The History of Ed Frawley
and Leerburg Kennels

Ed Frawley - July 05
With three of his house dogs - Rainy, Morgi and CJ

Am I the only one who has noticed how many web sites on dogs, dog kennels and dog training on the internet that not only don't identify the people who own these business, they don't tell you one thing about the owners experience in the field.

I have a saying that I like to quote when customers send me emails asking my thoughts on recomendations they have been given or read on training. My saying goes like this:

" You are always going to be exposed to people who offer advice on how to train your dog or fix your dogs behavioral issues. The problem is that most of these people don’t have the experience to offer sound advice. This results in a lot of bad dog training information being passed out."

This web page is a brief outline of Ed Frawley's experience.

Ed Frawley has owned dogs since the 1950's. He grew up with dogs in the family and started to take training seriously in high school.

Ed Frawley started Leerburg Video & Kennel in the mid 1970's. Leerburg is a professional video studio that specializes in producing dog training videos and DVDs. Leerburg Kennels is also one of the top German Shepherd breeding facilities in America.

Ed Frawley's dogs work in law enforcement, S&R, Personal Protection and the sport of Schutzhund. Breeders from all over America have bought Leerburg bloodline dogs to strengthen the working ability of the dogs in their own breeding facility.

Ed Frawley (the owner of Leerburg) has trained dogs since his boyhood. Ed got involved in the sport of Schutzhund in 1974, became a member of Schutzhund USA in 1976 He is currently a member of Schuzthund USA and the German SV (the German Shepherd Dog Club of West Germany)

Ed went to his first police K9 training seminar in 1978 and started to produce training videos in the early 1980's. Since he began breeding German Shepherds in 1978 he has produced over 350 litters of German bloodline German Shepherds. No one in America has done this.

Since 1977 all of the bloodlines on dogs in Ed Frawley's Leerburg breeding program have been imported from Germany. Germany has two distinct categories of bloodlines in their German Shepherds. There are working bloodlines and show bloodlines. For almost 30 years Ed has only bred working bloodline German dogs. This fact has shaped the quality of the dogs he produces today.

Since starting the video business in 1980 Ed Frawley has produced over 120 dog training videos. More than anyone else in the world. The quality of his work is recognized around the world as the best dog training videos available anywhere.

In 1979 Ed purchased a home video camera with the sole intent of video taping some of the many dog training seminars he attended every year. In 1980 he started to advertise these seminar videos in several dog training magazines. By 1984 he had a professional editing studio. Since then the business has grown to the point where today Leerburg has over 80,000 people on a mailing list and state-of-the-art video editing studio that is better equipped than many small television stations.

Ed Frawley has been training German Shepherds for 45 years. He started out training for personal pleasure. He went to his first schutzhund seminar in 1974 and started training police service dogs in 1978. In the early 1980's he competed in AKC obedience and tracking events, putting numerous titles on a number of different dogs.

In the mid- 1980's, Ed competed in Schutzhund events both in the United States and Germany. By the mid-1980's his interests turned to the training of police service dogs.

A photo of Ed Frawley from the Florida training seminar that Ed sponsored in January -2003

In 1990 Ed Frawley was asked to become a Reserve K-9 Officer with the local Sheriff's Department. After going through the state police program he became a Wisconsin State Certified Police Officer. Over the past 20 years Ed has attended and co-sponsorfed more police K9 training seminars than he can remember.

Until February of 1995 he handled the only narcotics dog in Dunn County, WI. As a canine officer he assisted the Wisconsin State Patrol, the Dunn County Sheriff's Department, the WI Department of Narcotic Enforcement and for 10 years he worked very closely with West Central Drug Task force .

Ed and his narcotics dogs were involved in over 1,000 narcotics searches with several hundred arrests. Ed has testified in both Federal and State court. His narcotic dogs assisted in seizing over $240,000.00 in cash and uncounted amounts of narcotics.

Ed Frawley on a fishing in Canada in 2002 - (no more beard :-) )

On January 13, 1997, Ed Frawley received an award from the Dunn County Sheriff's Department honoring his years of K-9 service.

Ed Frawley with 1 Lb. of methamphetamine
that his K-9 found.

The video business started in 1979 when Ed decided to video tape dog training seminars out of an interest in documenting sound training techniques for his own use.

Many of the tapes Ed has produced were filmed in Europe. Ed has gone to West Germany, East Germany (before the wall came down) , Belgium, Holland, England and Canada to produce dog training videos and DVD's. He goes where he feels he can work with the best trainers in the world to offer the best training information available.

If you buy videos from Leerburg Video you are buying from a dog trainer with practical experience.

Ed thinks of himself as a dog trainer and breeder first and a video producer second. He brings his 45 years of dog experience and many years of law enforcement to the training videos.

New dog trainers have such an advantage over when I started. They have video and the internet to learn from. My web site alone has over 10,000 printed pages. The 120 DVD's I have produced since 1982 offer a wealth if information that I would have died to have had access to 45 years ago.

When I decided to produce training DVD's and sell related dog training products I made the decision to approach the business in the same way I approached dog training. By that I mean I would hold nothing back and I would only sell the best quality products I could find. I would never try and compete with Wal Mart or the pet food warehouses where quality takes a back seat to price points. The success of Leerburg has proven that there are people out there who value quality information and products and they are willing to pay for it.

Ed Frawley

Ed lives with Cindy Rhodes and her son Andrew. Cindy has been involved in the dog sport since 1985. She competed in the Schutzhund USA nationals with a female Dobe in 1990.

Cindy manages the Leerburg breeding program and knows as much about the bloodlines and training as Ed. People interested in learning more about buying a Leerburg puppy should contact Cindy at cindyr@leerburg.com

Ed and Cindy also breeds Belgium Malinois. You can read about these dogs on Cindy's web site for her kennel name of Kaiserhaus The focus of our breeding program is to produce dogs with sound temperament, excellent drive, sound structure and a williness to work.

Ed has two adult sons from previous marriages.

Jeff is currently a paratrooper in the 82nd Airborne and Eric who is a commerical diver on oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico. You can click the links and read motr about the boys.

If you would like to read an article that details Ed's philosophy on dog training you can click here and read about his program.

Ed Frawley with a deer that his son Jeff shot when he was 13 years old in South Dakota

Ed Frawley & his k-9 doing a narcotic search on interstate I-90 in Dunn County WI in the mid-1990's

Leerburg Kennels - Owned by Ed Frawley

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All images & script - © Ed Frawley