National Police Association Podcast with Guest, Janeen Baggette, Founder/Chairman at K9s For Freedom & Independence
Hi, this is Sergeant Betsy Brantner Smith at the National Police Association, and this is the National Police Association podcast. I don't think it's any secret that I love dogs, and I always try to get people who either work with dogs or use dogs in some professional capacity on the show, because I know you love dogs too. So I have with me someone today who loves dogs as much as I do and uses them to help fellow first responders. She was a dog handler, law enforcement officer, and now she's in the mental health space trying to do everything she can to utilize dogs to help first responders who are experiencing trauma, who've been involved in critical incidents. Why don't I just let her tell you all about it?
Betsy Smith:Ginny Vega, welcome to the show.
Janeen Baggette:Hey, thanks Betsy, I appreciate it.
Betsy Smith:So first and foremost, you know, I have to ask you this because I ask everybody, why'd you become a cop?
Janeen Baggette:Well, it was kind of the easy transition. I was a combat aerovac medic and you get into that mindset of that paramilitary military type mindset. And for me, I transitioned into a medical role within the law enforcement field. And then from there, I went completely, I guess, what you'd call to the dark side and went fully law enforcement and got into K-nine and stayed in that room for a number of years.
Betsy Smith:Now I gotta ask you, how come you didn't go to the fireside?
Janeen Baggette:It just wasn't as appealing to me. I mean, love the hosers, but it was just more, wanted to be a canine handler. That's what I wanted to do. And so that to me was the only option I could do that I saw was to go law enforcement.
Betsy Smith:So when did you first become a canine handler?
Janeen Baggette:Wow, that would be back in the 90s. I first got into doing canine as a search and rescue handler for a sheriff's department in California. And then that took me to a couple different directions. I've worked for a number of different agencies, federal, state, and local. And my last place, I'm here in Texas now.
Janeen Baggette:I've worked for several agencies here in Texas. I'm still reserve with an agency here in Texas, but we ran dogs for narcotics. I've run an explosives dog. In fact, I've got my retired explosives dog here with me. He's laying down here chilling on the carpet while I'm talking to you.
Betsy Smith:What was your favorite dog assignment? I'm very curious why people choose different things, whether it's bomb search and rescue, you know, patrol, things like that.
Janeen Baggette:I would have to say for the excitement side of it, the narcotics was phenomenal. You get to run code, you get to go help other people out. The explosive side was pretty cool too. I mean, that's more intense. It's like you want your dog to do good, but you really don't wanna find an explosive device.
Janeen Baggette:You're hoping that there's nothing there. Whereas on the narcotic side, you go and you really do wanna find something because that's kind of cool and you can add those charges to an individual who deserves it.
Betsy Smith:How difficult is it to retire a working dog? I mean, we know what it's like for people to retire. What's it like for a working dog?
Janeen Baggette:It can be quite difficult depending on the temperament of the dog because they're used to going every day. You know, you get ready, you put your uniform on, and they wanna go too. And so it really depends on that dog. Luckily, with my bomb dog, he's social enough. I take him as a demo dog to different events where I'm speaking.
Janeen Baggette:And those dogs that I use in the critical incident realm, I have other dogs that I use for that. But he's he loves going still to this day. And so, yeah, it's it's just one of those things where I can use him where I can, but otherwise, he stays home begrudgingly. Yeah.
Betsy Smith:So how did you move into the mental health space with dogs?
Janeen Baggette:That's a loaded question. Being a combat aerobic medic, I was active duty and I was reserve. And we ran into a lot of stuff. I first joined the military right after I graduated high school in 'eighty four. And back then, women weren't well received in a lot of ways.
Janeen Baggette:And I had been on the receiving end of sexual harassment and a lot of different work related issues. And when I got out of the military, went into the law enforcement realm, it's there too. To this day, it's still there. And I I got tired of it. I mean, I love my dog and it was great because I could take a dog with me.
Janeen Baggette:And I saw the different traumas that both military members went through and law enforcement, fire, you know, EMS. They were similar, but yet they were different. And it was nice that I could have a dog with me. Mean, much less I just love having dogs around. It was one of those things where it's like, I've gotta be able to use what those talents are that God gave me to do something more.
