Campaigning for K9s: From Pups to Cops
BY JANET SHAMLIANKristi Schiller says the story stopped her cold.
Watching a news broadcast about a grief-stricken Houston-area deputy who lost his K9 partner during a struggle with a suspect, the reporter mentioned there wasn’t enough money to give the officer a replacement pup. A self-described lover of both dogs and law enforcement, Schiller dug into her own pocket to pay for a new K9 partner for the deputy. That was four years and sixty dogs ago.
Police K9’s do important work, no one disputes that, but many police and sheriff’s departments are cash crunched and have been forced to cut K9s from the budget. The highly trained dogs can cost upwards of $15,000, just for the initial purchase. Schiller saw a need and vowed to fill it. She started K9s4COPS, a non-profit organization that buys and trains the dogs and then gives them away to law enforcement officers. Her first fundraiser was in her backyard. She began knocking on corporate doors all over Texas, asking for donations.
“Kristi Schiller is not a gal you say no to,” says a friend who became a supporter.
Any law enforcement agency can apply and Schiller has enlisted a handful of deputies and police officers who review the applications once a quarter and make recommendations. Those who receive good news travel to Houston to choose and train with their K9 partner before returning home as a team. Schiller’s dogs are now fighting crime in 17 states.
Pasadena, Texas Police Office Mark Brinker received his K9 partner, Austin, in January.
“It would be a whole different show without him,” Brinker says.
Schiller deflects the credit, “It’s amazing what they’ve done with what little I’ve given them.”
Instead, she wants to tell you about her next challenge, giving dogs to schools. The mom of a young daughter, Schiller has launched K9s4KIDS and has given away six so far to promote what she calls a safe learning environment.
Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/feature/making-a-difference/campaigning-k9s-pups-cops-n175526
“Pup”-blicity
Our message is being heard! The “pup”-blicity for K9s4COPs is reaching far and wide, thanks to recent national television and magazine features.
Ironically, it all started back on New Year’s Day with a larger-than-life, botanical K9 Johnny Cash parading down the streets of Pasadena, Calif., in the 125th Annual Tournament of Roses Parade.
Let me be perfectly honest, underwriting a Rose Parade float is an exorbitant undertaking—one I couldn’t begin to do without the sponsorship of Energy XXI—but it was the publicity that we needed to raise national awareness to our mission—raising money to purchase trained K9s for cash-strapped police departments, and now, school districts through our K9s4KIDs initiative.
Our Facebook “likes” and website hits grew exponentially. Then national media outlets picked up our story.
People magazine called. They featured K9s4COPs as part of their “Heroes Among Us” profiles. Our story was shared with nearly 50 million readers of America’s most popular celebrity news and human-interest magazine.
Shortly after People published the feature in their July 28th issue, we were honored to visit with award-winning broadcast journalist Janet Shamlian and her camera crew for feature on “NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams.”
Shamlian went behind the scenes with me and watched dogs become trained K9s at Houston K9 Academy for the segment, which aired on August 7. She also learned how valuable K9s are to community safety. K9s not only keep drugs and munitions off the street, but even more important, they help keep those defending our communities safe.
CultureMap Houston also plugged the People article for us, and just recently, the Houston Business Journal caught up with me for a short Q&A segment.
Now, we’re gearing up for a trip to New York City. My own personal protection K9—my “shadow sentential” Johnny Cash will ring the opening bell at NASDAQ stock exchange on September 8. He will be honoring the memory of K9 Sirius, who died in the line on duty at the World Trade Center on September 11th, and all the other gallant K9s and their handlers who put their lives on the line to keep us all safe.
Kristi Schiller helps cash-strapped law enforcement agencies buy top-notch police dogs
Kristi Schiller, the engaging head of K9s4COPs, helps cash-strapped law enforcement agencies buy top-notch police dogs
Kristi Schiller was watching the 10 p.m. news when the grief-stricken figure of Harris County deputy constable Ted Dahlin filled her TV screen.
It was clear what had happened: Man and dog had been in pursuit of burglary suspects when the dog sped ahead. The highly trained canine cornered at least one of four young men, but a fifth came up from behind and choked the dog to death.
That December 2010, Schiller started learning as much as she could about police dogs and their officers. She hoped Dahlin’s dog, Blek, would be replaced swiftly, but she discovered that was highly unlikely. Dahlin would have to do desk duty until he himself could scrape up the $15,000 it would take to replace his partner. And fundraising efforts tended to be low-wattage affairs – bake sales, barbecues and car washes.
