Mike Ritland served as a US NAVY SEAL in Operation IRAQI Freedom and several special operations deployments. He is the author of New York Times Best-Selling books “Trident K9 Warriors,” “Navy SEAL Dogs” and, most recently, “Team Dog.” He is the founder of Trikos International, a company that provides private protection dogs to high net worth individuals, government officials, DOD and law enforcement. He has been featured on CBS’ “60 minutes” in a piece called “Sniffing for Bombs” detailing what these dogs do and how they do it.
He is the founder of The Warrior Dog Foundation that is dedicated to serving the special operation forces K9 community and their handlers. These are the dogs who stand loyal alongside our men and women at war, drop miles out of the air from helicopters and locate bombs—saving thousands of lives every year in combat. With the Warrior Dog Foundation, these dogs are given the opportunity to live out the rest of their lives with dignity and grace. The Warrior Dog Foundation offers a state of the art kennel facility where each K9 is attended to with compassion to both their mental and physical rehabilitation for the rest of their lives.
Mike and Rico (his personal K-9) collaborated with the Call of Duty video game series crew to create “Call of Duty: Ghosts.” The video game brings lifelike characters and immersive worlds together on a new, next-generation engine. The dog in Call of Duty works together with his team to fulfill missions.