I never planned on returning to the internet. In my mind, that chapter was complete. I had already done the full cultural circuit: Forbes crowned me the Queen of the Internet, Fortune profiled me, Wired dissected me, and Playboy photographed me. That is the media industry’s version of a Triple Crown with a centerfold. After a run like that, a woman should be allowed to retire into carpools, school bake sales, and surviving socialite season without violating the unspoken dress code. I tried. My SUV turned into a mobile crisis center. My brain ran hotter than a freshly laid asphalt in a Texas summer. I committed to socialite season like it was a competitive sport. I even tried to believe tennis at the country club might be my destiny. It never cooperated. Apparently taking on the cartel was more aligned with my natural gifts.

Here is what no one tells you about purpose. It does not wait for your life to settle down. It does not text first. It shows up in the middle of whatever identity you’re rehearsing and pulls you with the same force a storm uses when it decides a coastline needs rearranging. You don’t choose it. You feel it. And I have never been the kind of woman who ignores a pull that strong.

Sixteen years ago this month, I watched a Harris County Sheriff’s Deputy lose his K9 in the line of duty. The grief on that man’s face could have cracked granite. I didn’t know him. I wasn’t part of the department. I simply couldn’t tolerate the idea that the partner who saved his life wouldn’t be replaced because a budget said no. I tried to donate a dog quietly, imagining I would slip in, do my part, and move on. The universe had other plans. That moment struck like lightning. I took one step because no one else moved, and the road rose up to meet me.

From that single gesture came a national mission I never saw coming. Eight billion dollars in contraband removed from the streets. Nearly four hundred K9s deployed across the United States and Europe. More than 2.5 million students protected in schools every single day. Thousands of felony arrests. Children recovered. Weapons seized. Tragedies prevented before they ever had the chance to become breaking news.

It didn’t take long before the institutions noticed. The FBI called and told me the Director wanted to present me with the highest honor a civilian can receive. My first reaction was not pride. It was absolutely not, I know how this movie ends. It sounded like one of those old radio pranks where they promise you front-row tickets and then arrest you over a parking violation from the Clinton administration. I brought a Judge with me because if I was walking into federal headquarters, I thought it wise to bring someone the government legally cannot tase. Instead of handcuffs, they handed me an award. The Judge got a nice lunch. And I learned that sometimes the government really is calling to congratulate you, not process you.

Then the Governor of Texas declared a day in my name. I told my then 8 year old daughter, Sinclair with all the pride the moment deserved. She looked at me the way a Tesla owner looks at someone bragging about gas mileage and asked if she and her friends would get the day off school. When I said no, she told me she would attend once my face was on currency because the fourth grade had Spring Fling and they planned to win. Nothing humbles a woman faster than her own child.

This wasn’t the life I thought I was building. But when something lands with the weight of a divine assignment, you don’t negotiate. You square your shoulders like a woman who is about to say watch this. My father always told me that if you have, then you do. I thought he meant basic decency. What he really meant was stepping into the kind of calling that bulldozes your plans until the only thing left standing is the truth of who you actually are.

People ask if I get tired. I don’t. I feel honored. I want my daughter to understand that no problem is too big and no purpose is too heavy when you are willing to show up. You don’t even need a parachute. I have jumped from more metaphorical planes without one than I care to admit. I just make sure I am surrounded by people who know exactly where the pull cord is.

And life, in return, has handed me scenes that defy logic. Like learning the cartel put a price on my head and the Director of the DEA informing me, with the tone of a man who wished he were anywhere else, that my value had been set at ten thousand dollars. I gasped. I clutched my imaginary pearls. Ten thousand dollars is offensively low. I have seen secondhand Hermès bags with a stronger financial profile. If a cartel is going to put me on their vision board, the least they can do is respect the résumé.