Janeen Baggette:Because it finally got to a point where I had to walk away from full time law enforcement. I mean, I'm retired, but I finally was like, this is obviously not getting any better. And I was suffering because I had things going on on the family side, my mom, different issues, things at work where I was being harassed at work. And finally, you've you better choose yourself in a good way. You better choose yourself.
Janeen Baggette:And I decided, you know what? I'm worthy, and I can do more, more so on the outside of law enforcement helping those that are still in than being on the inside and trying to tread water. So using dogs for me, it was just a known thing that I could do. And it started off on the post traumatic stress side. And then I'm like, there's gotta be a way I can do more with one dog because as a handicapped service dog, it's one dog, one human.
Janeen Baggette:You're not gonna be able to catch up with one dog, one human. So I wanted to be able to use one dog with multitude of people. And so for me, I designed the program that I have under my organization, just like any other type of police canine specialty. All the same demographics, all the same case law, liability issues and whatnot that we can use under normal situations. And then it's just a different specialty.
Janeen Baggette:And that's the direction I decided to go and it's worked out well. I've got dogs now all over the country and they're supporting both internally inside the agency walls, but then out in the community as well. And they're doing amazing things.
Betsy Smith:Well, and that's the thing. Think anybody who's been in law enforcement for a period of time sees how cops light up when a dog comes, right? Most police officers love to see a dog, whether it's a friendly patrol canine or even animal control brings in a puppy or whatever. For most people, not all, but for most people, you know, a dog just warms people's hearts regardless of the situation. But now we're at a point in the law enforcement profession where we are using dogs for specific mental health roles, if you will.
Betsy Smith:And that's what your organization is doing. And so talk about your organization and the kinds of things that you have dogs doing around the nation.
Janeen Baggette:Sure. So I started my organization in 2011 and it's progressed into something that at the time I could not imagine even with some of the things that these dogs are doing, the great things that these officers are taking and trying with these dogs. We've got dogs all over the country that we train specifically. I mean, I temperament test them. They're rescues.
Janeen Baggette:Some of them are rescues. Some of them are donated breeder dogs because I'm not gonna pay no $5,000 for a dog. And we train them, we pair them with the agency. The agencies own the dogs, but I educate them on all of those things that you and I know has to be followed as a canine handler that the agency is responsible for under federal and state laws. And so I educate those agencies, I educate the handlers that they go into it eyes open.
Janeen Baggette:My organization's not telling you how to run your program. I'm telling you how the federal government is telling you how you have to run certain portions of that canine team. And we do that by the education, by the national third party certification. Again, we set it up just like any other type of specialty police canine, fire canine, whatever, if you're talking narcotics, arson, search and rescue, whatever, we do that because that's what is expected under liability purposes for the agency. Just because this dog seems sweet and nice, that's great.
Janeen Baggette:But if you've not temperament tested this dog to prove that it can withstand some of the crazy situations that our dogs are put in, then you're at risk of, you know, the dog biting someone, knocking somebody down. You don't have that yearly certification, which most municipalities, I would say all municipalities in fact, require because that's case law. That is industry standard that a police canine, an arson dog under fire under most cases, electronics detection dogs, they all have to be certified on a yearly basis. Same thing goes for these guys. And that's one of the things I'm seeing across the country, which is why I'm really trying to promote our organization to get that training and education out there is just because your agency calls it a, I don't know, a therapy dog, which I hate that terminology, because these dogs are much more than that.
Janeen Baggette:At least the ones that come through my program. But why aren't you treating them the same way that any of these other canines are being made to follow through with. The sixteen hours a month of training, your documented deployments, your recertifications, all of these things have to be maintained just like any other type of police canine, fire canine, whatever. So I'm confused with why they're treating this so differently. And that's one of the big reasons that I'm trying to get this information out there so that we can all be on the same page.
