Alpha Dogs of Vohne Liche Kennels

Do you need a K-9?

Kenny Licklider, owner of Vohne Liche Kennels and star of National Geographic WILD’s show Alpha Dogs, shares why dogs trained for executive protection may be the best investment you’ll ever make.
(Alpha Dogs premieres on February 8 and airs Fridays at 9 p.m on Nat Geo WILD. You can see a preview here.)

The blades of an army-green helicopter chop frantically through the air. Inside, six special forces officers scream “Go, go, go!” as the aircraft skims a wide-open field. A camo-clad fighter and his furry partner jump to the ground, ready to run, while across the pasture, a turbaned enemy tries to flee. When the soldier commands his partner to attack, there are no gunshots and no explosions—just the sound of gnashing teeth and a flash of pure muscle sprinting across grass.

In an instant, the German Shepherd turns from soldier’s best friend to an enemy’s worst nightmare. The decoy terrorist is downed with one debilitating bite. The soldier pulls out a tennis ball and smiles. “Yabrav!” he says to the panting pup at his side. “Good boy!”

Just another day at Vohne Liche Kennels in Denver, Indiana—the nation’s premier full service K-9 training facility, and the subject of National Geographic WILD’s new reality show, Alpha Dogs. As it turns out, a well-trained dog may not be limited to those in uniform. Thanks to VLK’s new executive protection program, individuals and businesses alike will have the chance to invest in their own four-legged defense.

We Didn’t Really Have Pets

Vohne Liche crewMeet the head alpha dog himself: Kenny Licklider, a retired senior master sergeant from the U.S. Air Force—a man who wears both his tattoos and his grey beard like medals of honor. His kennel has trained police and military service dogs for more than 5,000 law enforcement and government agencies, including the National Security Agency, Pentagon Police, U.S. State Department, all military branches, and more than 500 civilian and police agencies. From bounty hunters who need a little extra protection to executives across the world, Vohne Liche Kennels is in the business of serious self defense.

“There’s no better protection than a well-trained dog,” Licklider says with an equal measure of sincerity and certainty. As sexy as the first clip of his new show might look, the kennel master says that training is not all about the bite. “If a dog never gets a bite in his career, we’re happy. These dogs are primarily a deterrent. They’re there to protect and to save lives.”

Licklider grew up in a lower-middle-class family in Springfield, Indiana. For a guy who has spent every one of the last 36 years with four-legged friends, he wasn’t your typical dog-loving Timmy as a kid. “I wish I could tell you I was, but I wasn’t a big dog person,” he says regretfully. “I liked them, and my dad had a dog every now and then to hunt rabbits with, but we came from a kind of poor background and we didn’t really have pets a lot.”

Instead, Licklider focused his energies on baseball. Right out of high school, he joined the Air Force and began to make a reputation for himself as a dependable outfielder on his general’s baseball team. “We were winning, and kept winning. I was pretty fast and lean back then,” Licklider laughs. “Course that’s all changed over the years.”

Ultimately, his success on the baseball field kept Licklider from being shipped overseas: his superiors assigned him to a K-9 unit so he could finish out the baseball season. A strategic move on behalf of intramural Air Force athletics has never been so providential.

As the baseball season waned, Licklider unwittingly began his journey to becoming one of the world’s leading military and police dog trainers. “I loved working with the dogs and the total commitment the dog would give you,” the trainer says with an air of nostalgia. “I was good at it.”

Starting as a patrol dog handler, Licklider climbed the ranks, eventually training drug dogs and bomb dogs. Later, he became a military kennel master. In 1993, five years after he retired from the military, Licklider decided to open a dog training facility of his own.

Though he may not have been a dog-lover as a kid, there’s no mistaking love in Licklider’s growly voice as he talks about the dogs he’s trained over the years. One, he recalls, tracked down a lost child in the middle of winter, a moment that left him in “pure blubbery tears.” His favorite dog of all was a pit bull named Flash, a whip-smart pup when Licklider bought him during a training gig in Brazil.

Today, Flash’s image is tattooed on Licklider’s right bicep.

Though he continually falls in love with the intelligent animals that pass his way, Licklider says he doesn’t keep them by his side anymore. “I’ve had several that were stars in my eyes that I’ll always remember,” Licklider says. “Now when I get the really great ones I don’t keep them because I know what they can do out in the field. To put a special dog out in the field knowing he’s going to protect somebody, like a soldier or a police officer—if I find a special one, I put it right out.”

VLK training

The Alpha Dogs of VLK

That attitude, along with the high performing dogs that Licklider trains, propelled Vohne Liche Kennels to prominence. He launched VLK as a single facility in Indiana, but his operation has expanded to include operations in Banning, California; Yuma, Arizona; South Africa, Turkey, and Holland.

Today, at the 600-acre kennel in Indiana, Licklider is surrounded by his military and law-enforcement trained staff—a ragtag bunch of tattooed, motorcycle riding men: the perfect combination of Duck Dynasty and K-9 Cop. But don’t let the long hair, big bellies, and rough exteriors fool you.

“If you saw them in an alley you’d run in the other direction,” says producer Rob Worsoff, who teamed up with Jack Osbourne and Schweet Entertainment to develop Alpha Dogs. “They look like the bad guys, and yet they are a tight-knit group of funny guys who have top security clearances and amazing backgrounds in keeping our nation safe.”

As for the television show, Licklider says it hasn’t changed much of his day-to-day operations, other than to make the work about twice as time consuming. “I was really adamant that we did this thing straight up,” he says emphatically. “Everything that we did on the show we’ve actually done, there’s nothing made up or sensationalized. This is real stuff that these dogs can do.”

Within the first few episodes, audiences will see dogs rappelling down buildings, sniffing out explosives, jumping from helicopters, tracking enemies, and staying calm through live gunfire and explosions. The overdubbed rock music, loud explosions, and growling dogs are all drowned out by Licklider’s constant reminder that what they’re doing isn’t just for show—lives depend on their work.

Although the kennel (and the show) is stacked with Army, Navy, special ops, and police handlers, Licklider is adamant that even for private citizens, a well-trained dog is the best, most affordable form of self defense.

[quote align=”center” color=”#999999″]When a dog is matched to the right handler, Licklider says the combination is better than an alarm system or even a police officer for deterring crime. Plus, he says, “A dog would give its life up for you.”[/quote]

In an early episode of Alpha Dogs, Licklider’s team trains their first executive protection dog for a woman whose job keeps her out on the road alone. It’s a painstaking process, and one that shows just how much care goes into coaching and choosing the right dog for each particular client. Licklider explains that the cost of a dog includes visits to the handlers’ home and an intensive screening process to make sure the dog is well-matched to its owner. As it turns out, personality matters.

“You can train Lassie, but if Timmy is a dumbass handler, he’s never getting out of the well,” Licklider says with a hearty laugh. It’s a line he’s used before, but it gets across an important point. “The match is everything. If you don’t do that right, you’re doomed for disaster.”

When a dog is matched to the right handler, Licklider says the combination is better than an alarm system or even a police officer for deterring crime. Plus, he says, “A dog would give its life up for you.”

Because the stakes are so high, VLK works with dogs for 8-12 weeks before selling them to handlers. Dog prices at VLK can reach as high as $50,000, depending on the level of training—but to Licklider and his team of Alpha Dogs, there’s no price too high for security.

After all, it could be the one investment you make that ends up saving your life.

 

Alpha Dogs premieres on February 8 and airs Fridays at 9 p.m on Nat Geo WILD. You can see a preview here.
NatGeo Wild Alpha Dogs
“We may look like a bike gang. But we all have top security clearances.”