody you love hooked on dope? Why are you so passionate about drugs? And I can tell you, it’s the fact that every, I believe every element of criminal behavior, criminal activity,

14:59
links back to the dope game. And we see that. We see that. Yeah, you know, a lot of people get stories off the internet or they hear a skewed story from the media, right? And I’m not saying all media is bad by any means or all stories on the internet are bad. However, we’re getting the truth from somebody like you that sees it every single day. There’s no argument with that, right? You’re talking to these people.

15:28
There’s no barriers that things that you see and do every single day. And that’s the fact of the matter is criminal activity sees no bounds. That’s right. And again, uh, I speak from experience and I speak from what I see. And I say that if, if we, as law enforcement officers actively, uh, approach the criminal element, then, then we’re fighting that war.

15:58
right? If we lay down, we allow these guys to do what is against the law, then we are defeated as law enforcement officers. So, and again, we have a very supportive administrative from the top down. As long as we’re within the policy, within the guidelines of the law, we’re going to enforce the law in Greene County. I can’t tell you how many people I stop for a window tent violation, right? And I say, ma’am, sir, you have 15% window tent. And they go,

16:27
I was in such and such city, I live in such and such area, I drive this car three, four years, I’ve never been stopped. I can’t answer for that. But what I can tell you is you come through Greene County, we’re going through that code book, right? We’re gonna be in the 40. And in doing that actively, you know, enforcing traffic laws are in your city, in your counties, in your state, you’re gonna stumble upon criminal activity. A vehicle is you.

16:56
8.5 out of 10 times in a crime a vehicle is being used. Whether it’s being used to transport to the crime or away from the crime, but nobody walks to commit a crime anymore. And so that’s what my unit does. We take what somebody would call a simple traffic stop and we’re looking for indicators and evidence of a crime. And I’m proud to say that we’ve been very successful at that.

17:24
You know, and a lot of people will hear this that don’t know law enforcement, right? And they hear what you’re talking about right now, right? With very little or even skewed knowledge, but also hanging out in your community, right? Hanging out in Greensboro and in Green County in general. The citizens of Greensboro and Green County love law enforcement.

17:52
100% they really do right because they understand that. You’re keeping their community safe, you’re keeping their schools safe. I remember going up to school not too long ago and doing a drug sweep there with a ton of handlers and how welcoming not just the administration was the teachers and the students, but how welcoming they were to seeing law enforcement there.

18:22
and proactively deterring drugs from coming into the school or proactively and aggressively approaching the criminal element because it ultimately keeps them safe. A lot of people don’t wanna come to that realization. It takes enforcement to combat the problems that you’re having in your neighborhoods or those things that are bad and affect all of us. Ultimately, I hate to mention it here,

18:52
One of the students that came up there was killed by a drunk driver going home. He was a veteran, a trainer, Juan Gallo, a great dude, man, had served a whole military career, finally retired and going home and hit head on by a drunk driver coming down 95 the wrong way. That goes to what I’m saying. Not to cut you off, but I do want to touch on it.

19:22
You know, when we have roadblocks in the county, right, we don’t get a bunch of flak. I know a major city that’s close to us and anytime they have roadblocks, it’s all over Facebook, it’s all over the internet, you know, it’s all over Waze, you know, stay away from this, you know, they’re out just harassing people. They’re doing this, they’re doing that. When we have a road check, we literally have citizens that are calling the sheriff saying thank you, right? Because for us…

19:50
uh you know talking about those drunk drivers for us just being out there right if we and i tell the guys this all the time if we go on a road check and we get not one dui we had been accepted we have absolutely right we don’t go to a road check and we don’t count how many we don’t stroke count how many drugs we like them right we don’t go to a road check and we don’t stroke count how many seatbelt violations we write right if we have goose eggs on a road check

20:20
In my professional opinion, that is a successful night because we have deterred people from breaking and driving. And it’s no different than talking about I-20. It’s no secret. I can’t tell you how many people I lock up to say, oh, this is Green County. I done heard about y’all. But guess what, AJ? Let’s talk about the day before Thanksgiving. Day before Thanksgiving is the heaviest travel day in the United States, right? Motor vehicles. Yeah. We had.

