19/08/2026
When I see people offering Dog First Aid training courses….
This is what a real Enhanced First Aid Fi****ms / Trojan Dog Handler Medic Course looks like.
Not a polished training video, sitting in a classroom version. This is reality. High stress, high threat, real life practical scenarios, Black & Grey kit. Carbines, Glocks & less lethal options. Working dog at the ready. Zero glamour, maximum realism.
As a retired Police National Fi****ms Instructor and Enhanced Medic Instructor, this is the environment where I specialised in leading & teaching advanced trauma care to CTSFOs, ARV operators and Trojan dog handlers — including first aid for the dogs themselves.
The medical content wasn’t generic first aid. It was:
• Care under fire and tactical field care for human casualties
• Catastrophic haemorrhage control with tourniquets, haemostatic agents and wound packing under ballistic threat
• Tension pneumothorax recognition
• Chest seals and open chest wound management
• Airway management including surgical cricothyroidotomy when required
• Circulatory support and rapid casualty extraction while maintaining arcs
• Integrating the dog team so the handler can keep the dog working while the medic stabilises the human casualty
And specifically for the dogs:
• K9 haemorrhage control and pressure dressings
• Airway management and oxygen delivery for the working dog
• Recognition and treatment of heat stress and exertional issues
• Ballistic and blast injury management to the dog
• Rapid assessment so the handler knows when the dog can still work and when it needs immediate extraction
Every intervention — human or canine — had to sit inside the fi****ms plan & contingency’s. You treat the life-threatening injury without becoming a second casualty yourself, without losing the dog’s utility, and without collapsing the tactical picture.
That’s the minimum standard we trained to. No soft skills performance. Just the skills that keep operators and their dogs alive when the rounds are real and the clock is unforgiving.
This is the job.
****ms
