What’s it like to prepare to deploy into a hostile area overseas? To get bit by a military working dog? To do hand-to-hand combat training with Navy SEALs and Green Berets? To get ready to drive like your life depends on it? Thanks to Alabama defense contractor XTreme Concepts, Yellowhammer found out.
For several days in June, the Yellowhammer TV crew traveled to a training base in northern Virginia and captured footage of our own Cliff Sims going through a series of training exercise with members of the Xtreme Concepts team, including Navy SEALs, Green Berets and other special ops veterans.
This is Part 1 of a week-long series showing the footage Yellowhammer captured.
While most of Yellowhammer’s footage for this series was shot in Virginia, some of it was captured at American K9 Academy (AMK9) in Anniston, Alabama.
Did you realize that that the world’s premier canine training facility is right here in Sweet Home Alabama?
Admittedly, we didn’t either.
“We merged together with Auburn University’s canine program to form the nation’s largest training academy,” said Scott Reinhardt, a multi-purpose canine trainer with AMk9. “We’ve got 137 dogs in the facility. We train them to do everything from basic detection in explosives and narcotics to patrol. The Academy currently has dogs stationed in the Middle East and all around the United States supporting various federal agencies and the military.”
But the thing AMK9 and its partners at Auburn University have become best known for lately is their Vapor Wake dogs, which are trained to detect the scent trail an explosive device leaves in the air. Even with all of the technological advances the security industry has made in recent years, there is still nothing that can compete with the nose of these canines. And after the Boston Marathon bombing, they are in even higher demand.
“Along with explosive detection, we also have the patrol side,” Reinhardt continued. “All you’ve got to do is ask Cliff about that.”
Reinhardt put Yellowhammer’s Cliff Sims in a “bite suit” and showed him how they train the dogs to attack when necessary.
“Oh, you can feel it, even with the suit on,” Sims said with a laugh. “If they told me I had to come out with my hands up or they were sending the dog in to get me, I’m coming out, no questions asked.
“Alabama’s got something we can really be proud of with AMk9 over here in Anniston,” he continued. “The work they’re doing alongside Auburn’s research team is really impressive.”
Stay tuned throughout this week for more videos from this series.
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