Learn from nationally recognized K9 expertise

Instruction shaped by real-world K9 deployment, operational decision-making, and courtroom accountability.

August 24 - 25, 2027
Mike Ritland
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Mike Ritland

About
Mike Ritland

Mike Ritland is a former U.S. Navy SEAL and one of the most experienced working-dog trainers in the country. During his 12 years with the Teams, including deployments to Iraq, he saw firsthand what a well-trained K9 could do in combat. That experience led him to build a career selecting, training, and supplying elite working dogs.

Mike founded Trikos International, which has provided highly trained dogs to Navy SEAL teams, other special operations units, federal agencies, and law enforcement departments. His work covers the full lifecycle of a working dog: sourcing and selecting candidates, detection and patrol training, and preparing handlers to get the most out of their partners in the field. He held the contract for and spent time as a trainer for the west coast SEAL Multipurpose Canine (MPC) program.

He is also the owner of Team Dog, which includes an online training platform built on the same methods he uses with working dogs and a line of dog food designed for performance and health. His training book, Team Dog: How to Train Your Dog the Navy SEAL Way, brings those methods to a wider audience.

Mike founded the Warrior Dog Foundation, a nonprofit that retires and rehabilitates military and police K9s after their service ends. He is also the author of the New York Times bestseller Trident K9 Warriors and Navy SEAL Dogs. He brings that operational and training experience directly to handlers who are building working teams of their own.

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Other classes

Coming soon...
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Learn from
Mike Ritland
at
HITS K9

Join national-scale K9 education designed to strengthen deployment judgment, legal defensibility, and long-term operational performance.

See who else is teaching at HITS

HITS brings together prosecutors, scientists, federal advisors, and operational trainers whose instruction reflects real-world deployment and courtroom scrutiny.

Dr. Kenneth Furton

Executive Director
,
Global Forensic and Justice Center
Provost Emeritus and Distinguished University Professor; Executive Director of the Global Forensic and Justice Center and a world-leading scholar in detection-dog science.

Fred Helfers

Owner
,
Fred Helfers Consulting
Retired detective and detection dog trainer specializing in double-blind certification exercises for narcotics, explosives, and accelerant detection teams.

Ted Daus

Owner
,
HITS T&C
Counsel of record in U.S. Supreme Court K-9 cases and longtime Broward County prosecutor. National lecturer on canine law and search-and-seizure with decades of courtroom experience.
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