Dog trainer deemed dog whisperer due to quick bond with animals

Elena Nicholas loved her Christmas gift, an 11-month old German shepherd named Simon. However, her inability to walk him in her neighborhood if he saw another dog quickly made her life very difficult.

Then she and Simon met Matt Read, a meeting Nicholas said was a “life changing event.”

“Since Simon was a surprise gift, I did not know his past. He was very difficult to handle when he saw other dogs. So for a two-year period, I would go to the door to make sure no dogs were around before I could take him outside,” Nicholas said. “I would even put Simon in the car and take him to the state park or somewhere where there were no other dogs. It made my life very stressful.”

To help with her situation, Nicholas pursued dog training—four times unsuccessfully.

“Some said Simon was too much dog; some said he was too aggressive to have around other dogs and that I’d have to pay for private lessons. They could not get him to socialize. Then I met Matt and got my life back,” she said.

After going through the Surfside Beach Police Department’s Citizen’s Police Academy, Nicholas, who serves as board president of the Grand Strand Humane Society, had partnered with the fire department to get their K9 dog a bullet proof vest. At a meeting, a man named Matt Read slipped her his business card. When she shared her dog obedience problems with him, they agreed to meet at the state park, making Read her fifth attempt to get guidance for her dog.

“Simon came out of the car barking like crazy. Matt came over to the car, put his hand out and I thought he wanted to shake hands but he took the leash. Within five seconds, or the time it took him to walk from my car to his son who had another dog there, things changed,” Nicholas said. “I couldn’t speak I was so shocked. I stood there in total disbelief.”

Nicholas’ story is just one of many that clients share about their experience with the man some of them call a dog whisperer.

K-9 Penn Dog Training Services

Matthew Read, a member of the National Police Canine Association, has been training dogs since 2001, volunteering initially as a trainer and behavior modification specialist in Delaware. In 2011, Read took his love of training dogs to the next level. He furthered his skills by attending Tarheel Canine Training, Inc., to become a certified police canine instructor in the areas of patrol work, explosive detection, narcotics, tracking and trailing, and for search and rescue operations. He also serves as a regional canine instructor for Controlled F.O.R.C.E., Inc.

In 2014, Read moved to the Grand Strand and opened his business, K-9 Penn, working side by side with his son, 18-year-old Jake, who shares his dad’s ability to bond with dogs. Jake often serves as a decoy in protective gear when training protection or police dogs.

An additional part of the K-9 Penn team is Tom Stevenson, a veteran law officer who spent more than 1,000 hours of his personal time with 100 different dogs to earn his master trainer certificate.

“I deal with stress on the job so for me, this is fun,” Stevenson said of his work at K-9 Penn. Noting that an officer cannot recall a bullet, a trained dog is a force that can be used to control a situation without being deadly force, he said.

As a career law officer, Stevenson sees the value in K-9 officers. He has trained Thor, an 18-month-old German Shepherd whose dad is with a Secret Service K-9 Unit in Washington, D.C., as a working dog. He and Read would like to see more K-9s working with officers.

“They are a tool, a part of the makeup of an officer. If you ask me, every officer should carry a K-9 in their cruiser. They are a valuable tool,” Read said.

Read donated Viking, a German shepherd to the Surfside Beach Police K-9 Unit and started the Surfside Beach K-9 Association to raise money to support the dogs and needed equipment.

Also volunteering with K-9 Penn is Navy veteran Craig Watford who credits Read, also a veteran, with helping train his Great Dane Jethro as a service dog. Watford, who suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), fights panic attacks and depression that literally kept him homebound for several years, drinking and contemplating suicide.

Jethro saved his life, he said, when the dog literally pulled a gun from his mouth one night.

Today, he and Read work together to try to get the Veterans Administration to recognize the importance of service dogs to veterans suffering from PTSD. With Jethro by his side, Watford has found strength to leave his home and he plans to help Read offer other veterans needed dog training.

“Craig is paying it forward,” Read said. “I saw how much good it did for Craig to have a service dog and I wanted to expand on it. It was upsetting to me how much veterans were having to pay for training.”

So, in the mix of the some 20 to 30 dogs trained each month at K-9 Penn, Read, with Watford’s help, provides some pro-bono for wounded service members on fixed incomes who have a dog that needs training.

“I don’t want to turn them away because every dog needs training. I wouldn’t do my brothers and sisters that way. I don’t do it for the money anyway, I do it because I love it,” Read said.

Training is not just for the dogs

Whether training involves the simple commands of sit and stay or more complex training for protection, the foundation of Read’s training, he said, is obedience. “Without obedience you are like playing with a loaded gun with no safety,” he said.

Read said he trains dogs as well as their owners. The goal is to build a strong relationship between dog and owner, so the animal becomes an obedient member of the family. While much of his work is with German Shepherds and police K-9 units, his team works with families who simply want their house pet to sit quietly while guests visit.

He works directly with pet and owner but also offers board and train programs. The end goal is to teach the owner how to use and enforce commands that ensure a lasting relationship between dog and owner.

Kim West of Conway who once trained Labradors brought his 6-month old German Shepherd Kenai to K-9 Penn because he heard Read was “an exceptional trainer.”

“I have found that to be true,” West said during a group training session where Read had several male German Shepherds in the same room, a feat he said is unusual because the males are very territorial. “The staff is great and very knowledgeable.”

Stephen Aiken of Murrells Inlet has spent the last few months with his German Shepherd Tex in training. Aiken said he sought Read’s help to better handle his protection dog.

“I want to be able to handle him better. He [Tex] is a protection dog. If anything goes bad or someone breaks into the house, he knows what to do,” Aiken said. “Matt is getting me trained better, too.”

Aiken said K-9 Penn is a family-oriented business where clients have developed lasting friendships and often meet to walk their dogs together.

After moving from Maine a year ago, Brandon Roberts brought 18-month-old Cote, a German Shepherd, to Read for training. “I met one of Matt’s clients and met Matt a year ago and have been in touch ever since. I just come to learn and pick up good tips from him and his son,” Roberts said.

Roberts is in school at Horry Georgetown Technical College now but hopes to work with therapy dogs someday. For now, he takes Cote and volunteers at nursing homes to provide pet therapy.

Donna Koed of Myrtle Beach had trouble walking her boxer/Lab mix Shadow. A rescue dog, Shadow wanted to pull rather than walk.

“Within 15 minutes he acclimated to Matt and in a half hour Matt was walking with him. It was unbelievable. He just listened to Matt. The next day my neighbors came up and asked who that dog was,” she said.

German shepherd pup of only 12 weeks, Axel is being trained as a family protection dog, said owner Fallen Grace of Conway. “So far so good,” Grace said. “This training is a lot better than going where they just hand the dog treats. Axel will grow to be 140 to 160 pounds and he needs to listen to me whether he gets a treat or not.”

Read trains dogs without treats, so the animals listen to him and their owners in any situation. His priority is dog safety and handler safety, he said. “I’m very strict about it. I teach the people as well as the dog.”

Dog owners like Nicholas, who found help from Read at K-9 Penn could not explain what it is that makes their dogs react so obediently in his hands.

“I don’t know if it is the confidence he displays but he gave Simon and I a life I didn’t see us ever having,” Nicholas said. “We can walk in our own neighborhood now with no problems. He eased my mind that Simon does not have an aggressive bone in his body; he was just over excited to meet another dog. He is really good at what he does. I cannot imagine there wouldn’t be a dog he would be able to help.”

This story was originally published November 12, 2016 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Dog trainer deemed dog whisperer due to quick bond with animals."