Episode 187:⁣ Paraclete K9 with Scott Callendar

Your Working Dog Radio hosts, Eric @vanessk9 & Ted @ted_summers, sit down with⁣ retired Mesa Police dog handler and trainer, former Southwest Regional Director for the National Police Canine Association, Arizona Law Enforcement Canine Association member, and current instructor with Paraclete K9, Scott Callendar.  Paracletek9.com

Scott Callendar found his love for working dogs as his stepfather was a police dog handler.  Callendar started attending police dog training while he was still a teenager and even assisted his stepmother with detection training. The gents hit on his background, and then quickly delve into Callendar’s extensive experiences. From Schutzhund to revolutionizing his department’s training methods, from various training classes he teaches to shaping behaviors with the ecollar and using as a communication tool, Callendar is a wealth of information! You are guaranteed to learn something from this episode!

Callendar started his career as a police officer with the City of Mesa Police Department in 1995. He served as patrol officer, part of the bicycle unit, an undercover narcotics detective for the Special Investigations Division (2001), part of the high-risk surveillance/apprehension team, working his way into SWAT (2004), and finally worked into K9 as a dog handler for the Special Operations/Tactical Team (2008). As K9, Callendar’s first dog was a “hand-me-down”, but he was able to revolutionize the way his department trained their dogs; this eventually lead to Callendar being one of two trainers for his department in 2012, and then the head trainer in 2017. Callendar retired from the police force in 2020, after over two decades of service.

During his career, Callendar developed an annual high-risk deployment seminar in Arizona, and several hundred dog teams from all over the United States have attended this seminar since its inception in 2015. In addition to his experience with the police department, Callendar has been a member of the Arizona Law Enforcement Canine Association, where he’s been on the training committee since 2011.  Callendar was also named Southwest Regional Director for the National Police Canine Association in 2015, and held this position until 2020. Callendar was also employed by K9 Training Consultants from 2015 until 2020 where he worked as a dog trainer/instructor, and helped train security dog teams for a large hospital group in Arizona. Callendar has also worked as a trainer/instructor for Paraclete K9 since 2017.