By the end of the meeting, the Director stood up with the expression of a man who had survived something he could not document. He said he would walk me out. Not as courtesy. As insurance. We moved toward the elevator like two people silently agreeing never to repeat this experience to another living soul. Then I remembered I had relinquished my pistol at security to enter the Director’s office. So I turned around in my chinchilla and told the front desk I would like my engraved silver P7 returned. The Director stared at me like his soul had filed an HR complaint. He reminded me that most visitors do not bring firearms to federal headquarters. I reminded him he invited me, I am Southern, and of course I brought my fanciest silver. He rubbed his temples with the resignation of a man who knew the rest of his day was ruined. I took my pistol the way you lift a martini that is slightly too full, and I walked out with the calm of someone whose life has long abandoned the concept of a normal script.

What I know now is that this is not chaos. This is my rhythm. My life has always made more sense in motion than in maintenance. Every time I tried to retire, purpose found the door code. Every time I thought the plot had resolved, the next chapter rose up and dragged me back into the center of the story. Every time I tried to shrink myself into a quiet life, something louder and truer called me forward.

From radio to early internet fame to philanthropy to federal awards and cartel math that should frankly offend any woman with self-respect, nothing has been linear. Nothing has been predictable. But everything has been mine. I was not built for quiet. I was not built for a life that behaves. I was built for impact, for the twist, and for the story itself.

And it delights me that storytelling has finally come into fashion. I was doing this long before algorithms decided vulnerability was profitable. For the last sixteen years, I have produced more notes than Watergate and the Iran-Contra affair combined. Every chapter, every contradiction, every plot twist has been preparing me for exactly this moment.

This is not my comeback. This is my clarity. This is who I have been the entire time. And I am nowhere near finished.

If you’ve ever wondered what purpose looks like in real time, it looks like a trained K9 pulling fentanyl off the streets. It looks like a dog finding a missing child in the dark. It looks like a school protected because someone cared enough to act. I cannot do this alone. We are drowning in requests from agencies who need dogs now. If this story lit even a small fire in you, meet me at K9s.org. Let’s put more heroes on the ground before the next headline writes itself.

How did this become my life?? I ask myself daily.

Crime Doesn’t Wait..Why Should We

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Harris County Deputy Ted Dahlin spent more than three years building up an intense level of trust with his partner.

The two had gone through rigorous training together, and out on patrol, Dahlin was secure in the knowledge that his partner would lay down his life to protect Dahlin’s if necessary, without question and without hesitation.

That’s what partners do particularly, partners of the four-legged variety.

“When you’re on an eight or 10 hour shift and you’re subject to call out 24/7, you spend a lot of time with your dog,” Dahlin said. “Once they’ve found that first or second bad guy who could have killed you if he wanted to, you learn to trust your K9.”

In the late afternoon hours of Dec. 22, 2009, Dahlin and his K9 partner, a 5-year-old Czech-German shepherd named Blek, responded to a burglary call. It was the last call Dahlin and Blek would ever work together. Two burglary suspects, surprised by the arrival of uniformed officers, had fled into a wooded area of north Houston. Blek went in after them, just as he was trained to do, but he didn’t come out.

One of the three burglary suspects, strangled Blek to death. Dahlin had lost his partner and his best friend.

“That night was very hard,” Dahlin remembers. “I spent more time with Blek than I did my family. When I lost him, it kind of took the wind out of my sails. “Really, all I wanted after that night was to see something good come from that horrible incident.” And in fact, something good would come from it.

Learning of Dahlin’s loss and Blek’s sacrifice while watching the evening news, Houston-area philanthropist and animal lover Kristi Schiller was moved to act. She called some politicians she knew and inquired about donating a new K9 to the Harris County Constable’s Office. Her generous request was met with little more than questions and bureaucratic red tape.  “I quickly found it wasn’t as easy to donate a dog as I thought it would be,”Schiller says.

