PERSON OF INTEREST Eli Atias: Yours Faithfully

Fixing the communication gap between dog owners and their faithful companions form the basis of what is probably the first dog training book in Singapore.

- Eileen Chan

Taking the dog for a leisurely walk in the park turns into one of frustration when man’s best friend turns a deaf ear to frantic calls of “Come!” by its owners.

Nothing unfamiliar, it’s just an altogether typical everyday scenario. But for the 38-year-old Israeli, Eli Atias; it is a disconcerting moment.

As a veteran K9 dog trainer in military and security forces around the world, he understands that while its owner wants the dog to come, the dog doesn’t quite understand what is expected of him. The communication breakdown produces only frustrations and hand-waving despondency from the human tugging at the other end of the leash.

Such a scene produced that light-bulb moment for Eli. He knew he could fix it readily and quickly, but faced with work commitments; it was pushed to the back-burners – for another day.

The Voice Of Authority

“When life gives you lemons, make lemonade,” says the affable Eli. In this age of isolation, where travel is reduced to mere daydreams, he now had time to address the scenario mentioned.

Where once he had written instruction manuals for the “GI-Joes” and their K9 dog units around the world, yes he surely could write a training book for your average Joe.

He had previously developed the Special Operations K9 training modules; he knew this was somewhat different. The book had to address a rather fundamental problem: It was not a question of disobedience, but clearly, man’s best friend did not understand the instructions verbalised by their owners. It was a communication problem.

Pouring his 20 plus years of experience working with Military and Police dogs, including Project Instructor for various government agencies, he produced what is probably Singapore’s first dog-training handbook for the layman.