Schiller, a lifelong volunteer, decided to wade in. In 2010, she started K9s4COPs, a non-profit group that helps law enforcement agencies here and across the country buy top-quality police dogs. Today, K9s4COPs has put more than 90 canines on the streets, and in 2013 Schiller started the initiative, K9s4KIDs, which is helping to beef up security at school campuses across the nation.
Early on, Schiller and her husband, Oil and Gas Chairman, John Schiller, personally underwrote the program. Over time, however, generous Houstonians and law enforcement officers from across the country have opened their wallets, too.
Supporters want to strengthen the ties between communities and the men and women who work to keep them safe.
Also, it’s hard to resist Schiller and her king shepherd, Johnny Cash.
The dog, who doubles as a mascot and security guard, is 140 pounds and an expressive, gentle giant. At 41, Schiller still looks like the media personality and model she used to be. She’s been compared to both Marilyn Monroe and Lucille Ball. She looks like Monroe, acts like Ball and makes visitors feel as if they are a part of her high-society world.
She’s all business, however, when she’s talking about the important roles dogs play in police work.
“Sadly, Blek died,” Schiller says, “but Ted Dahlin went home to his wife and children.”
READY FOR FAME
Schiller grew up in Brazosport, where, she says, the road meets the Gulf of Mexico. Her family was in the offshore-boat business, and she ate raw oysters for after-school snacks.
After attending the University of Houston, Schiller took a job in an early version of entertainment TV.
The show, “Day and Date,” was canceled after 13 weeks, but Schiller couldn’t imagine failure when she arrived in the Big Apple to start work. Her maiden name was Hoss, and she introduced herself to everyone she met: “I’m Kristi Hoss, and I’m going to be famous in about a week.”
After a few months, she was back in Houston, working at radio station KL0L, 101 FM, where she dished out entertainment news and relationship advice starting at 5 a.m.
On the air she was known as “Lucy Lipps” Her voice was her calling card of her funny, put you at ease, on-air persona. Schiller always had an interest in technology and social media, her reputation grew.
Forbes magazine named her “Queen of the Internet” in 1998.
“I loved it,” Schiller says. “And then I realized things were getting out of control. People knew me, and I didn’t know them.” You get somewhat paranoid when people approach you and you see the look in their eyes like they feel they have a connection because they listen to you every day.
“I moved to New Orleans.” She wanted to adventure to an unfamiliar territory, Schiller briefly worked as a stockbroker. “But that didn’t last,” she says.
In the matchmaking department, Schiller was surprisingly effective – she fixed up nine couples who actually got married. But she herself was single, rich in friends but poor in boyfriends. Then, when she was 29, a friend tried to fix her up. “Oh, honey,” she told him, “this isn’t going to work. I’m the matchmaker. I fix up other people”
Finally, however, Schiller agreed to meet the Oil and Gas wildcatter who would be her future husband. It was July 2001, a hurricane was brewing in the Gulf, and the French Quarter was a monsoon.
“John was completely wigged out at the rising water,” Schiller says. “I told him, ‘Don’t worry. I’ve lived through 150 hurricanes. We will be fine.”
The date only lasted an hour, but both were smitten. They met again the next week, and they’ve been together ever since.
Sinclair, their daughter, was born in 2006. She was 6 in 2012.the year of the Sandy Hook, Conn., school shooting That’s when Schiller decided to start K9s4KIDs, which she is hoping to expand along with K9s4COPs.
She is not opposed to guns – she’s a member of the National Rifle Association and has a license to carry. But, she says, she is a proponent of stricter gun laws. As well as, one protection dog is a better investment than a school full of armed teachers.
“Teachers are underpaid heroes,” Schiller says, “but they’re not in the business of reading, writing and Remingtons. When they were hired, nobody asked them, ‘How’s your aim?’ ”
EXPANDING HER CHARITY
Today hundreds of volunteers are involved in Schiller’s organization.
One is Bill Stanton, who describes himself as a private eye and former NYPD cop from the Bronx.
“Kristi reminds me of a modern-day Lucille Ball – she creates a tornado wherever she goes. But it’s a tornado for good, and her energy and enthusiasm are infectious. She has this Southern comforting, down-home-iness that people just love.”
Sgt. Mike Thomas, in charge of the canine unit for the Harris County Sheriff’s Office, appreciates Schiller’s can-do attitude.
“She may have a ditzy, blond persona in public, but she’s extremely intelligent, and she’s learned the dog business,” Thomas says. “People respect that.”
Early on, the sergeant says, Schiller gave his department five dogs. They were trainable but the equivalent of C students, he says. Later, Thomas took Schiller to a vendor in the mid-west and showed her where he prefers to buy police dogs. In the middle of the kennel tour, she grabbed him.