Janeen Baggette:And again, you have to train seriously. You have to behave professionally to be taken seriously across the board. And so that's what we're trying to do under our organization, because that's the only way that we can help our fellow first responders is by having a dog that you know, because our dogs go out on the scene of an officer involved shooting, and they're there during all the chaos. Our dogs have to be able to neutralize the environment so they can in fact purposefully interact with the person who needs them because that's what they're there to do. Raising the serotonin level while lowering the cortisol level will hopefully affect that person in a positive way so when they have to go home that night, they're not in such a high anxiety mindset that they do something catastrophic and they take that ultimate decision that we hope no one does again, but unfortunately it's still happening.
Betsy Smith:Are the dogs trained to detect certain things in a person who might be at risk?
Janeen Baggette:We actually do. We are the first of our kind. About five years ago, I started doing training on cortisol detection. And so we do that box training with them detecting the cortisol that we take off of individuals who have been stressed. And luckily I've got some police departments local to me where I can go take sweat samples and whatnot from their individuals during the academy.
Janeen Baggette:And you know how that is, especially when it's a new person and they're like, oh my god, I'm about to go into this situation. And they're almost in panic mode because they don't understand. And so we get the sweat off of those individuals and I can use that to help the dogs detect what cortisol smells like. So when we go in to do a debrief, let's say, my dogs will identify the most highly stressed people in the room. And because you and I in the law enforcement field, we're such alpha females, well, the guys are even worse when it comes to being an alpha male.
Janeen Baggette:God forbid you show any weakness. Well, I can cheat. My dog's gonna tell me. And then when you step out of the room, or maybe it's even after the fact, I can reach out to you and say, so, my dog told on you, and I'm checking in to see how you're doing, or whatever, you know, if you know that person, sometimes you have a specific way of talking. But you can check-in with them without anybody else knowing that you've noticed something's, not normal or not not normal in them.
Janeen Baggette:They're not their normal jovial self or whatnot. So we can use those dogs for that. We've had these dogs used in a number of situations, one of which is during the I've got several dogs now in schools and with school police departments. One of the handlers was telling me, we're walking down an empty hallway and the dog starts pulling me towards a certain room. And out pops this little girl about seven years old.
Janeen Baggette:And her canine, which is radar, you'll die laughing because their dual purpose dog for the agency, it's Odessa, Missouri. Their dual purpose dog is Hawkeye.
Betsy Smith:I love it.
Janeen Baggette:So it's a little play on things, but So radar beelines for this little girl, follows her back down the hallway that they just walked up into the admin office, into the counselor's office, and sits there next to her. And the counselor, you know, looks back and says, oh, well, I was gonna call you, but you're already here. So and what ended up finding out is that the the child's mother attempted suicide the night before. The officer didn't know this. The dog obviously knew something was wrong.
Janeen Baggette:Didn't know exactly, but yeah. So we do that for a reason. We've had our dogs interfere with a special needs person that's not violent, but we've had dogs that respond to There was one where there was a teenage girl threatening to commit suicide by running out onto the freeway. So that unit that has the dog responded. They started talking.
Janeen Baggette:They figured out, okay, she's not gonna be violent because these dogs aren't taught to protect themselves or protect their handler. And they figured out that this girl liked dogs. Well, hey, got my dog here. Would you like to pet him? And they start talking.
Janeen Baggette:And little by little, it gets to the point where she's voluntarily getting into the car. They don't have to hog tie and gag her and, you know, throw her into the back of the car. And she voluntarily goes for help all because we can soften that contact.
Betsy Smith:I have seen a number of agencies around the country who want to have a therapy dog program and they go and get a friendly lab puppy and it lives in the station or hangs out and people pet it. That is not this program, right?
Janeen Baggette:No, absolutely not. No. Our dogs, other than I temperament test them, I train them, the certification process that they have to go through, there's prerequisites for both the dog and the handler. So there's certain training that the handler has to go through for peer support training, for blood borne pathogens, for FEMA one hundred, two hundred first aid CPR. There's a number of different trainings and things that the officer has to go through before they can even apply to get certification.
