By Susanne Wigforss 

When Anders Hallgren left the Stockholm University in Sweden in 1972 with a psychology degree under his arm, he decided to use his knowledge in an unorthodox way. Hallgren chose to focus on the behavior of dogs.  He became the first dog psychologist in Europe and most probably the world. 

Hallgren now has almost half a decade of experience in dog behavior, training and psychology and has written 25 books on the subject. 

He has developed several new areas in which dogs can be trained.  One of them is the new and revolutionary smoke alarm training.  He wrote ”Smoke Alarm Training For Your Dog” to teach families to train their dog to be a lifesaver. 

The booklet has been translated into several languages and has been published in the U.S., Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland and Germany. And the training taught in the book has already saved lives. [This booklet is included in his upcoming mini-course with us!] 

The first fully-trained smoke alarm dog in Germany, trained by Hallgren’s methods, saved his family from a fire in 2003. A 5-year-old black Labrador named Nero alerted his family about a candle that had been left burning and had started to singe the wooden shelf above it.

“To be honest, I didn’t believe that you could teach a dog to do this. Being a dog trainer myself, I decided to put it to the test.  I had just finished Nero’s smoke alarm training when we had an electrical outage in our building. I had to light some candles to get light.  When the electricity came back on, I forgot that the candle on the bookcase was still burning. But before long, Nero started barking and made a big fuss. So I went to see what he was barking at and found that the candle was burning the wooden shelf!  If it wasn’t for Nero I would have gone straight to bed and a fire would have started, which could have killed me and the members of four families in the building which we lived in at the time”, says Nero’s owner Andrea Orlando.

Hallgren notes that dogs are much more effective than mechanical fire and smoke alarms because dogs are able to alert their owners at least one minute before the smoke alarm starts to sound. And if the batteries are empty, they will not sound at all... “This is ultimately about saving lives,” he says. “Sixty seconds can mean a lot when there’s a fire. It could mean the difference between life and death.”

How did Hallgren come upon the idea and method for this smoke alarm training for dogs. 

“It started in 1965 with a mixed breed dog named Pia.  At that time I was heading Hundstallet in Stockholm, a shelter where abandoned dogs were taken care of and then placed in new homes.  Pia, a five-year-old female, was placed on a trial basis at a home. At first, the family was very hesitant to take her in. They thought she was a little too old.”

“When they had had Pia for 14 days there was a fire in their house. Pia started to bark spontaneously and thereby she saved the family’s life, which included a newborn baby.”

“I knew that most dogs unfortunately succumb when there is a fire in a house. All dogs do not react spontaneously to smoke and fire – only a few dogs do that. And with the incident with Pia the idea was born that perhaps I could make all dogs react to smoke and fire if I could come up with a training method for them to do that.” 

Hallgren says it was not until 1985 that he had been able to fine-tune a training method. Years later in California, a dog trainer asked Hallgren if he had any new dog training ideas.

“She was kind of fed up with the ordinary obedient training courses. When I told her about the smoke alarm training she was excited. So, I sat down and wrote some training instructions.”

Hallgren said that anyone can train their dogs to be early alarm systems.  The training, he says, is based on two things that dogs love:  Barking and playing. 

The fire alarm training comes with other advantages, Hallgren says. 

“All dogs love to work and to have a task. It’s important that dogs are allowed to live the life they are programmed for, which is to be active and have a job to do. Many dogs are left alone too many hours during the day and receive way too little physical exercise. It makes the dog passive as well as depressed and listless.” 

Hallgren’s dream is to someday launch ”The Guardian Angel project" -- a program where dogs who have completed a smoke alarm training course will be given little angel wings in bronze which could be fastened to their collars. Dogs that pass a test in a domestic environment get wings of silver. And if they save their family at a real fire, they are awarded wings of gold.

Anders is pushing for smoke alarm training to be as common as teaching your dog how to sit and lay down.  “My goal is that one day all dogs will know how to do this. It doesn’t matter the size or age of the dogs. Even old dogs can learn new tricks. With proper training, any family dog can become a lifesaver.”

Hallgren is a strong advocate for soft and positive training methods, which he says are much more effective than the harsh disciplinary training of the old school. 

“It creates happy and obedient dogs instead of submissive and passive ones”, he adds.

Hallgren is currently seeking to involve fire departments and organizations in the US in the launching of   “The Guardian Angel project.”

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We will be offering a Smoke Alarm Training mini-course with Anders Hallgren October 14 & 28, 2020. This will be his first-ever online course, and I'm incredibly excited to have this living legend on our site. 

If you've had to evacuate or lost your home due to fire, please email me and I'll get you a coupon to attend for free.