Scent of success: Cork academy trains dogs to sniff out explosives and drugs

The team has experience with international police and military dog training, including with special forces.

Mr Hughes and Ms Lynch founded the college after recognising a gap in the market for professional dog training.

Although some people are training dogs with qualifications, many are doing so having been self-taught, Mr Hughes said.

Detecting explosives and narcotics is part of that training for elite canines at the college, as is protection, crowd control, and tracking.

Dogs learn search and rescue skills and remote skills so they can be guided remotely into a building through an earpiece.

The dog also learns to wear cameras to feed back information.

“So the dog is like a remote sensor,” Mr Hughes said.

“Their goggles are a camera that feeds a picture back to you. The dog can have an earpiece to receive instructions.

“For militaries and police forces, dogs are a less than lethal option. So if a police person walks into the room, he might have only one option which is potentially a lethal action.

“Whereas the dog can be sent as a less than lethal option so the perpetrator is alive.

“They could pin a perpetrator down. Or they could be used to detect an explosive.

“Sometimes they can even be used like a negotiating tool. Someone who has all these pent-up problems sees a dog, not a human, it can instill different emotions.” 

Equipment to turn trained elite dogs into mobile sensors is expensive, Mr Hughes said.

“You could be talking up to €50,000, €60,000 for the headpiece [which has an earpiece, goggles, in built camera].

“It looks like the Darth Vadar mask.

“You can have step down versions for training only and then you have the operational version which has a protective face area, a face mask effectively for the dog as well.

“Dogs can have any amount of gear. They can have ballistic vests. They can have little flotation devices, they have cooling vests for when they're deployed somewhere hot.

“They have harnesses for abseiling and little booties for protecting their feet from say broken glass or hot surfaces.” Ms Lynch started training difficult dogs from the age of 14.

Some of those complex dogs were destined for one option — death — but she managed to rehabilitate them.

“Tara is more experienced in severe rescue cases than anybody I know in Ireland,” Mr Hughes said.

Ms Lynch said: “A lot of my experience has been rehabilitating really bad behavioral issues and then making them quite stable to be able to exist in the community and not be a danger to the community and actually be a lot more confident themselves.” 

And while Mr Hughes “had one part of the puzzle” with military training, Ms Lynch “has the other” with rescue and behaviour rehabilitation, he said.

“So it made sense for us to open up a business together.

“Tara's been exposed to my side now, she's been on several military events and military exercises and I've been exposed to a lot more of the rescue side of things so we're now sharing our experiences and coming up with better dog planning methods between us.” 

They travel internationally for both dog training work and study, including to Sweden, Belgium, Germany, and the US.

“Our business has broken into two areas — we have our police/military side where we train dogs for both purposes and then we have our public side where we train dogs for your average setting.

“We named our business Irish Working Dog College because we wanted to provide an education center, a place where people can come. 

"It's not just about training the dog, it's about training the person as well.

“We do a residential programme [for dogs] but we also do training of the person both during and after the residential programme.

“We want to empower people with the skills to deal with their dog.” They provide both one-to-one training and group classes.

“We focus at where the dog's threshold is at for stress or for stimulation,” Mr Hughes said.

“So whatever the activity we do, the person coming to a group class needs to recognise if the dog is stimulated, overstimulated or stressed. And then they approach that exercise to the level that's appropriate for the dog so they don't overstress the dog at any stage.

“Then the dog has the ability to learn because it can't learn when it's stressed.” 

Tara said: “The group setting caters to more real-life environments, like walking on the road, avoiding maybe a person pushing a pram, another dog coming out, a bicycle coming towards them. 

"It also trains the handler to cope under a stressful environment and maintain the dog.” 

Although the company “helps out the State” with some training exercises, lectures and briefings, most of its military and police work is for forces outside of Ireland, Mr Hughes said.

The centre also provides trained dogs to some of those international police forces and militaries.

“We work with breeders across Europe and trainers across Europe. Sometimes we finish off the training, sometimes they finish off the training. It depends on where the dog is needed and what's needed. But basically we have a network that we work with in Holland, Belgium and Germany.

“But we only breed when we have a request to do so. The last thing we want is to put additional dogs out there that are not needed,” Mr Hughes said.

Ms Lynch said: “And they need to be health tested, they need to be genetically certified.” 

Mr Hughes said: “The only reason I would have a litter of puppies is that I know, OK, I need five dogs to go to the police.

“But we're better off getting what's called a green dog where it's a year old. We'll import that dog sometimes and we'll train up that dog.

“So she's already come from lines that are proven in police and military and she has already shown good traits that she's capable to do the job.

“So we take that dog in and then we tailor that dog's training to a request from a military trainer.

“For us, that's a better route than having puppies.” 

Belgian Malinois, Labradors, Springer Spaniels, and German Shepherds are some good working dog breeds for police and military forces, they said.

And choosing the right breed for the task is important.

Ms Lynch said: “People are getting dogs and they don't know what they're supposed to be doing with them to keep them under control, to keep them happy, to keep them satisfied mentally and physically.

“Breeders and trainers should have the responsibility to point out what certain dogs need, to make sure that a prospective new home and new owner can meet their needs.” Some dogs are not suitable for family homes, they said.

And while the adage, ‘there are no bad dogs only bad owners’ holds some truth, certain dogs’ breeding may not be as good as it should be or a dog may have suffered trauma which can make them more volatile.

“We work closely with Cara rescue in Portlaoise, we help train and help find new homes for dogs," Mr Hughes said.

“But we're not a rescue ourselves.

“There's a flood of dogs out there. Some dogs are not suitable to rehome because of all the trauma they’ve suffered.

“Dogs aren't for Christmas, they're for life.

“And I think people are getting dogs that they don't know what they're getting into at times.

“Some people are getting, say working breeds, when they don't have that lifestyle for them.” 

Puppy farms are another problem, they said.

Ms Lynch said that there can be serious behaviour issues with puppy farm dogs after unstable starts in life.

“There are a lot of very, very nervous dogs that then become unstable in public,” she said.

“I would see dogs that have come from suspected puppy farms that are just genetically not stable. They can't calm down. And then they're a flight risk, they could be a bite risk.

“And they're always sick.”