20:49
zero fatalities in this county, right? Tolliver County, the county that’s next to us, had zero fatalities, right? And the reason our numbers are down is because people know you come down I-20 in those counties, you’re gonna see deafens, you’re gonna see safe troopers, you’re gonna see speed enforcement. So, you know, when we write somebody a ticket at 98 miles an hour in a 70 mile an hour zone, AJ, we’re not fighting that ticket for the revenue, we’re writing that ticket to deter you because…

21:17
If you hit somebody at 96 miles an hour, it’s gonna be what you’re talking about. It’s gonna be fatal. And so, yes, that’s exactly right. I mean, and it goes along anywhere. I can tell you this, anywhere, any city, any county, if you’re turning on blue lights, you’re gonna have compliance in that area. Yep. And people don’t want enforcement until it affects them or their family, right? Because you’re only seeing it from the outside. And you’re not seeing.

21:44
the effects that it has on people’s families or, you know, how many times you’ve had to go to a home and say, hey, you know, this tragedy has happened. And we have compassion. Law enforcement has compassion. And I’ve yet to meet any deputy, police officer, trooper, FBI agent, you name it, that doesn’t have compassion. Where these things don’t affect them when they see

22:14
this tragedy in front of them every single day and they know the effects of that. Yeah, they’re not the ones on Facebook. They’re not the ones on the media screaming this or that because they’re the ones that have to go home to their families at the end of the night and have to deal with this. Unfortunately, they can’t fight that wave in and of themselves, but they’re seeing, just like you see every single day, the effects that these things have on people’s families, on people’s businesses.

22:44
you know, when they get broken into and you have the business owner that shows up the next morning and their whole they have to put together the pieces after they’ve been broken into and vandalized or you know, whatever. But at the end of the day, everybody else is not seeing that they only see you out there with your blue lights on and they have this skewed look of that saying well you’re only doing it for this or that. But the reality of it is it’s not that at all you don’t want the problems you rather not have the problems like you mentioned. But.

23:15
Again, it’s where we’re at right now. And it’s unfortunate because yeah, every profession has their bad apples. We get that, right? Be the first to admit that, right? That 100%. But you look at the medical field, you look at the legal field, they’re not clean of any wrongdoers either. If you look at the canine industry, they’re not beyond bad apples.

23:42
That’s right. At the end of the day, proactively, we try to have the best that we can have in law enforcement. Just as it’s unfortunate, we’re all centers, right? That’s right. And it’s just it’s a tragedy. But, you know, I truly see the heart that you guys have. And I get that intimate look that not everybody gets to see. And I’m blessed to be in that position where I can still be close to law enforcement and I can still work closely with

24:11
with you guys and really hear the stories. And we tell jokes, but oftentimes that’s to mask the heartache that you guys have from seeing what you guys see on a day-to-day basis. And yeah, we don’t do everything right. You have to make split second decisions. And sometimes those are hard decisions. And sometimes it’s the lesser of the worst, right? Like I’m gonna take this, but it’s because this is what I gotta do. But…

24:39
is still not the best option for me, right? Right, that’s right. So, you know, in your profession, Pat, and in your time and you’ve had a long career, you’ve come across some difficulty in your career. And that doesn’t stop with your profession, that’s also in your personal life and with your family. And, you know, this podcast is about giving people

25:08
and teaching people how to deal with things, but also maybe giving them from our perspective. And we teach from our both successes and our failures, right? And this podcast, this particular episode, man, I really felt compelled to give some people some ammunition on how to deal with difficult situations and some difficulty that they’re gonna face, particularly in the K-9 industry. And so I wanna lead off with this question with you

25:38
if you can share a little bit on how maybe you’ve found some ways to overcome some difficulty and you know, obviously some stories on some of those difficult moments are hard to tell sometimes, but I really think people can learn from them. And so I’d like for you to share if you could, how you’ve overcome some of those difficulties, you know, looking back now. That’s right. And you know, kind of learning from.

26:06
from your experiences? What could you share in how you’ve overcome some of these difficult times? So, I will tell you, A.J., I have had a remarkable career to this point, right? I’ve been in this game 20 years. I’ve been blessed with many, many, many opportunities. I’ve been blessed to be successful. But you’re exactly right. I have had some setbacks, right? But…

26:34
I’ve learned, and this is the advice that I give a lot of young kids that sit across the desk with me or that sit in the meeting with me or that I have the pleasure of teaching it in different places. The best thing that I have learned is honesty. Honesty. We’re not perfect. We’re going to make mistakes. As long as we’re honest about those mistakes and we learn from those mistakes, that’s been the best way for me to deal with those.