“I’m sorry, so sorry,” Schiller told him. “I just realized I went to the Dollar Store to buy the officers dogs, when I should be sending them to the Neiman Marcus of training. These are the dogs that you need.”
To Thomas and the dozens of other lawmen and -women whom Schiller has helped, she’s a living, breathing superhero.
“Of course I’m not,” Schiller says. “The heroes are the men and ladies that are in uniform.”
HOW TO HELP
K9s4COPs welcomes donations to help purchase and train dogs, provide instructions and certifications for canine handlers, and pay for dog food and veterinary care. For more information, call 936-825-9900 or go to K9s4COPs.org.
Basking in the glow of the Rose Parade
Flu medications, or maybe an adrenalin fueled lack of sleep, make you have the weirdest dreams. In color. With surround sound. And the smell … simply divine!
I had the most vivid dream that K9s4COPS was in the Tournament of Roses Parade!
But it wasn’t a just a dream…it was dream that came true. K9s4COPs was honored as one of the only 42 floats in the 125th Tournament of Roses Parade.
Most. Amazing. Day. EVER!!!!!
The experience was surreal and I didn’t want it to end! My beloved friend Jenna Jackson’s P&R Productions crew captured every moment from the building of the float to our stroll down Colorado Avenue in Pasadena, California.
We participated in the Rose Parade to draw attention to the great work that our K9 officers and their handlers do serving our communities and to share our mission to provide agencies and schools with highly trained K9s. We wanted to share our story, our mission, with the world. I’m pleased to say the response was overwhelming!
Our message was heard from coast to coast, from the front page of our hometown Houston Chronicle to international media outlets. It was a headline ticker on Yahoo News and featured across the pond to the BBC in England! Our message has reached over a Billion people! This has quickly secured our position as the Rose Bowl Parade’s “Fan Favorite”
On ABC, Hanna Storm and Josh Elliot knocked it out of the park with their coverage of our float. (Plus, they said our float was their favorite of the entire parade.) They shared our story, from that horrible December when Officer Ted Dahlin lost his partner K9 Blek to the ever growing number of K9s which have been placed with various law enforcement agencies and educational campuses.
Through such incredible world-wide visibility, K9s4COPs gained almost 40,000 new followers immediately following the Rose Parade and added many new members to our Woof Pack, so all in all it was a great success! You too can join the Woof Pack at www.K9s4COPs.org/donate.
I’m not about to let this much visibility for K9s4COPs go to waste and we’re already planning next year’s float. We are beyond thankful for the generous donations that made this year’s float possible and we’re already looking for that special sponsor that wants to join us in front of more than a billion viewers on New Year’s Day.
This is my dream coming true…every day. With the generous support of countless businesses and individuals and the tireless work of our dedicated team, K9s4COPs has come a long way in just three years, but our mission is far from over.
I tell people I’m too stupid to know what’s impossible. I have ridiculously large dreams, and half the time they come true.
By the way, if anyone finds a glass slipper along Colorado Boulevard, please return it to Texas!!!
Remembering Sandy Hook
On December 14, 2012, countless parents across the country had to fight the urge to go to their children as soon as the heard the news of the tragic shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Conn. The senseless murder of 26 people—20 precious children and six adults—rocked our nation.
The tragedy was a call to action for many, including myself. I listened to concerned parents debate the gun control versus guns in school paradigm and I read K9s4COPs’ applications requesting trained K9s for campus protection.
Working together to protect our communities through K9s4COPs meant protecting our children too, and the K9s4KIDs initiative was launched with the mission of providing highly-trained K9s to school districts and college campuses free of charge.
Many people think what good is a K9 in a shooting?
The mere presence of a trained K9 and their handler is a deterrent of any untoward activity whether it is physical violence or criminal doings. Statistics prove this over and over again.
If K9s trained in drug detection can keep schools drug-free, what can one trained in munitions detection do? They can keep guns and explosives off school property and away from our children!
You smell like gunpowder? YOU CAN’T COME IN!
And HEAVEN FORBID, a K9 is sent to disengage a shooter … that highly-qualified warrior can buy precious time for the innocent to flee or seek shelter. Even if just one life is saved, a K9 will have done its job.
As we reflect on the tragic event of last December, K9s4KIDs is moving forward, and through K9s4Cops, has already placed three K9s within two school districts.
There is a kinder, gentler alternative to school safety that doesn’t invade privacy and doesn’t force teachers into decisions that no human being should be asked to make and it’s K9s4KIDs.