By Jed Weisberger
One of the best parts about IWDC 2021 was getting to know and appreciate the accomplishments and love of the dogs of our membership and those interested.
In 2022, two of the key goals of our organization are:
– To increase the communication among our members.
– To grow the IWDBA membership.
The IWDBA is indeed increasingly international in scope, with our recent virtual conference drawing over 200 attendees from 21 countries. With that, we are involved in many environments with many diverse – but really quite similar – relations with our working dogs.
Some have been trained to diagnose Covid-19 after previous training to detect disease through smell. Others have learned to protect explosives and prevent what could be a dangerous local situation.
Nothing is more true than a slogan that was mentioned at IWDC 2021 – “A dog’s nose knows.” Does it ever.
A thought or two brings one to the crux of this, and the desire to bring our membership together in new and different ways as the digital age keeps developing. Wouldn’t it be marvelous if two IWDBA members – one in Africa and another in Europe, or one in the United States and another in Australia, were working on the same training or breeding program and could easily compare notes for the betterment of such similar endeavors?
The ways to do just that, through audio, video and direct contact are there. The aim is to make such interaction a reality in 2022. We already are launching a series of Forums for members on our website, https://www.iwdba.org. Members upon login, can click on the Forums link at the top of the page and join any of the three – Canine Behaviour, directed by Karen Overall, Conditioning, directed by Eric Wilsson and Private Military/Police, directed by Al Grossman. A fourth Forum dealing with veterinarian aspects is scheduled to debut in early spring.
If you are an IWDBA member, we invite you to contribute to these forums. Your input would be valued. If you are not a member, we invite you to join at https://www.iwdba.org and also enjoy access to three scientific journals – The Journal of Veterinary Behavior, Animal Behaviour, and The Journal of Genetics and Genomics.
We are planning a series of website features in 2022 that will recognize the work of our members and their cohorts bringing new recognition to the research, work and training being done with our dogs.
Tell us what you are doing with your dogs so wee can develop that recognition. If you have a question about anything related to them, drop us a line. Contact us at jed.weisberger@iwdba.org.
As we look ahead to IWDC 2023 – hopefully in person – 2022 shapes up as banner year for the IWDBA.