27:04
You know, one thing about me and there’s nobody that will tell you different. If I did it, I did it. Right. I did it. Like, like, are you going to fire me? Are you going to suspend me? Are you going to demote me? Uh, what are we going to do? But when, you know, I did it. Right. And, and, and I’m going to learn from this. And, and I’ve been successful with that and it’s worked good for me. And, and, and, and so talking about the K9 stuff, you know, I cannot tell you, uh, based on, let’s just talk about the number of cases we make.

27:34
it right compared to most of the suppress that we get from defense attorneys, right? I’ve been against the best of them. I promise you I’ve been against the best of them. I’ve been against the brutal. I’ve been against the best of them. You know, I think at one point they dug up that attorney that represented OJ. I think they dug him up and brought him to Green County. I’ve been against them all, right? But you know, have I won them all? Absolutely I have. Right? I’ve lost some, right? But

28:02
I don’t get mad at defense attorney. If you can come here and you can find something that I did wrong, I don’t get offended by that. I don’t get upset about that. There was a point in my career that they had to take me out of the parking lot down there at the courthouse, but I learned that these guys only make us better, right? So a lot of times when I’m on a case, when I’m on a stop, when I’m searching a car, more importantly, when I’m deploying a K-9 or one of the guys is deploying a K-9.

28:31
Things are going through my mind like, how can so and so get this person off? Are we doing everything we’re supposed to be doing to stay within the law, right? To stay within the case law, to stay within the policy. And as long as we’re doing that, then we’re good. Right. And so I would challenge everybody. And I talk about this a lot when I teach, I would challenge people to, to, to, I want the best to come here, right? If you commit a crime and you get locked up here.

28:59
I want you to hire the best attorney you money can buy you, right? Cause I want them to come here and I want them to look at this case file and I want them to say, Hey boss, let me work you out of plea. Right. I want them to do that. Or if they think that they’ve got something in case law or they think that they’ve got something that can get us on, I want us to go to emotion express because it only makes us better. It only makes us better. So, uh, I got, I got a little sidetracked with that, but I think I’ve stayed on point.

29:29
So to answer your question, to overcome those difficult situations, right? To overcome that supervisor that may be hard to work for. To overcome that supervisor that nitpicks and petty about everything. Don’t get down and shut down on that guy, right? Be successful and make that guy look like an idiot because you’re being the best that you can, right? And so kind of difficult situation you come through.

29:56
Don’t you know, I don’t like a pity party. I don’t like excuses, right? I’ll take an explanation, but I don’t like excuses. You know, we all have opportunity. We all have the same opportunity, you know? And so when those difficult situations hit me, I guess it’s just, I’m just a fighter. Like I hit them head on and we overcome those. But I think the best word I can say, one word that I can leave everybody with on that, to overcome that is honesty.

30:26
Just be honest about it. Own it. You know? Yeah. You often see a lot of excuses and a lot of whys or this, you know, it wasn’t me or it was because of this, but at the end of the day, when you take ownership of that and oftentimes just be honest with yourself, most of that stuff is just a small bump in the road, right? Right. And so AJ, let me, let me say this to you. I know.

30:55
that you’ve had situations where people have called you up and said, hey, man, I’m not sure what’s going on with this dog, but he’s not doing what I was this, or he’s not doing this, or he’s not doing that. I can tell you from experience, the first thing you ask is, let me see your training record. Let me see your training record. Right. You diagnose the problem when this guy brings you a blank piece of paper, or when this guy, a girl brings you a training log, just halfway filled out.

31:25
When you know good and well, they had more training than that. Right. Or when we call you and say, Hey, Jay, we got this federal case down here in federal court, we need you to come down here and testify as our expert on this dog. When you look at the training records, right? If they’re not the best, then we’ve been defeated. We’ve got a difficult situation. It’s, uh, you know, that, that’s what I’m saying. I mean, you know,

31:52
Instead of making excuses, instead of saying, you know, I mean, I hear this all the time in the K-9 world, and I know you hear this. Well, you know, why haven’t you trained in too much? Well, we’re shorter people. We’re shorter personnel. My administration won’t let me come train. My this, if you’re going to buy into this program and you’re going to be a successful K-9 unit, your administration better understand it takes training. It takes training. And it takes, you know, we know that for

32:21
two days out of the month is going to be a dedicated training day on top of other things, you know, we do, but yeah, that’s what we have to do. Yeah. You know, being honest with your administration on the reasons why training is important, not just from the fact that you want to adhere to industry standards, but also the need of that, you know, at the end of the day, you’re not going to go out there and bat 400 if you’re not in the batting cage.

