K9 Command
K9 Command® located in Vale, North Carolina offers the most unique and advanced dog training programs in the area.
Our training comes with a lifetime support that is second to none. K9 Command® Dog Training Services offers the most unique and advanced training programs in the area. Our training comes with a lifetime guarantee that is second to none. Simply put, we offer a “one price for the life of the dog” package. We specialize in giving owners reliable control on or off the leash.
Business Announcement!
I guess it is a little overdue to make this announcement as many already are aware.
I have made the decision to put the uniform and badge back on and serve others for my local Sheriff's office. I began my law enforcement career in 1998 and I spent close to 10 years on the road primarily as a K9 officer. I left that to work in nuclear security as a company police officer with Duke Energy. That period lasted about 11 years. The last 7 or so years I have been working 100% as a trainer with K9 Command. Throughout all these years and even before that I have been a professional dog trainer and co-owner of K9 Command and have shared that role with my better half. For many, many years Amy was the lead trainer here working full time even while pregnant with both of our kids. I was training part time with K9 Command as my focus was on my law enforcement career and directing K9 training with several local agencies. Amy has kept this business going strong for MANY years but has stayed out of limelight so to speak.
So here we are celebrating our 30th YEAR IN BUSINESS as K9 Command and we are taking this step in a different direction.
Amy will be the primary trainer here and I will be helping where and when I can.
Please understand that K9 Command and it's level of service, experience, and expertise is the same yesterday as it will be tomorrow. Nothing is changing with the exception of I will be seen and heard from far less.
Any clients that have worked with Amy can attest how wonderful she is as a trainer and coach. Like me she pulls no punches!
So I ask for your understanding on this big transition for us and for your continued support and prayers.
Sometimes it can be like that getting a dog out of the crate as well 😂
Maggie Mae and Gemini graduated from our Board N Train program.
Kane graduated from our On Your Mark program.
Gemini waiting on his momma to arrive for his Going Home Lesson.
A little Halloween photo with “Viking Gemini”.
Maggie Mae completed her training stay with us yesterday. She came a long way from the feral like dog she was six weeks ago.
Working on long distance recalls.
A Tale of Two Dogs: Gemini and Maggie Mae. A dog’s genetics has a major role in their ability to learn and retain knowledge. Here we have two different dogs. Gemini is a confident, young Malinois with lots of food drive. Maggie Mae is a young German Shepherd mix with a ton of anxiety and fear and ZERO food drive. She enjoys physical praise but sometimes that can even make her nervous. All dogs can learn obedience but not all dogs are gonna achieve the same level of obedience. No different than one running athlete barely finishing a race and another blowing the rest of the racers out of the water. Work the dog in front of you. Make them the best that THEY can be. Adding the owners in, is a whole other ballgame. Their ability to follow instructions and be COACHABLE will also affect the final outcome of each dog’s success.
Maggie Mae got an outing at the park today with my dog, Nicks. Didn’t get video because the kids were too busy being kids and didn’t want to be videographers. 🤣😂
Let’s try this again. Here is the full video of Gemini.
Gemini is a lot of fun to train. Took him to the park today. He reminds me a lot of my girl Tera and how much fun she was to train.
ONE COOL TRICK TO HEALTHIER DOGS
While there is no scientific evidence that one brand or type of dog food is better than another, there is a LOT of evidence that serious dog illness can be reduced, and that dog lives can be extended, by proper feeding.
And this is NOT new information, nor it is closely held information.
And this ONE SIMPLE TRICK is not just true for dogs; it’s also true for humans, rats, mice, fish, monkeys, and even worms.
This ONE SIMPLE TRICK has extended the lifespan and reduced illness in EVERY ANIMAL STUDIED.
And it’s held true no matter WHAT they ate or WHERE they lived.
Are you ready for this ONE SIMPLE TRICK?
Here it is: EAT LESS.
Calorie restriction ALONE extends lifespan of a population 10 to 50 percent, depending on the animal and the amount of restriction.
This is NOT NEW INFORMATION.
