Dog Days

Photographer and former New York City Police Officer John Baer captures the best of both worlds in ‘Cops & Dogs 2007.’

By: Megan Sullivan
   Doberman to dachshunds, Pekingeses to pugs, beagles to bassets, schnauzers to Shetlands — there are oodles of dog calendars on the market, featuring almost every breed known to man.
   Former New York City Police Officer John Baer searched but couldn’t find any cops and K-9s calendars, however. A professional photographer, he saw the perfect opportunity to create, design and publish his own calendar, Cops & Dogs 2007 (John Baer, $12.95).
   The calendar features many local law enforcement officers from towns including West Windsor, Trenton and Ewing, as well as from the Mercer County Sheriff’s Department. Don’t forget their adorable K-9 partners — six German shepherds, three Labrador retrievers and a Belgian Malinois, a German rottweiler and a bloodhound.
   "Dogs are a good market, but they’re an over-saturated market because you can get a dog calendar of poodles to Great Danes," says Mr. Baer, a West Windsor resident. "Attaching the cops to it is something that made it sort of a niche market.
   "People love their dogs, they absolutely love their dogs," he continues. "And this is interesting too because these are specialty dogs. People see (K-9s) a lot, but they don’t really get to know more about them. It’s a working dog, not a pet, so it’s a little bit different."
   Dog lovers will have the opportunity to get to know a couple of the K-9s featured in Cops & Dogs — beyond the calendar pages — at Barnes & Noble in Hamilton Marketplace Dec. 16. Two police officers and their K-9 partners will be present to "pawtograph" their featured month.
   Craig Bunting from the Mercer County Sheriff’s Office will bring his 8-year-old Belgian Malinois, Slammer, to the event.
   "Slam is the nicest dog," Mr. Baer says. "He will put a hurtin’ on you if you’re a bad guy, but when Craig lets him know that he’s not working, that he’s just meeting people, Slam’s no problem… These dogs are beautiful dogs. They’re tough, they’re strong — they’re kind of like little tanks."
   Mr. Baer hopes the calendar also will raise awareness about K-9 programs and their effectiveness. While the programs are fairly inexpensive to run, he says, they cost enough to show up on the radar. "When it comes time for budget cuts, oftentimes town administrators or police chiefs will look at it and say, ‘Hmm, maybe we could save a few dollars by getting rid of this K-9 program,’" Mr. Baer says. "…by seeing this calendar and by seeing the dogs, it works very well to remind people that this is a really good program."
   He expects to sell about 1,500 calendars this year, with some of the profits going to police departments. If sales are high enough, Mr. Baer would like to make a donation to the United States Police Canine Association. He’s also had the opportunity to sell the calendar at a couple of law enforcement-related fundraisers.
   A police officer in New York from 1992 to 1997, Mr. Baer worked as a street cop, community policing cop and a youth officer. He had no connection with the K-9 program, but gained a new understanding of the dogs through his calendar project.
   "Their whole thing is that it’s a game," Mr. Baer says. "They don’t know that they’re looking for drugs or explosives, they just look at it like they’re doing something fun. That’s what motivates them."
   The dogs get "paid" or rewarded with tennis balls and things to chew on when they find something. "That’s what the dogs work for," he says, "their handler’s love and for these balls or these little toys."
   During the November photo shoot, Mr. Baer realized just how much the K-9s love their toys. CSX Railroad Special Agent John Miller handed over his dog Baro’s kong (chew toy) to Mr. Baer. "When the handler let me hold the dog’s kong, the dog sort of knew that I was OK now… That’s why in the picture, the dog is staring right at me, salivating, because the kong was right there underneath the camera.
   "It’s interesting to see how these dogs operate and do their thing," he adds.
   Mr. Baer’s law enforcement background helped the project come together nicely, and allowed his subjects to trust him better. "I’m fortunate because I was a cop, I let them know where I used to work and they feel more comfortable working with me — that bond of law enforcement," he says. "And no one is doing this. I’ve done a lot of research looking for other calendars and you can’t find them."
   Once Mr. Baer started rounding up officers for the 2007 calendar, it created a snowball effect. He’s already working on 2008’s calendar, which will extend the market by featuring four cops outside of the New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania area. He realized the need to include a wider range of law enforcers when he visited the PDI National Trials in Minnesota in September, hosted by the USPCA.
   "While I was there, I had some calendars with me and a lot of guys liked them, but they weren’t buying them because they didn’t know anyone in the calendar," Mr. Baer says. "I can understand that and that’s part of the reason why a calendar does well, because people like to have some type of association. They buy dog calendars because, although their dog’s not in it, they like German shepherds or they buy a calendar because they like Hawaii or they like Ireland or they like beer or they like doors of Greenwich Village."
   Other projects in the pipeline include a Cops & Guns 2008 calendar featuring SWAT officers. Mr. Baer also envisions a Cops & Motorcycles calendar, and as a licensed pilot, hopes for Cops & Helicopters one day.
   Since age 18, Mr. Baer had been involved with photography and shot for the student newspaper at the University of Maine and the Office of Public Affairs. After earning a degree in public management and joining the NYPD, he continued to take pictures off duty. He left the NYPD in 1997 to pursue a career as a still photographer in the motion picture industry.
   "I had the opportunity to get into the movie business… when that chance came up, I jumped on it," he says. "It was a pretty big chance, a big decision to make. I think, looking back, it was probably the right decision."
   Mr. Baer moved to Los Angeles for his first movie shoot — director Bryan Singer’s Apt Pupil. His second job yielded an extremely well-known photo — the film poster for As Good As it Gets, with Jack Nicholson in sunglasses, laughing and holding a cute little dog in the air. Mr. Baer’s other film credits and photographed actors include Requiem for a Dream, The Way of the Gun, Helen Hunt, Benicio Del Toro and Ellen Burstyn.
Two police officers and their K-9 partners featured in Cops & Dogs
2007 will be at Barnes & Noble, Hamilton Marketplace, 425 Marketplace Blvd.,
Hamilton, Dec. 16, 1 p.m., to "pawtograph" the calendar. Cops & Dogs 2007
is available for purchase online at www.policedontmove.com
and at the following locations: Barnes & Noble, Harry’s Army & Navy, A
L Uniforms (all located in Hamilton), Samzies Uniform’s (Ewing), The Sportsman’s
Center (Bordentown) and Robbinsville Veterinary Clinic. John Baer on the Web:
www.johnbaer.net