Kansas man uses unique approach to train dogs for law enforcem

LAWRENCE, Kan. -- It only took Rocko a couple minutes to find his tennis ball -- and along with it a small bag of marijuana.

Oblivious to his real mission, Rocko, a Belgian Malinois dog, snapped the bouncing ball from the air, reared on his hind legs and jumped into the arms of his master, Haskell County Deputy Sheriff Derrick Ploutz.

Standing nearby watching, Tom Brenneman also was smiling. He was seeing two of his former students -- man and dog -- go through their annual recertification process.

"It's all a game to them," Brenneman said, referring to dogs such as Rocko. "They come in here, and they want to go to work to find their toy."

Brenneman, 50, has been helping dogs find their toys more than 20 years. And when those dogs think they've completed their search and begin scratching and whining to get at that tennis ball or some other chewable delight, their masters know that they, also have found the object of their search, whether it be drugs or a dead body.

'From the empire'

Since March, Brenneman has operated a training facility for law enforcement dogs north of Lawrence near Williamstown. Brenneman named it the Vom Kaiserhofe Training Center. It's a name he picked at the suggestion of a German friend, and it means "from the empire."

The empire is Germany, because that is where Brenneman gets many of the dogs he trains and sells to law enforcement agencies around the country. In the late 1970s Brenneman traveled to West Germany, where he attended two schools to learn to train police dogs. He received additional training in Holland.

Brenneman buys virtually all dogs he trains from European countries such as Holland, France, Belgium and Russia as well as Germany. Because of his contacts in Europe he said it is easier for him to find the quality of dogs he wants there than in the United States.

Brenneman said he can work with practically any breed of dog and once even trained a Vietnamese pot-bellied pig he had as a pet to conduct searches. But he primarily buys three breeds of dogs: the Belgian Malinois, German shepherds and Dutch shepherds. Those dogs, he said, are best for police service.

"We need the dog who has the natural instinct from the heart to bite," Brenneman said.

Varied roles

Today's police dogs should be able to go from catching a burglary suspect to making public relations appearances with school children and the local Rotary club, Brenneman said.

Brenneman started his training center in 1979 while still working as canine supervisor with the Harvey County Sheriff's Office in Newton. In the 1990s he went into the business full time and last year moved to Williamstown, he said.

Brenneman does most of his training, however, at the former Sunflower Army Ammunition Plant at DeSoto. The dogs and their handlers can take advantage of the many vacant buildings there.

The dogs are trained to associate the smell of a drug or other material with that of their favorite toy. When they think they have located their toy, they become excited and scratch at whatever is hiding the object of the hunt.

The dog's toy is then surreptitiously dropped to him either by the handler or another officer.

Bomb search dogs are taught to sit instead of scratch.

"You don't want a dog scratching at a bomb," Brenneman said.

Brenneman trains a new dog for 10 to 14 weeks before the dog's future handler comes to the training center. Dog and man then work together training under Brenneman for 25 days. The dog and handler return in a year to get recertified.

"It takes a lot of time to adjust," Ploutz said. "Your dog matures and develops just like you do as a handler."

The total price tag for training, lodging, equipment and the dog is about $8,900, Brenneman said.

Larry Kreps, a Mankato, Minn., police officer, was working with his dog, Xanto, for the first time. When training is finished, he will take the German shepherd back home with him.

"I have to learn a lot more than the dog does," Kreps said.

Officers grow close to their dogs, Brenneman said.

"Many of these officers take their dogs home and let them into their houses where they have kids," Brenneman said. "These dogs are part of their families."

In 1993 while still at Harvey County, one of Brenneman's dogs was killed.

The dog, a malinois that had received considerable publicity for a major drug bust, was taken from its kennel at Brenneman's home and killed. Its throat was slit and the body draped over the hood of a car for Brenneman to find when he returned home from work.

"That was really tough," he said. "I cried like a baby."

Brenneman, who has trained more than 700 dogs, expects to see more officers and police agencies using dogs in the future.

"They've never developed a machine that can take the place of a dog, and they never will," he said.