32:49
There’s nobody that’s successful that just sits at the house and shows up on game day to perform. And then you wonder why your teams are not performing. Or you wonder why your your return on your investment is not theirs because they’re not training and there’s no standards to that. You’re absolutely right. That honesty will bring you to that point where you can tell your administration that. So you look at many different situations that you just talked about in a very short time.

33:18
At the end of the day, if you’re honest about it, it usually pushes you past that so you can move forward. Absolutely right. And then speaking on that, you talked about, you gave the illustration of how you used to get upset at a motion to suppress at a defense attorney, right? And now you embrace it. You embrace the challenge. You embrace the questioning. You embrace that.

33:46
But that’s obviously come through some heartache and some learning, right? That’s come through that experience of years. So, you know, as we segue into what you faced and how you’ve overcome that difficulty, now, what can you give us on how you prevent it and how do you stay out of that hot seat, if you will? It’s simple. If you do things right the first time, right? If you do things right now, am I gonna sit here?

34:14
and tell all these folks that I’m 100% the best and I’m 100% right all the time, absolutely not. But if you’re in your heart, you know that you’re giving it your best, that you’re doing your best and you’re still having issues, then we can work on those things. And it’s just like when we talk about emotional suppress, early on in my career, I think that’s why I’m so, I don’t tolerate excuses because I ask myself, where did I go wrong? What did I do wrong?

34:44
in this. And so in doing that, that’s what makes us better. If we get on the defense, if we blame the district attorney, if we blame this person, if we blame that person, sometimes we got to look in the mirror. And it was hard for me to do. But I just have a drive. I have a drive to that. I want the best and I expect the best. I’ll tell you this. I had a guy come to my unit, right? I had a guy come to work for me and I am a little hard.

35:13
I’m a little hard, but I had a guy come to my unit and I was constantly, constantly picking his reports. Hey man, why did you put this in the report? Hey man, why did you do this? Why did you do that? You know, and he didn’t understand where I’m coming from. He just thought I was being hard on him, right? But it doesn’t take but one time to get up there on that stand and shine, right? And send those folks back wherever they came from, upset because you defeated them, to come in my office or to come in my patrol car and look me in the face and say,

35:43
Thank you. Thank you for being so hard on me on my report. Thank you for being so hard on me on my training. Thank you for not accepting half as when it came to the canine, you know, like, thank you, pat. Thank you. You know, nobody calls me lieutenant, right? That’s just my position. At the end of the day, I’m patting, right? I’m patting. That’s my identity. I’m not. I’m not, I’m one of y’all, but I’m gonna lead you in the direction where you need to go.

36:10
And you said it, I mean, I’m at a point in my career where I do, I want to be teaching these young kids, you know, where I say this all the time and people think, if we do a better job, if we do a better job, given the public an image, right, that we’re not that guy that you see in certain cases. That’s that bad apple you were talking about. Right. And if we, if we take these canines and we have less canine cases go to the Supreme Court.

36:38
then the dogs are not a hot topic. They forget about them. But if every time these folks meet, whether it be the State Supreme Court or the United States Supreme Court, if every time they meet and they meet on 20 cases and 12 of them are K9 cases, what’s hot on their topics? What’s hot on their minds? And so that’s why we do. We wanna be the best when it comes to these dogs. Yeah, that’s a great perspective because when you see,

37:08
when I’m reading case law and I say this pretty often when I’m teaching, most people do things right. That’s right. But because they have a lack of knowledge and a lack of articulation, they end up not articulating properly, not explaining what they did. Even though they did everything right, they can’t explain it or they don’t know the why behind it and we end up losing cases. So.

37:37
There’s a case law there right now AJ that we continuously are fighting and that case law was made because the court said you got to articulate, right? And we believe that we did articulate. We believe that we did. We believe the answers weren’t filed. It should have been filed. But again, you have to be able to articulate everything you do. Everything just, just in life as general, you know, we got it. We got to be able to articulate that.

38:06
Well, we talked about adversity. We talked about overcoming that adversity. And, and that’s right. We want to resonate the steps we want to give you, give everybody listening resources, we want them to learn from our mistakes and our successes, obviously. But we just want to make sure that everybody has the resources necessary. And it’s just awesome to hear it from somebody that has a wealth of knowledge, somebody that came up through time of law enforcement in a long career.

38:36
And it’s coming from somebody that is telling you this is the way that we need to go. And guys, I can’t resonate that more. That’s right. Yep. Well, Pat, I can’t thank you enough. You know, my brother, my friend, like I learned so much from you and I’m really blessed to have you in my life, man. I can’t thank you enough for being on here sharing some knowledge. I can’t thank you enough.