More than 80 years ago, McCay, Crowell, and Maynard wrote a paper entitled “The Effect of Re****ed Growth upon the Length of Life Span and upon the Ultimate Body Size”.
The data presented showed that restricting calories without malnutrition (i.e. not absolutely starving, and keeping up vitamins and micronutrients) significantly prolonged the lifespan of rats.
In subsequent years, experiments with EVERY OTHER ANIMAL studied have shown the same results.
LESS CALORIES MEANS LONGER LIFE AND BETTER HEALTH.
So what’s the data for dogs show?
Just this: Dogs from the same litter, when fed 75% of what their siblings were given, lived 1.8 years longer. Labrador Retrievers who ate their fill every day had a medium lifespan of 11.2 years, while the median life span of dogs on the restricted diet was 13 years — over 16 percent longer.
But that’s not all.
The dogs who ate fewer calories also had fewer expensive illnesses.
At age five, over half the dogs eating a full diet had osteoarthritis in their hips compared to 13 percent of the dogs on a calorie-restricted diet.
At age eight, 77 percent of the dogs fed a full diet had osteoarthritis, while only 10% of the diet-restricted dogs did.
What about cancer? Cancer showed up in all the dogs at the same rate, but showed up two years LATER in the calorie-restricted dogs.
That’s a LOT.
To be clear, NO OTHER FOOD INTERVENTION has been shown to so dramatically increase a dog’s lifespan.
What’s that mean in terms of dog food, no matter what or how you feed?
Simple: LESS CALORIES MEANS MORE LIFE AND LESS ILLNESS.
So what are the caveats?
Just this:
▪️No matter what you feed, your dog will eventually die of something. A lot of the gains in cohort mortality are due to eliminating mortality due to obesity, not absolutely extending the life of the healthiest animals.
▪️Size matters. No matter what you feed, big dogs (as a group) tend to die sooner than smaller dogs (as a group).
▪️Right feed cannot fix wrong breed. While a calorie-restricted diet will probably help extend the life of your dog and reduce veterinary costs, it is NOT an antidote for genetic defect (often due to inbreeding within a closed registry) or morphological deformity (brachycephalia, freakishly long or sloped backs, etc.).
▪️Real world mortality gains in dogs may be less than what we see in the laboratory where the base line is often a "free feed" situation that encourages obesity. In addition, once-a-day feeding appears to extend life the most perhaps by providing a longer period of "fasting" between meals.
Links here >> https://terriermandotcom.blogspot.com/2022/10/one-cool-trick-to-healthier-dogs.html
🛑🛑🛑🛑FIRST NOTICE🛑🛑🛑🛑
HATS is holding another FREE VACCINE & MICROCHIP CLINIC! The LAST one for 2024!
🔆⚫️LINCOLN COUNTY ANIMAL SERVICES WILL BE JOINING US⚫️🔆
📍 FIRST COME/FIRST SERVED UNTIL WE REACH THE AMOUNT OF PETS WE CAN VACCINATE WITHIN THE 3 HOUR CLINIC
📍FREE for all Lincoln County Residents
❗️ Dogs MUST be on leashes
‼️ Cats MUST be in carriers
📍LIMIT 4 ANIMALS PER HOUSEHOLD
📍 Offering DAPPV for dogs which protects against distemper, adenovirus types 1 & 2, hepatitis, parainfluenza and parvovirus for dogs 6 weeks and older.
📍Offering HCP for cats which protects against panleukopenia (feline distemper), rhinotracheitis and calici virus for cats 9 weeks and older.
📍 Offering rabies vaccines for both dogs and cats which protects for 1 year. To get a 3 year rabies vaccine, bring paperwork of prior rabies vaccination.
📍Offering microchips for dogs and cats. LIMIT 2 PER HOUSEHOLD.
📍DocTerra Mobile Veterinary Services, PLLC will arrive at 10 AM to administer the vaccines and microchips.
📍DAPPv and HCP provided courtesy of PetcoLOVE
❗️ NO Breeders or rescues please. This is for household pets only.
❗️Do not arrive any sooner than
9 AM.
❗️ We will stop taking cars into the lot when we have reached our capacity!
