VSK/Police-DPO Helpers
The VSK/Police-DPO helpers for the 2006 AWMA National Championship will be Jason Scobbie and Joey Leigh, both of the Atlanta Working Dog Club.
Jason Scobbie
Profile to come.
Joey Leigh
Joey Leigh has been creating top dogs for over twenty years.
His first experiences in the early and mid-eighties were with hunting dogs. During this time he trained or assisted in the training of 12 Master Hunting dogs. These successes began a lifelong love of teaching dogs to be useful working companions.
In the late eighties, Joey trained his first detection dog on a family bet and moved from hunting dogs to training personal protection dogs and working with law enforcement assisting in training and as a decoy.
In 1994 after joining the Navy, he volunteered to work with military dogs and while in the Med, happened on a French Ring competition. Intrigued, he spent two weeks in the South of France working with ring decoys and learning some of their techniques. He was hooked and began to focus on all aspects of working dogs both competition and practical applications of training techniques.
After returning to the States, he bought his third Rottweiler and starting training Schutzhund while still volunteering to do decoy work for Military and Police dogs. He also began to do Schutzhund helper work.
Since beginning a serious study of the training of working dogs in 1994, Joey has worked with many of the top international trainers, competitors, dogs and decoys in the world. He studied with helpers/decoys in Germany, Belgium, France, Holland, Czech Republic, Republic of Slovakia and Austria. He has been helper at more than thirty IPO trials, including front half at three National Championships for three different foreign judges from three different organizations. He also served as Chairman of the Helper Committee for the AWMA.
Joey has played a major role in the training seven different handlers and eight dogs to qualifying spots on World Championship teams. Four of these dog and handler teams won National Championships. During this time he took his own competition dog, Nykko from a six week old puppy to IPO/Schutzhund III level by age two, qualifying for three FMBB world teams and competing at the FMBB World Championships in Austria in 2004.
In addition to his work with sport dogs, Joey has acquired dogs for police departments across the US as well as Sweden, Germany, Belgium and Holland. He has trained more than 30 Police K-9 dog and handler teams through various certifications including, NAPWDA, NNDDA, USPCA, NPCA, and POST.
He continues to strive for excellence for all the dogs and handlers he trains, whether for sport, law enforcement or personal protection.