Lambert - Training Dogs Since 1972

pacific clippings

post office box 11789

santa ana, calif.92711    

Santa Ana, Cal.

REGISTER (Daily) APR 19, 1972

Image Of Docile, Peaceful St. Bernards

By MAURY BEAM

Register Staff Writer

        SANTA ANA – Harlen Lambert is fairly sure he is the only man in Orange County who has succeeded in training docile, peaceful St. Bernards as savage attack guard-dogs.

        “I’ve got two, one weighing in at 260 pounds and the other at 250,” smiles Lambert, owner of Orange County Kennels, 4131 S. Main St. “When either one takes after you, it’s time to move.”

        Then he adds modestly that he’s sure no other countian has made tigers out of passive St. Bernards, other trainers somewhere may have done so.

        “They can be fierce fighters, these St. Bernards. And they are trainable,” Lambert explains. “For centuries the breed has been famous for carrying casks of wine to travelers stranded in the snow. Hence their canine image has come to mean brotherly love and the friend-in-need bit.

        “But once you teach a good St. Bernard to attack he does it as well as he carries a keg. As a breed, he is dense but very patient and once he learns he never forgets. And is he strong!”

        With degrees in sociology and police science, Lambert has combined the two fields of knowledge into a business of guarding the lives of properties of people – without guns.

        In these times of rising burglaries of homes he makes a specialty of putting his guard dogs into houses when owners leave on visits, long or short.

         He tells how it’s done.

        “According to a plan okayed by the owner we leave a guard dog in a home in the morning for a day-shift or at night for the night-shift.

        “Our house guards are house-broken and utterly dependable. They work eight hours and do not sleep during that time. They wander from one room to another. If there is the slightest noise at any door or window they are there, waiting for the intruder.

        “All we leave the dog is drinking water and the command to wander and watch, or similar words that he understands. If the guard assignment is longer we change the watch every eight hours with a fresh replacement.”

        The Lambert kennels contain the standard breeds of guard dogs – German shepherds and dobermann pincners – as well as the un-standard, super-guards, two huge St. Bernards.

        Trainer Lambert himself saw long training in various forms of combat. He was All-Army basketball star while serving in Europe.