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    At about the time the pups are weaned I’ll stop using the noise CDs and shift into another phase of their early training. At this point, I begin to work on evaluating and enhancing their prey drive. To do that, I’ll take a rag, something like a terry cloth dish towel, and tease a pup with it. I want the pup to get his eyes focused on it so he chases it. I’ll tease the pup a little bit. He chases, chases, chases. Then, bam ! I reward the pup by letting him get the rag. We play a little bit of tug, and then I reward him again by letting him have the rag. The pup chews on the rag, which is basically a dog instinctively tearing his prey apart.
    One of the other things I do is wean the dogs early. Some people wait until puppies are seven or eight weeks old to start weaning them from their mother. I wean them at about four weeks. I do this for two reasons. One, it’s a lot easier on the mother. Two, I want a lot more human interaction at this point. I want to allow the puppies to get some of their mannerisms and character from their mom, but I need to be present to teach them some manners—not to mention a ton of other things.
    The single most important aspect of a dog’s training for the work they do is to establish a bond of trust between handler and dog. That begins in those very early days when we first start the work to get the puppies accustomed to human contact. If the pups are left with their littermates, and they have no or limited human interaction, they’re going to be very, very pack oriented, or very, very animal dependent. On the flip side, dogs raised this way are going to be much weaker when they are eventually separated from their litter, their pack. So I try to get an individual pup with me and around other people as early as possible because that’s the environment the dog is going to be in for the rest of his life. He’s going to be paired up with a human, like Chopper was with Brett in the SEALs. The dogs are going to be in kennels and crates and thrust into different environments, doing different kinds of work. So, from day one, I begin to get it ingrained in them that this is the standard, this is the routine, and then that becomes what they know as their “normal” and what they are comfortable with. It makes it much easier for them in the long run and prevents them from being confused by and potentially freezing up in any kind of new situation.
    If you think about it, the same is true with people. New environments and new things in those environments can cause us to not perform at our best. The navy has known this for a long time. That’s why they place such an importance on training exercises. The closer a simulation can be to the real thing, the better prepared the troops will be. This may seem obvious, but it’s worth pointing out that all the simulation work makes members of the navy—both human and canine—more able to focus completely on the mission when they are deployed.
    Again, because adaptability to an environment is so key to a working dog’s success, I do a couple of other things to enhance both the pups’ prey drive and their comfort level with the unfamiliar. Even at that age I start taking them all over the place. We go to the local hospital, to playgrounds, to Home Depot, you name it. Since the dogs will be transported to various locations a lot during training and afterward, getting them used to being in vehicles is an essential component. We also want to expose each of the pups to people in different circumstances, be it people in wheelchairs or on crutches or kids sitting in shopping carts. We go into parking lots and let tons of people handle and play with them. We take the pups on escalators and elevators and expose them to loud noises, dark rooms, and slippery floors. As soon as I can get these dogs exposed to stuff like that, I do it.
    I also do the rag work in all these