Next, Schiller took to the Internet in search of some sort of charitable organization that could cut through the red tape and help her fulfill her wish of donating a K9. Again, she came up empty, but she did learn through her Internet search that more than a dozen law enforcement agencies, just in her home state of Texas, were in the process of trying to acquire K9s. She also learned that a trained K9 carried an initial price tag of between $15,000 and can surpass $35,0000, and that K9 unit budgets were often the first casualty of rough economic times within a police department.

“I saw a need that wasn’t being fulfilled and decided that I needed to do something to help. I decided that this was my calling,” Schiller says. “I sat my husband, John down and said I wanted to start a charity.”

In June 2010, Schiller founded K9s4COPs with the mission of raising charitable funds to acquire and donate trained K9s to law enforcement agencies in need. On March 27, 2011, the organization received its 501 (c)(3) non-profit status, and less than a month later, K9s4COPs made its first donation to the Harris County (Texas) Sheriff’s Department: “The Fab Four” K9 Boomer, K9 Fozzie, K9 Mikey and K9 Tamara.

Since then, K9s4COPs has grown exponentially. In 2011, the organization donated 15 K9s to two agencies in Texas. In 2012, the tally was 23 K9s to nine agencies in three new states. So far this year, K9s4COPs has gifted 29 K9s to 15 agencies in seven new states, and in just over a decade since its inception has raised more than $13 million to support the cause. To date, there has been over 350 K9s gifted in 38 states and France.

“We’re filling a gap that counties and districts often can’t fill,” said Schiller. “We don’t want money to ever be an issue getting in the way of an officer having a K9 and performing the work they do in the community.”

The Harris County Sheriff’s Department, recipient of K9s4COPs’ first-ever gift, has since received even more K9s from K9s4COPs, bringing the department K9 unit’s roster to 24 K9s.

Sgt. Mike Thomas has been with the Harris County Sheriff’s Department since 1985 and has spent the last 22 years working with the K9 unit. He’s worked his way from the bottom up starting out as a bite-suit-wearing decoy during K9 training sessions and now serving as day- shift sergeant as well as training sergeant and he’s seen the unit grow. Thanks to K9s4COPs, he says, the department’s K9 unit has almost tripled in size in the time he’s worked there.

The addition of all those well-trained dogs has benefitted not only the department and the officers they patrol with. More importantly, it’s benefitted the community as a whole and the benefit is quantifiable.

“Those 24 dogs that K9s4COPS have donated have improved the quality of life for the citizens of Harris County,”he says. “You think about the felony suspects they’ve taken off the streets, the dope they’ve taken off the streets. One of our dogs in the last month has taken $6 million dollars worth of drugs off the street, and I have several that have taken over $4 million. What chairtable investment gives you that kind of return?” 

Deputies Alex Chapa and Daniel Kerrigan are two of the Harris County Sheriff’s Department officers who have benefitted from the generosity of K9s4COPs. Both took a trip with Sgt. Thomas and other deputies to a kennel several states away to select their donated K9 partners.

For Kerrigan, who had never owned a dog before and went to the kennel with no preconceived notions, the selection of Dutch shepherd K9 Bailey, dual trained for patrol and narcotics detection, was all about the eye test. Chapa, on the other hand, had more of a predetermined idea about the qualities he would look for in a new partner.

“Going in, I knew I wanted a smaller dog,” Chapa said. “I’m about 5 feet 8 inches, 185 pounds or so, and I didn’t want a dog that would drag me through the woods or knock me off my feet. I needed a pocket rocket with high drive”

Chapa found his perfect match in Rocco, a Belgian Malinois with specialized training as a patrol K9 and in explosive detection.

“K9 Rocco was probably the smallest dog I saw, but he had the biggest attitude out of all of them. He was everything I wanted: a small dog with a crazy motor.”

Both deputies agree that the K9 partners they’ve received through the generosity of K9s4COPs are helping them perform their duties better and more confidently.

