Sport to LE? Who's done this? - Page 13

Something I haven't seen talked about is how smart is the dog? Does this play into it at all? Seriously!
Cause if the dog is going to keep biting on some bad guy's fat poofy winter coat while the guy kicks the crap out of him, as far as I'm concerned, that's a pretty stupid dog!

Kaylee, having a clever police dog is good thing to have. I worked with one who was able to sometimes climb trees ,if there were enough branches. One time I sent him up a tree where a guy was hiding. He was able to hold on to the suspects leg while I was pulling his tracking line. He started to loose his grip from the constant pulling on the line, but just as thought he couldn't get the guy out the tree, the suspect came tumbling down with K-9 Beny still holding his leg. A clever dog he was!

Hans - beside playing 'spooky' bad guy and posturing, perhaps even trying to slap the dog, how else is a decoy supposed to see if the dog will bite without a sleeve (regular or hidden), suit, or muzzle?

We worked each dog in the muzzle extensively, teaching the dog to take down the decoy by hitting mid-mass, and then getting good ground fight from the dog. There was no equipment, no scent of hidden sleeve even, just a decoy in regular street clothes (smart decoys work a thick jacket to protect from bruising), and the 'ground and pound' of the fight after the dog took the decoy down was like 2 MMA fighters, along with all the screaming/verbalizations that would occur.

Kaylee - the Mal that I had and sold to a K9 unit was one clever dog. She loved the fight, but if the decoy tried to hit or kick her, she would switch grips so quickly and seamlessly that it was impossible to figure out where she would bite next. Each of her bites were deep, hard and intense, not nips, but yet she would re-grip in another spot so that the decoy could not hit/kick her.

Yes! Yes! Thank you! Those are smart dogs! How does "smart" NOT come into play here? I think it HAS to.

Now I've seen smart dogs, dumb dogs and everything in the middle. All this stuff about sport, civil, real biting, play, prey. I mean really. I think it's all way too complicated.

Now, I'm not experienced like a lot of people with all this stuff but I do have a fairly good smattering of common sense. It makes sense to me that genetics plays a huge role in all of this and so does "smarts". It also makes sense to me what Koots was saying about muzzles and teaching the dog how to fight. I also think that dogs are not that stupid to where they don't understand that a muzzle stops them from biting. Smart like people and can reason it out, no, but smart enough to know he's got a handicap on his face.

Now we all train in different ways and to different degrees. I'm no super trainer or dog expert and don't know one thing about police dogs. But, I've been around a lot of different animals my whole life. One thing I know for sure is no matter how well trained they are, animals are still unpredictable and put into the right or wrong situation, they will act/react how their instincts tell them to.

I hear people talk all the time about what they'll do or not do. "Oh, if someone breaks in my house, I'll shoot him" That guys messes with me, I'll do xyz". That's just crap. You never know exactly what you'll do or not until that situation actually happens. Training helps. Training can take over to a certain degree. But I don't think it can ever really make or break the "what you will do" when the chips are down. If it could, how come pilots still mess up sometimes and airplanes crash? How can an experienced diver drown?

I wouldn't want a dumb dog as my police dog any more than I'd want the fifteen time failed qualifications pilot flying the plane I was in!

Kaylee, here is a picture of Police Dog Beny, the police dogs I worked with that was the tree climber and the story behind it.  I called him Mister B.  He was far from dumb!lol  Hope you enjoy it!

 

 

 

Kaylee you are 100% right about people not knowing how a dog will react or a person will react in a life/death situation. I always laugh when I hear people (usually in reference to something on the news) say I would have done this or that "shot the guy in the leg instead" or whatever. Majority of people can't think clearly at all, they freeze, run, and/or pee themselves in those situations, everyone thinks they're some hero until it really happens.

Same goes for dogs, just like at a trial, just like in real work, you never know until it happens, all you can do is train for it.

So continuing, back to all this play, prey, civil, sport, non-sport stuff. I really don't think it's that complicated.

Why try to put a square peg in a round hole by training a dog that doesn't have it in him to begin with? Well, that's just dumb too so we pick the best dogs we can for the job right? Then we train them and teach them. A Golden Retriever is supposed to be just that. A retriever. If I get one of those, I EXPECT it to play fetch with me and bring the thing back so I can throw it again. If it doesn't it's not a very good retriever is it? Now I can train it to be better at it but why should I have to train a dog from scratch to do what he's supposed to do naturally? If a retriever won't at least retrieve somewhat NATURALLY, he doesn't have the basic instincts or drives or whatever to do the job he was supposed to be bred to do. The dog and the trainer are set up to fail before they even start.

