Rick Seyler has been working as an animal behaviorist for more than 35 years and that work is truly a labor of love.
So much so that the Geneva native started The Silver Bullet K9 Service Ministry to train and eventually donate police support K9s to local departments free of charge.
“I can not charge for a blessing and I donate the dog, training, equipment, vest, medical spay/neuter, extensive handler training and lifelong support/rezeroing. I do not take donations and receive no earthly rewards for this.”
—Rick Seyler
“They come to me from word of mouth as I do not advertise or market the work I do,” Seyler said. “I can not charge for a blessing and I donate the dog, training, equipment, vest, medical spay/neuter, extensive handler training and lifelong support/rezeroing. I do not take donations and receive no earthly rewards for this.”
These dogs perform very different tasks than the typical law enforcement K9. Instead of being trained to track down suspects or find drugs, Seyler’s dogs have extensive training as they are in the public up to 12 hours a day comforting and giving hope.
He said police departments can use them for redirection, de-escalation, comforting victims and as a decompression tool for their officers.
“When an officer goes from dark call to dark call after dark call this can bring a little ray of sunshine to help get them home,” Seyler said. “A little bit of normal. That little ray of sunshine might just be enough.”
Most recently, Seyler donated Greta to the Euclid Police Department and Angel to the Richmond Heights Police Department.
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Former Richmond Heights Police Chief Tom Wetzel, who came out of retirement to take the same position with the University Circle Police Department, said the work Seyler does is not only a blessing for the trainer personally, but for local departments and the citizens they serve.
“Rick has an amazing way with dogs and I call him the dog whisperer,” Wetzel said. “After I started with the University Circle Police Department, I reached out to Rick about doing something similar. He had a little lab puppy which he agreed to donate to us while he continues to train it.
“Grace is our community policing puppy in training and has already been out in the community and have a huge impact,” Wetzel added. “People just love it which is exactly what we want. It too will build bridges of trust within our community.”
Seyler said he considers himself to be more of an animal behavioralist rather than a dog trainer.
The former combat medic during Desert Storm uses a combination of military, century, medical, therapy, hunting and farm dog methods to shape the best service dogs possible.
He got involved with PTSD service dogs as a means of healing and to help others heal from various forms of trauma, abuse and pain, not just combat. Seyler started training and donating PTSD/therapy service dogs about eight years ago privately to veterans and victims.
He has a licensed dog kennel in Grafton where he boards the dogs at no charge when handlers take vacations or further training is needed.
And he always personally chooses the animals he works with and donates to local police departments.
“I hand select and purchase the pups from various breeders in multiple states, mostly Ohio and Pennsylvania, and some are rescues,” Seyler said. “I now breed the most docile German shepherds.”
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Wetzel recalled meeting Seyler by chance while serving as chief in Richmond Heights, but the idea of having a community police K9 coupled with Seyler’s lifelong passion and dedication to the behavior patterns of these service dogs made it a perfect pairing.
“Lt. Denise DeBiase had a chance to meet and speak with Rick and happened to mention our idea (of a community policing K9),” Wetzel said. “He was intrigued and mentioned he had Angel available for such an endeavor. After a lot of planning, we got Angel and she became our community policing K9 and did a fantastic job building bridges of trust.”
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