Our Team Is What Makes Us Different.
At Integrity K9 Services, we have our own team of experienced trainers led by Dr. William (Bill) Ellinger. Bill has over three decades of extensive experience in training Executive Protection dogs, Family Protection dogs, and Personal Protection dogs and excels in training all three dsiciplines. He studied Animal Behavior and has a PhD from Michigan State University.
Our Trainers
Bill is a certified agitator and judge for the Canine Civil Defense League (CCDL). He is a certified decoy and judge as well as Director for the North American Dog Sport Federation (NADF). Bill is also a certified decoy for Iron Dog, and was the Southwest Regional Director for the Protection Sports Association (PSA) and Regional Select Decoy for PSA. He has trained and titled dogs at the National and World levels for Schutzhund, French Ring, Mondio Ring, PSA, CCDL, and NADF. Bill has studied under many of the greats in each sport, both in the USA and abroad, from Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, and France. He knows dogs, and has vast experience in training and competition. Bill knows how dog’s minds work, and his training techniques are thorough and humane. The dogs love him, respect him, and respond to his advanced and refined training abilities. Our team of trainers train alongside Bill, and are explicitly schooled in Bill’s training techniques.
Learn more about how we train here.
Finding Your Perfect Protection Dog Match
When we help you select a dog that is best for you and your lifestyle (after all, different dogs have different personalities, just like we do), we continue to train your dog until it is delivered, which is usually within two to four weeks. If we need to deliver at a different time, we can do that, too. We can refine the dog’s abilities depending on various factors in your home or business before delivery. If you have other dogs, cats, birds, reptiles, or barnyard animals, we want to make sure that your dog is going to co-habitate with everything and everyone in your home. We want your delivery to be free of surprises for both you and your dog. If you ride the train to work every day and plan to take the dog with you, we want that to be a pleasant experience for you and the dog, so we will make sure that the dog has ridden a train, bus, or any other form of public transportation, and is fully competent and experienced in that mode of travel.
Delivery Difference
When we deliver your dog to you, we spend time letting you both get acquainted with each other. We invite you to have any family members, friends, relatives, gardeners, or domestic help who are consistently at your house to come to your house and meet your dog while we are there. We will go out with you and do the activities that you normally do so that you can acquire a comfort level with your dog in doing these things before we leave. Our delivery service, which is normally two or three days, assures you that you will know how to communicate with your dog, and that your dog has begun the process of blending into your “pack” before we leave. When we leave, you will have detailed instructions on how to continue bonding and working with your dog. You will have practiced many things with your dog, including basic and advanced obedience. You and your dog will already be building a working, loving relationship before we leave.
We are also available for follow-up training and advanced training sessions. When we leave, you may feel that you will want additional time with us there, but once you have done what we have instructed for you and your dog over the next two weeks, your confidence level will have risen dramatically, and you will probably not want an additional visit. But, if you decide you do want more time with us, we are available to schedule an additional visit.
We are also available by phone or email for questions after we leave. This is a very important aspect of Integrity K9 Services. We have trained the dog, we know the dog, and we now know you, so we are in a perfect situation to be able to help you over the phone or through email/texting with any questions and concerns you might have about your dog. We don’t have to contact a person two or three times removed down the line who trained your dog like a lot of other dog companies have to do. We have complete control of being able to help you after your dog has been delivered. We raised the dog, we trained the dog, we delivered the dog, and we can field any question you have about the dog with a single phone call that you can make directly to us.
Health and Temperament Testing
Our dogs are carefully selected for both their intelligence and drive. Health and temperament are checked and double checked throughout their time with us. If we acquire the dog when it is a puppy, we make sure that all shots and other medical needs are met throughout its stay with us. If the dog seems perfect at two months and again at six months, but not physically perfect at a year due to a medical condition that has developed, we do not put the dog into our program. Sometimes we acquire dogs that are a year old, but we make sure that they are in perfect health, are up-to-date on all vaccines, and that they were fully socialized with children and other animals for their entire life. Only dogs that make it all the way through their training and are in perfect health are sold as Integrity K9 Services protection or service dogs. The dog may be great as a pet, but if it doesn’t pan out as a protection dog, we won’t sell it to you.
We want you to be prepared for anything or anyone that comes your way, which is why we give all of our dogs extensive training in all aspects of being the perfect Protection Dog. We are available for answering any questions or discussing any needs and interests that you may have in purchasing a Protection dog, and look forward to hearing from you through our contact form or phone call.