Tyler Rollins

Owner | Head Trainer

Tyler has been working with dogs for 10+ years now. He first got his start in the Marine Corps when he worked with his IED Detection Dog, Balou. When he got out of the service, he worked in the private detection sector and helped train family dogs too. He has worked with all sizes and ages. On top of teaching dogs on and off-leash obedience, he has skillfully taught dogs detections, protection, service tasks, and emotional support dogs.

I grew up in a small farm town in Mid Missouri. I had three dogs growing up, plus countless other animals. We never officially trained any of the dogs, but they were well behaved and didn't run off, except for a few times. Maggie, Sugar, and Smudge were their names. 

 Fast forward to joining the Marine Corps. That is where my interest in how dogs work, started. I volunteered and was chosen to go to a IED Detection Dog Handler's Course. Seeing those dogs work and find explosives around the farms of North Carolina really was amazing. Learning change in behavior, learning how their noses work, I became fairly obsessed you could say. Four months later I am in Afghanistan with a dog. Patrol after patrol getting to see these dogs work and find bombs day after day, truly amazing. The amount of lives these dogs saved is countless. Not only were they out there saving lives, they made things easier. It's hard to explain the amount of stress we go through over there, but even these rough and tough working dogs bring a sense of home every day. Balou, my detection dog shown below, was the comfort my platoon needed. We never really talked about it, but just going out back on our rest days and playing some fetch or showing everyone how he works, was the a gift Balou didn't know he was giving us. After our deployment, Balou went back to war a couple more times and then on to TSA. I'm not sure where he is now, but I know he did amazing work and brought smiles to everyone he worked with and came in contact with, unless they were a bad guy with explosives. 

 After the military, I went into the private sector working the detection dogs again. Nothing to fancy, or overseas. Just Bed Bug detection. Yeah, I didn't know that was something either until I went searching for a job haha. I had 3 dogs I worked with. Olivia, Ross, and Khole. I would consider these guys more like working pets, compared to Balou in the military. Though we weren't out saving lives or bad guys, boy did we bring some relief to a lot of people. These guys worked just as hard as the IED detection dogs. So there were a lot of similarities. 

 From there I took some dog behavior courses and spent a lot of time self studying. Finally after years of training dogs on the side and working full time in different jobs. I decided to go back to training dogs were I was actually happy. Now I am here, STL Dog School and helping people gain control of their dogs!