About

This blog began life in spring of 2006, after I decided I had been spending too much time writing about our dog, a German Shepherd named Abby, on my personal blog and that I needed a separate space to talk about Abby in particular and dogs in general. This eventually became the blog of canines Abby, our Shepherd, and Ronja, our Belgian Malinois, and moved in scope from photos of our outings and random dog-related thoughts toward providing help and information for other dog owners and thoughts on everything dog, from training collars to nutrition.

My own experience with dogs, as well as my husband’s experience with dogs, go back much farther than this blog. While Brian grew up with dogs – his family used to breed Dobermans, though they now have Boxers – I did not, so when I first began becoming involved with dogs and dog training, I had a steep learning curve ahead of me. I learned most while we were fostering for an all-breed rescue for several years, and then eventually we were ready to have dogs of our own, not just fosters, to delve deeper into training, competing, and just general dog ownership. That’s when Abby came into our lives.

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About “Dogs for Defense K-9″

From the very beginning, we involved Abby into the things we enjoy doing, among which are traveling and reenactment. It was primarily through reenactment that Dogs for Defense K-9 was born.

At first, we involved Abby in the hobby as part of our impressions, but later on, we started thinking – “Wouldn’t it be interesting to do a display specifically about the history of military working dogs?” – and our focus in reenactment shifted to preserving and presenting the history of the dogs that have helped our armed forces keep this country safe. Our current military working dog display includes materials from World War II (as the US armed forces did not have a working dog program prior) to modern day, and includes display boards with photos and text, as well as dog-related artifacts, which range from military training manuals to dog equipment to children’s picture books about war dogs.

Brian & Ronja with our display at Paws in the Park

The need to start our own group became apparent when we lived in southern Virginia and attended events with the Virginia Military Preservation Association (VMPA), an organization that serves as an umbrella group for vehicle collectors, and several re-enactment groups. VMPA’s other member groups would usually set up displays and register for events under their own group names, for example Fox Company, and we decided that we would begin registering our display as “Dogs for Defense”, having named ourselves after the World War II civilian organization that procured dogs for the armed forces.

After we received orders to Fort Drum, NY, our regular reenactment activities were interrupted due to its relatively isolated location in northern New York. While there is plenty of reenactment in the area, most of it consists of earlier time periods, such as the French & Indian War or the War of 1812. With a lack of reenactment opportunities, we began focusing our efforts on other educational opportunities – we have done classes about dog safety and bite prevention at schools, taught civic organizations, such as the Kiwanis Club, about what Therapy Dogs do (and how they differ from Service Dogs), and participated in other activities that allowed us to teach people about dogs, do demonstrations, and just generally get more involved in our community.

Ronja & I with members of the Kiwanis Club

Because we were now doing several different dog-related activities, handing out business cards at events became a bit of a pain. At one point, I was handing out separate cards for Therapy Dog work, dog training, and often scribbling my blog address on the back for people who wanted to get more information about a variety of dog topics.

In June 2010, we decided to put everything in one place so we’d be able to hand out one business card and make it easy for people to find us online, and Dogs for Defense K-9 was born. We may eventually also put a website together that will showcase all of our activities, give people an easy way to contact us and invite us to their school, organization, or event, and also a place where I can post information about dog training. Until then, this blog serves as the “hub” for all our activities.

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About Our Logo

WWII DFD Logo

The logo for Dogs for Defense K-9 is based on the logo of the World War II organization by the same name, which procured dogs for the military’s working dog program. The original logo, seen on the left, featured a circle with the text “Dogs for Defense” and a soldier with his German Shepherd working dog. We wanted to keep this basic concept for our own logo.

The circle surrounding our logo is based on the design of Scottish crest badges (sometimes called “clan crests”), which was chosen because our last name is of Scottish origin. In Scottish clan badges, the strap and buckle signifies membership in or allegiance to a clan.

In the center of our crest are a man and his dog. Unlike the World War II Dogs for Defense logo, our logo does not depict a Soldier, although the man in the logo appears to be wearing military-style clothing. This was chosen to represent both our history and reenactment work, as well as general dog training, rather than specifically representing one of the two. Our guy is holding a tug toy with which to motivate his dog – motivational training is something I feel very strongly about and I felt it needed to be represented in our logo.

Our logo features the text Dogs for Defense K-9 as well as our mission – “education, history, training” – in the circle surrounding the dog and handler, and a separate motto, “in cane speramus”, on a scroll beneath. Our motto is Latin and translates to “In Dog we Trust”, which is a motto often adopted by dog handlers and working dog units or groups.

DFD K-9 Logo (color)