So if I want a police dog, I want a dog that can and will NATURALLY do the job I need him to do. He has to use his nose to sniff out drugs or bombs and find bad guys. If I need him to bite bad guys, I want him biting HARD. I also want a dog that's smart enough to figure out how to solve the problem of where are the drugs and bombs and the bad guy if the scent isn't just perfect. I also want him smart enough to defend himself and figure out how to kick that bad guy's butt when that bad guy is trying to kick his! I'll do whatever I can to train him and teach him how to kick butt and find what he has to find. I think the dog has to be smart enough to understand this is not always fun. He's got to understand that bad guy CAN hurt him, want to go bite him and keep biting him anyway. I guess this is fight drive? If he's not understanding that, I need to find another job for him to do. If not, that's a huge disservice to the dog.

With police dogs, I don't see how you can train them without some type of equipment at some point. I mean what are you going to do? Put an ad in the paper for "need people willing to be chewed on by a police dog, will pay minimum wage and all medical bills"? What dummy is going to go apply for that job? The one that thinks he's "all tough" and can kick the dog's butt or the one that sees the lawsuit payday! How's that going to work out?

So you put the dog to work and he's never bitten a real live screaming, desperate, bleeding, hopped up on adrenaline and who knows what else maybe human before. You can be pretty confident he'll bite, you can train the heck out of him and make him think he's superman, wonder woman and batman all in one. At the end of the day though, it still comes down to what the dog has in him, in himself. He's still an animal, he's still got his innate instincts and he's still unpredictable. Just like people, you'll never know what he will actually do or not in a given situation until that situation happens.

Fluffy bolted out the front door. Cujo jumped out the car window on the highway. Spot took off chasing a deer. Max ignored my recall command and got hit by a car. Spike wouldn't "out" the sleeve in a trial.
"That's never happened before!"

We're too hard on our dogs and forget they're just dogs.They're not robots. They're not perfect. They fail sometimes. Why do we expect so much of them and so little of ourselves?

@ emoryg
Thank you!! Yes, I love it! A handsome dog, smart and it's obvious he knew and enjoyed his job. That's the kind of dog I'm speaking of.
Congratulations on the commendation. It's well earned and deserved. Please keep your stories up. I don't usually post but I'm enjoying reading immensely!

Kaylee, thank you so much for the kind words.  The commendations were always nice to get, but the best ones came from the suspects you caught who would then brag on the dog.  Loved those!  But all the accolades go to those little four-legged partners, I was just along for the ride and I sure did enjoy it!  Beny was barley leash broke when I got him.  He would buck around like a horse and then squirm all over the ground like a cat trying to get the collar off.  I laugh thinking back to that.  You would think he was dying!  He was a little dog, but you could never convince him of it.  I attached a picture of Mister B playing with my youngest daughter.  She sometimes stuck girlie hair things in his fur and would call him Mrs B.  Too funny!

@ astrovan I shoot my .38 twice a month at a range and have for years. I know daggone good and well I likely couldn't hit the broadside of a barn in a panic situation IF I could even get my pistol without dropping it.

Many years ago, I was maybe 19 years old, some neighbors of mine had two mutts. One was a male lab mix, the other a female collie mix. The lab alarm barked, growled and generally acted like he'd bite if you came in the yard or house. Everyone was afraid of that dog. The sweet, submissive collie dog was just that. A pushover that wouldn't hurt her own food. The people got into a domestic fight one day and the wife (she was quite unbalanced) stabbed the husband with a steak knife twice in the left forearm and once in the right upper chest. The sweet little collie sent the wife to the hospital with multiple severe bites. I know all this because I ran next door when I heard the screaming. When I got there, I pulled the dog off the wife and called 911. She was curled up in a ball on the kitchen floor protecting her head. That little collie dog probably saved the husband's life. He managed to get to the bathroom and lock himself in when the dog attacked. I didn't know about him at all until the police and ambulance arrived. I found the lab shaking in the bedroom closet.

You NEVER know until it happens.