LAWDOG

Thirty years. Thousands of calls. Fires, fugitives, crime scenes, high-speed pursuits, and memories that don't disappear when the shift ends. In LAWDOG, Jason Slabbaert takes readers behind the badge and into the raw, unpredictable world of a career first responder. His journey begins as a young volunteer firefighter, running toward burning buildings, devastating accidents, and emergency calls that would stay with him for decades. From there, he enters the dangerous world of bounty hunting and fugitive recovery, tracking wanted men and women across Texas before ultimately finding his calling in law enforcement. What follows is an unfiltered police memoir built from three decades on the front lines. Slabbaert recounts the calls officers and first responders never truly forget: violent confrontations, tragic deaths, bizarre arrests, dangerous pursuits, heartbreaking scenes involving children, unexpected moments of humor, and the split-second decisions that separate an ordinary shift from a life-changing one. But LAWDOG is about more than police stories. Behind the adrenaline is another reality; the cumulative weight of first responder trauma and PTSD. Slabbaert spent years doing what many firefighters, police officers, EMTs, and other first responders learn to do: compartmentalize the horror, finish the shift, and show up again tomorrow. Eventually, those experiences follow you home. With dark humor, vulnerability, and firsthand insight, Slabbaert explores brotherhood, family, sacrifice, resilience, mental health, and what it means to remain human after spending a career meeting strangers on some of the worst days of their lives. LAWDOG is a true first responder memoir for readers fascinated by real police stories, law enforcement, firefighting, bounty hunting, PTSD, survival, and life behind the badge. The uniform may come off at the end of a shift. What you witnessed doesn't.