“At the sheriff’s office, we don’t have two-man units, so this is the best you could ask for,” Chapa said. “You always have someone there that has your back. If somebody’s trying to fight me or hurt me, I’ve always got Rocco there to have my back. I’ve got my own support 24/7.”

Kerrigan learned very early on in his career with the K9 unit that the sense of security Chapa describes can turn very real.

Just out of K9 school, Kerrigan and K9 Bailey saw their first real-world deployment when they were called with other officers to respond to a home invasion. Gunfire was exchanged, and the armed suspect fled into a wooded area. After a good deal of searching through the brush, Kerrigan and his dog located the suspect, who turned his gun on Kerrigan. That’s when Kerrigan’s K9 partner went into action, bursting toward the armed suspect, hitting him hard in the arm and knocking the gun loose. The suspect was taken into custody, and Kerrigan and his K9 lived to serve another day.

Now having served with K9 Bailey for two years, Kerrigan has developed a keen appreciation for the abilities of these brave service dogs. “They are invaluable partners in the war on crime. We could not be out there protecting the citizens of the largest County in the US without these finely trained dogs.” 

“Since I became a K9 handler, my ability to catch suspects is probably two or three times what it was before. And that’s just one handler,” he says. “The HCSO K9 unit has more than multiplied ten fold in size in the two years I’ve been here, so if you factor in the money seizures, the narcotics seizures, the fleeing suspects we’ve caught, the armed suspects we’ve taken off the streets and you multiply that times the two dozen dogs we’ve gotten, that’s a lot of bad guys K9s4COPS has taken off the streets through their gifts to us.”

Besides the physical gift of police K9s, the K9s4COPs organization is also providing a valuable service to law enforcement in the area of training. This past October, K9s4COPs hosted its first Texas K9 Officers Conference and Trials in Houston, bringing in subject matter experts from around the U.S. to share knowledge with the 275 K9 officers who attended. The officers were able to learn new techniques and gain valuable TCLEOSE (Texas Commission on Law Enforcement Officer Standards and Education) certification hours. This inaugural conference was such a success that plans are already being made for a larger conference annually.

On the conference’s final day, 50 K9/handler teams had the opportunity to let off a little steam and put their abilities on display at the Hard Dog Fast Dog Competition at Thorne Stadium in Houston. K9 competitors were put to the test and judged on the power and strength with which they could hit a bite-suit-clad decoy (Hard Dog) and how fast they could run (Fast Dog).

Fittingly, it was two well-trained K9s4COPs donated dogs from the Harris County Sheriff’s Department that took home top honors in the competition. Alex Chapa’s partner K9 Rocco posted a 33 mph sprint time to win Fast Dog, and Daniel Kerrigan’s partner K9 Bailey finished off a dead run by putting a ferocious hit on a decoy to take Hard Dog honors.

While the event was a lot of fun for the participants and for members of the public who gathered to cheer on the competitors, Chapa noted that the K9s4COPs Hard Dog Fast Dog Competition provided more than just entertainment value.

“Basically, we were competing in what we do,” he said. “You know, we don’t really get graded on the job. They just tell you, ‘Hey good job’ or, ‘hey you caught the bad guy.’ Getting to see the other dogs work and getting to meet other handlers from all over Texas gave me something to work on moving forward.”

Standing with K9s4COPs founder Kristi Schiller and receiving their Hard Dog and Fast Dog awards, Kerrigan and Chapa were able to reflect on the real value of Schiller’s young organization both to themselves personally and to the community at large.

“I know for sure if it wasn’t for K9s4COPs, I wouldn’t be where I am,” Chapa noted. “Certainly without KK’s vision, our K9 unit wouldn’t be as strong as it is.”

“It’s really cool that we get to work with dogs,” Kerrigan said. “But when you break it down to what it’s really accomplishing, it’s a lot bigger than just more cops with dogs. It’s safer communities for people to feel secure in.”

“While I’ve personally benefitted from having the K9 that Kristi donated,” he said. “I think our community has benefitted even more the good guys in the community, anyway.”

