Deleta McKenzie-Jones was a teenager in Bakersfield when she began working with her first dog that she described as an “out-of-control German shepherd” that a friend helped her train. Today, she owns and operates K9 Ambassador, a world-class dog-training facility in Hollister. Living mostly along the Central Coast of California for 20 years, she trained other people’s dogs, even when working in Hollister as a firefighter from 1985 to the late 90s.
Self-taught, for the most part, she said that while she did receive a certificate years ago, it’s mostly the on-the-ground training that has brought her recognition in the world of working dogs that includes police dogs and search-and-rescue dogs. Twenty-five years ago, she got into working dog competitions, in particular the sport of Schutzhund, which is German for working dog. Schutzhund is a sport developed as a breed suitability test specifically for German shepherds to determine if they display the appropriate traits and characteristics of the working police dog. Other breeds can compete, but few pass the rigorous test.
After running a smaller facility in Gilroy for seven years, she moved back to Hollister four years ago to start up K9 Ambassador, where she offers a wide range of training techniques.
“I’ve done everything from pets to bomb and narcotic dogs,” Jones-McKenzie said. “I worked at a couple of facilities in Texas, where we did nothing but police dogs, doing bite work and whatever else they needed. I’ve got a pretty good background with working dogs.”
Working through a broker, she provides dogs to various police departments in the state and helps with “maintenance training” of their K9s. She also trains dogs for personal protection and as parameter security—two very different jobs requiring vastly different temperaments.
“Parameter dogs work inside industrial areas,” she said. “Those are predatory, anti-social dogs. If you jump the fence you’re going to get bit. There’s no negotiating. We have some contracts in San Jose where the dogs are turned out at night after everybody leaves and first thing in the morning the handler goes and gets them. Do we train those? Yes. Do we sell them to the public? No.”
Personal protection dogs are a big part of her business. She trains the dog, then the person on how to work with the dog, basically on how to “turn it on and off,” as she described it.
She explained there are two different techniques when it comes personal protection dogs: one is all about the bluff.
The other is not.
“First, we train a personal protection dog to have excellent obedience,” she said. “They’ll go down on command and stay. They’re going to bite and stop on command. Some dogs we train to ‘turn on’ and look the part (aggressive), but the reality is it won’t go any further because it doesn’t know what to do. But if someone wants a dog that will bite on command, such as with a police department, that’s different. And you’re talking at least $10,000.”
Schutzhund training involves three phases: tracking, advanced obedience and bite work. Competitions are held worldwide.
“I’ve been competing for about 25 years, primarily with the Schutzhund,” she said. “We’re hosting the 2015 Northwestern Regionals, Sept. 11-13, at our facility.”
The public is invited to watch for free beginning at 7 a.m. Sept. 12. Twenty-five dogs will be in the regional competition, which includes California (central to Oregon), Nevada and Hawaii.
Jones-McKenzie said each region throughout the state has a regional championship and those people who are competing are getting ready to go to the nationals.
“From the nationals they’ll select five dogs to go to the world championship,” she said. “Five dogs out of about 3,000 will go.”
According to Jones-McKenzie, she is an upper-level competitor, usually placing in the top 10 at any given large event. There are no cash prizes or awards from big pet food companies as there are in dog shows.
“Our competition is different from the dog shows because it’s a breed-selection process,” she said. “If your dog wins at the world competition, when you come home you’ve got people wanting it to breed with their dogs. That’s what my retired dogs do. They make puppies.”
Good bloodlines equate to highly trainable dogs and higher prices for the pups.
“Most of our stock is directly from Europe and we breed our own dogs,” she said. “We don’t have a closed kennel where you stick to certain bloodlines. We have dogs from eastern bloc countries. We have a West German bloodline mixed in there, too. We go out there and find the best dogs possible.”
She will, literally, go anywhere to track down a bloodline. She recently returned from a quick flight to Canada, and brought back a pure black puppy.
“I bought that bloodline,” she said. “It’s a super powerful bloodline and I want to use him to compete with in two years. His dad has been at the worlds three times and his mom’s dad is a five-time champion in working-dog competition. He comes from an impeccable pedigree. We go wherever we can to get the best dogs is what it comes down to. We’ve gone to Europe and we even got a dog out of Russia.”
Puppies will sell for a minimum of $1,800 at eight weeks old.
“If we grow them out, putting more work into them, they have more value,” she said. “Last week, I sold a female that was about 10 months old. She was a personal protection dog for a wealthy family in Santa Cruz.”
She said that over the last five years she has done more work with personal protection dogs than any other. She believes it is because of the downturn in the economy and fear.
“People with money buy them because they’re not cheap,” she said. “If we sell a young dog that has been trained for personal protection, it starts at $3,000 and goes up.”
Private lesson: $100 each. Specialty work, such as personal protection: $1,000 and $2,000 per month. It all depends on the dog and what the owner wants.
“The difference between a dog going to a police department and one for personal protection is that the one that is a little harder (temperament) goes to the police,” she said. “The one that’s a little more friendly goes to the family. Dogs that can’t turn off won’t go to a family, but they do good in police departments. We determine which as we’re training them. Some dogs can go for either. This determines price because if you get a dog that is really good in the bite work and can do scenting for narcotics or explosives, it’s more costly.”
Another type of training that takes up a lot of her time is problem pets—and their owners.
“We do some in-kennel training where people leave their dogs, we train them and then we bring the people back to show them how to handle the dog. The reality is if we can make it clear to the dog what’s expected of them, that makes it easier for the dog to communicate and work with the owner. Most owners anthropomorphize, or humanize, their dog, causing them to be in a whole lot of conflict because they don’t understand. So, usually it’s the people that are the problem.”
Besides training, K9 Ambassador provides kennel services to police departments and the public.
“Probably, we have a minimum of 20 dogs on site at any one time,” she said. “We have our boarding dogs and our training dogs. We have different groups of dogs. We also have breeding stock here.”
K9 Ambassador has a staff of four kennel personnel and one to two other trainers, along with the office staff. Jones-McKenzie is head trainer. Other trainers come in as needed. Many of the problem dogs come as referrals from vets in Hollister, Gilroy and Morgan Hill. One of her proudest accomplishments was when she was part of the U.S. working dog team that competed at the world event in Slovakia in 2007.
“That was significant, considering there’s only a handful of people who can pull it off,” she said. “I was 35th out of 130 that were there. You go as part of a team, but you’re ranked individually. As an individual I was ranked 35th; as a team we were in the top 10.”
For anyone thinking of a five-finger discount to possibly procure a valuable puppy, be forewarned: No one gets on the K9 Ambassador unannounced.
“We have a security camera system and, more importantly, we leave dogs strategically placed around the property,” she said. “Nobody gets on the property without us knowing about it.”
