Law enforcement dogs aid police officers, sheriff’s deputies, border control officers, game wardens, security personnel, TSA officers, and other such entities with tasks such as detecting explosives, electronics and illegal substances, patrolling, tracking criminals, and suspect apprehension. The dogs pictured here are doing their weekly team training.

Ring sports, such as French Ring, Belgian Ring, and Mondioring, test and showcase dogs’ abilities in obedience and protection skills. These sports require an incredible investment of time and dedication, as well as an athletic dog and strong dog-handler bond.

Dock diving is a popular sport among dog sport enthusiasts. Dogs compete in this sport by jumping off a dock into a pool of water, and the dog who jumps the farthest in his class wins. In another category of the sport, dogs leap off a dock and grab a toy that is suspended in the air. This requires the to jump high as well as far.

Dogs are used by farmers, shepherds, ranchers and also simply for sport in the discipline of herding. They are amazing at rounding up livestock and are worth their weight in gold to a rancher, because they are fast, intuitive, relentless, and efficient in their work.

Mobility Assistance Service dogs such as April, pictured here, help their handlers do things such as open doors and retrieve items.

Psychiatric service dogs such as Bob, pictured here, help their handlers who suffer with PTSD and other psychiatric impairments. They help them by sharing the burden of vigilance, distracting from triggers, interrupting nightmares, being a calming presence, and other tasks.

Psychiatric service dogs such as Hank, pictured here, help their handlers who suffer with PTSD and other psychiatric impairments. They help them by sharing the burden of vigilance, distracting from triggers, interrupting nightmares, being a calming presence, and other tasks. Hank’s handler is a professional golfer, so Hank also helps out on the golf course.

Lolo is a hearing assistance service dog, who alerts her handler to things such as someone trying to get her attention, someone arriving to her home, the toaster or washing machine or other appliance making noise, and many other such tasks.

These dogs are in training with Little Angels Service Dogs in a variety of tasks that they will employ to help their future handlers who have limited mobility or psychiatric impairments.

Mai Tai is a Canine Companions for Independence service dog, a skilled companion, who helps his partner with many tasks.

Working Dogs for Conservation’s dogs use their detection skills to help to track endangered species, locate invasive species, bring poachers and traffickers to justice, and a host of other applications that benefit our natural environment. For this project, the dogs were tracking the black footed ferret, one of North America’s most endangered mammals. They do this by investigating prairie dog holes and alerting on the ones where the scent of ferret, a prairie dog predator, lingers.

Dogs are used to help find missing people in all contexts, be it urban, disaster, wilderness, avalanche, water, or human remains search. These dogs are members of a volunteer K9 SAR team that assists law enforcement agencies in Southern California.