✅✅ Lincoln County Animal Services will be joining us for this one!!! They will have a FREE EXPRESS LANE for RABIES ONLY! You will not use both lines. If you want all vaccines for any pet in your car, you will get in the HATS line. If you want rabies ONLY, you will get in the FREE EXPRESS LANE FOR RABIES ONLY….then exit the property.
Our clinics are made possible because of donations, our volunteers and local veterinarians. If you would like to donate so we can continue helping our community here’s how:
🔶Through this post by clicking the DONATE button
🔶Mail a check to HATS, PO Box 243, Denver, NC 28037
🔶Donate through PayPal on our website www.hatsalive.org/donate
THANK YOU to everyone who supports HATS so we can support our community!
Gemini has begun the ecollar phase of his training stay.
✨🐾💪
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/BE6AJekhTZyE8Br5/
Dog trainers...
I was asked about a week ago by a trainer about putting together a bundle of products together for your clients. Basically a kit for each client that you could purchase from one source... us 🙂
This could include any of the following....
Bolt snap leashes or slip leads, long lines, Ecollar bungee collars, prong safety tethers,
We can also provide Herm Sprenger prongs or slip chains (we are a dealer), Garmin or Ecollar Tech collars (dealers for both).
Leashes and long lines could be in leather or in Biothane (we can make them to color match the branding of your company).
We will try to be competitive with pricing but keep in mind our SoMo products are hand made to order by us... so we cannot compete nor will we try to compete with inferior products from Asia.
Pricing would be based on low volume bulk orders.
Let us know what you think. Please add suggestions for products you would want bundled into a "client ready kit"
Gemini is coming along very nicely.
Who We Are
K9 Command was formed by Mark Connolly and Amy Henderson in 1994. The two met as students at West Virginia Canine College where they began their pursuit of a career as dog training professionals. The goals and aspirations of Mark and Amy were one in the same and thus began a relationship. Mark and Amy were married a year after their meeting at school.
AMY CONNOLLY
With a love of all creatures for as long as she can remember, Amy began to pursue her dream of a career with dogs in 1992. Originally from Shelby, NC, she began her animal career in Charlotte. All of her life she was told that she needed to become a veterinarian. After several months of work at Mallard Creek Animal Hospital in Charlotte, she decided that her heart was too tender to work with sick animals. That is when she discovered the world of dog training. Through dog training, she is able to feel like the fictional Dr. Doolittle, one of her favorite children’s book characters. She has developed a way of communicating with dogs through her training. She sees dog training as learning a new language, one that the owner and dog learn together. While teaching herself Spanish, she has realized the importance of practicing a new language throughout daily life. If a new language(or activity) is brought into your everyday life, it becomes a routine, an integral part of your life, not just an activity you “used to do”.
MARK CONNOLLY
A former Police K9 handler and K9 Training Director for multiple departments, Mark brings a lot of experience handling and training different types of dogs. During Mark’s law enforcement career he handled two dual-purpose German Shepherd dogs. K9 Janick and K9 Cliff have both passed over the “rainbow bridge”. Mark is active in the North American Police Working Dog Association and trained and had certified many dogs to the NAPWDA national standards.
Mark has helped teach Police K9 officers how to handle and train their partners to certification levels and also turned suppressed K9 units into respected divisions of their departments. Mark has gained the respect of many veteran K9 trainers and handlers throughout the country.
On April 11th, 2005 Mark and Amy’s life changed forever. Mark and K9 Cliff were involved in a vehicle pursuit of three gang members that came to an abrupt halt at a dead end road. The vehicle chase ended violently in a gunfight where Mark was shot three times by the armed and fleeing suspects. By the grace of God, the bullet that could have fatally wounded Mark was stopped by his bullet-resistant vest.
Although his love for the job has never died, nor has his willingness to pursue injustice, Mark’s role as a Police Officer has changed slightly. Along with helping Law Enforcement agencies with their K9 teams, he also pursues each opportunity to make all dogs’ better members of their community through training and education of their owners.