Janeen Baggette:The dog has to be spayed or neutered, has to be at least a year old, can't have any history of aggression towards anything, animal or people. And the test in and of itself through Aerie, which is Alliance for Emergency Response Instructor and Examiners, you have to take a written test, which I have helped with designing all of it, but it's their test. You have to take a written test first by the handler, and then there is a actual test that the dog and handler have to take together, which then certifies you as a team. So that person and that dog are certified together. You can't have somebody else come grab, let's say it's your agency's narcotics dog, come grab your narcotics dog and go running on the vehicle and expect that to hold up in court.
Janeen Baggette:It's not gonna happen. So the same expectations that you would have for a narcotics dog, you have for these dogs, because the certification is one dog, one human. So just because the dog is tested doesn't mean you can change the handler on a day to day basis. You have to deploy the handler and the dog that are certified together for it to be covered under liability, under court case law, and in a courtroom testimony type situation.
Betsy Smith:What's your ideal scenario if you were made queen right now? And you want to see a dog in every agency, a couple of dogs in every state. What's your biggest goal here?
Janeen Baggette:Sure, I would love to see more dogs in more agencies across the board. I would love to see what my ambition is, is to have our version of a FEMA task force type group where we have actual law enforcement officers that are certified with our own agency dogs that the federal government can then ask us to deploy to a major scene. So then, you know, as a first responder and a law enforcement officer under the criminal justice information system, I'm covered because I have to test that every two years. I'm not going to be taking that information out. You know, I've got a full background check done because I'm actually working for an agency.
Janeen Baggette:The dogs are certified on a yearly basis with their handler and all of that stuff is maintained. I know how to behave in that kind of a setting. And there are some great volunteer groups out there, but that's not what we are doing. I'm involved in the evidence side of things and dealing with the first responders, dealing with the dispatchers, dealing inside the agencies or in and around a crime scene. And so that's what I would like to see is yes, more dogs, more agencies, but more training that if they could come to my conferences, I'm now up to two conferences this year, and learn what we're doing and why we're doing it, and then get the certification.
Janeen Baggette:Because even if the dog doesn't come from my organization, we're still offering that certification to agencies, which will still bring them on board to the same level. But I wanna see us be able to have the ability to deploy and have that agency reimbursed for the salary that they're putting out for their person to be off-site, out of state, whatever, helping a fellow first responder agency that's suffering.
Betsy Smith:Boy, these are incredible goals, lofty goals. Tell us where people can find you, the website, your socials, if they want to get in touch with you to be able to learn more about your program and maybe get a dog of their own if they're a police agency.
Janeen Baggette:Yes. It's caninesforfreedom.org is the website. You can find me there. I'll give out my cell phone. I don't care.
Janeen Baggette:You can call me on my cell phone. And that's (360) 471-1067. My email address is my first name caninesforfreedom dot org, just like the website. I'm on Facebook, I have a personal page on LinkedIn. You can find me there.
Janeen Baggette:Most any place on the Internet you can probably find me. We've gotten enough videos out of our dogs. We've got several conferences coming up if you're interested in maybe checking us out before you have a dog. We've got one in San Diego, which a great friend of mine is helping me with. She's the head trainer for Customs and Border Patrols program.
Janeen Baggette:They call them support canines. And that's Monica Williams. We're doing a seminar in San Diego, July Seventh through the eleventh. We're also doing another conference or seminar in Oklahoma City, and that is September 30 through October 4. Those police departments from those agencies are sponsoring and hosting those events.
Janeen Baggette:So it's in and for law enforcement. We've gotten, you know, Customs and Border Patrol involved. We've gotten the FBI involved. You know, we're gaining strides and we're hoping that we can help more heroes heal with getting these dogs out and being able to hopefully prevent any more of these suicides. But if you if you throw my name in, you throw the organization in, however you wanna do it, find me.
Janeen Baggette:I'm more than willing to to talk and figure out how we can work on getting you guys a dog. And that's fire as well. I've got dogs in the fire departments as well. It's just predominantly right now, police departments.
Betsy Smith:Gotcha. I tell you, Jeanine, you're doing amazing work and we can't thank you enough spending time with us today. And if you'd like more information about the National Police Association, you can visit us at nationalpolice.org.
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