Kristi Hoss Schiller with her personal K9s “Johnny Cash” and “Daisy”

Kristi Schiller was watching the 10 p.m. news when the grief-stricken figure of Harris County deputy constable Ted Dahlin filled her TV screen.

It was clear what had happened: Man and dog had been in pursuit of burglary suspects when the dog sped ahead. The highly trained canine cornered at least one of four young men, but a fifth came up from behind and choked the dog to death.

That December 2010, Schiller started learning as much as she could about police dogs and their officers. She hoped Dahlin’s dog, Blek, would be replaced swiftly, but she discovered that was highly unlikely. Dahlin would have to do desk duty until he himself could scrape up the  $15,000 it would take to replace his partner. And fundraising efforts tended to be low-wattage affairs – bake sales, barbecues and car washes.

Schiller, a lifelong volunteer, decided to wade in. In 2010, she started K9s4COPs, a non-profit group that helps law enforcement agencies here and across the country buy top-quality police dogs. Today, K9s4COPs has put more than 90 canines on the streets, and in 2013 Schiller started the initiative,  K9s4KIDs, which is helping to beef up security at school campuses across the nation.

Early on, Schiller personally underwrote the program. Over time, however, generous Houstonians and law enforcement officers from across the country have opened their wallets, too.

Supporters want to strengthen the ties between communities and the men and women who work to keep them safe.

Also, it’s hard to resist Schiller and her king shepherd, Johnny Cash.

The dog, who doubles as a mascot and security guard, is 140 pounds and an expressive, gentle giant. At 41, Schiller still looks like the media personality and model she used to be. She’s been compared to both Marilyn Monroe and Lucille Ball. She looks like Monroe, acts like Ball and makes visitors feel as if they are a part of her high-society world.

She’s all business, however, when she’s talking about the important roles dogs play in police work.

“Sadly, Blek died,” Schiller says, “but Ted Dahlin went home to his wife and children.”

READY FOR FAME

Schiller grew up in Brazosport, where, she says, the road meets the Gulf of Mexico. Her family was in the offshore boat business, and she ate raw oysters for after-school snacks.

After attending college, Schiller took a job in an early version of entertainment TV.

The tv show, “Day and Date,” was canceled after 13 weeks, but Schiller couldn’t imagine failure when she arrived in the Big Apple to start work. Her maiden name was Hoss, and she introduced herself to everyone she met: “I’m Kristi Hoss, and I’m going to be famous in about a week.”

After a few months, she was back in Houston, working at radio station KL0L, 101 FM, where she dished out entertainment news and relationship advice starting at 5 a.m.

On the air she was known as “Lucy Lipps”  Her voice was her calling card of her funny, put you at ease, on-air persona. Schiller always had an interest in technology and social media, her reputation grew.

Forbes magazine named her “Queen of the Internet” in 1998.

“I loved it,” Schiller says. “But I soon realized things were getting out of control. People knew me, and I didn’t know them.” You get somewhat paranoid when people approach you and you see the look in their eyes like they feel they have a connection because they listen to you every day.

“I moved to New Orleans.” She wanted to adventure to an unfamiliar territory, Schiller briefly worked as a stockbroker. “But that didn’t last,” she says.

In the matchmaking department, Schiller was surprisingly effective – she fixed up nine couples who actually got married. But she herself was single, rich in friends but poor in boyfriends. Then, when she was 29, a friend tried to fix her up. “Oh, honey,” she told him, “this isn’t going to work. I’m the matchmaker. I fix up other people”

Finally, however, Schiller agreed to meet the Oil and Gas wildcatter who would be her future husband. It was July 2001, a hurricane was brewing in the Gulf, and the French Quarter was a monsoon.

“John was completely wigged out at the rising water,” Schiller says. “I told him, ‘Don’t worry. I’ve lived through 150 hurricanes. We will be fine.”

Sinclair, their daughter, was born in 2006. She was 6 in 2012.the year of the Sandy Hook, Conn., school shooting That’s when Schiller decided to start K9s4KIDs, which she is hoping to expand along with K9s4COPs.

She is not opposed to guns, she’s a member of the National Rifle Association and has a license to carry. But, she says, she is a proponent of stricter gun laws. As well as, one protection dog is a better investment than a school full of armed teachers.

“Teachers are underpaid heroes,” Schiller says, “but they’re not in the business of reading, writing and Remingtons. When they were hired, nobody asked them, ‘How’s your aim?’ ”

EXPANDING HER CHARITY

Today hundreds of volunteers are involved in Schiller’s organization.

One is a board member, who describes himself as a private eye and former NYPD cop from the Bronx.

“Kristi reminds me of a modern-day Lucille Ball and she creates a tornado wherever she goes. But it’s a tornado for good, and her energy and enthusiasm are infectious. She has this Southern comforting, down-home-iness that people just love.”

Sgt. Mike Thomas, in charge of the canine unit for the Harris County Sheriff’s Office, appreciates Schiller’s can-do attitude.

“She may have a ditzy, blond persona in public, but she’s extremely intelligent, and she’s learned the dog business,” Thomas says. “People respect that.”

Early on, the sergeant says, Schiller gave his department five dogs. They were trainable but the equivalent of C students, he says. Later, Thomas took Schiller to a vendor in the mid-west and showed her where he prefers to buy police dogs. In the middle of the kennel tour, she grabbed him.

“I’m sorry, so sorry,” Schiller told him. “I just realized I went to the Dollar Store to buy the officers dogs, when I should be sending them to the Neiman Marcus of training.  These are the dogs that you need.”

To Thomas and the dozens of other lawmen and -women whom Schiller has helped, she’s a living, breathing superhero.

“Of course I’m not,” Schiller says. “The heroes are the men and ladies that are in uniform.”

HOW TO HELP

K9s4COPs welcomes donations to help purchase and train dogs, provide instructions and certifications for canine handlers, and pay for dog food and veterinary care. For more information, call 936-825-9900 or go to K9s4COPs.org.

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BY JANET SHAMLIAN

Campaigning for K9s4COPs.org

Kristi Schiller says the story stopped her cold.

Watching a news broadcast about a grief-stricken Houston-area deputy who lost his K9 partner during a struggle with a suspect, the reporter mentioned there was not enough money to give the officer a replacement pup. A self-described lover of both dogs and law enforcement, Schiller dug into her own pocket to pay for a new K9 partner for the deputy. That was four years and sixty dogs ago.

Police K9’s do important work, no one disputes that, but many police and sheriff’s departments are cash crunched and have been forced to cut K9s from the budget. The highly trained dogs can cost upwards of $15,000, just for the initial purchase. Schiller saw a need and vowed to fill it. She started K9s4COPS, a non-profit organization that buys and trains the dogs and then gives them away to law enforcement officers. Her first fundraiser was in her backyard. She began knocking on corporate doors all over Texas, asking for donations.

“Kristi Schiller is not a gal you say no to,” says a friend who became a supporter.

Any law enforcement agency can apply and Schiller has enlisted a handful of deputies and police officers who review the applications once a quarter and make recommendations. Those who receive good news travel to Houston to choose and train with their K9 partner before returning home as a team. Schiller’s dogs are now fighting crime in over 17 states.

Pasadena, Texas Police Office Mark Brinker received his K9 partner, “Austin”, in January.

“It would be a whole different show without him,” Brinker says.

Schiller deflects the credit, “It’s amazing what they’ve done with what little I’ve given them.”

Instead, she wants to tell you about her next challenge, giving dogs to schools. The mom of a young daughter, Schiller has launched K9s4KIDS and has given away six so far to promote what she calls a safe learning environment.

Kristi Schiller with her German Shepherd, “Johnny Cash”