K-9 Demo - Page 2

Saw some bad ones, too-- I did not know this was a K-9 at first, and while watching i thought to myself "That is a nice beginner dog, he looks like he might turn out well with some work, doesn't seem civil or have good OB yet, just working in prey still."  then I found out he was already ON THE STREETS.

Yep Doberdoodle that is what I thought when I laid a track for one of the dogs. Since they told me they were already WORKING ON THE STREET I figured they didn't need me to really draw them a map as to where I would be.They wanted me to leave an indicator(piece of cloth) when I made my turn.I took a little strip of cloth that i was holding and tied it wound a rock (so it wouldn't blow away) where I turned. They had the dog tracking (if you want to call it that) and it passed by my turn.Besides the cloth I scuffed in the ground a good indicator that you could see. The dog STILL passed it by. If the officer didn't know where I was going to be in the first place and I wasn't wearing a yellow shirt they wouldn't have been able to find me.The dog never came close to having his nose down and tracking me.He looked like he was just out for a walk. When they(as in the LEO) saw me he guided the dog to me.Once it got to me I acted threatening and he was suposed to bite me(i had a stick and sleeve) The dog wasn't sure if it should bite.They have never worked a dog on taking bites from a woman.It finally bit though. The LEOs complained about how I didn't leave enough of a clue on where my track was. For dogs that are working and already on the street....I would think that they wouldn't need me to post flags as to where I was. JMO
vhleigbiter I will PM you

Added: No Sam, no air senting. The dog had no intentions of coming to find me. I was watching them the whole time.

Air scent

It appears to be epidemic.  I watched a trial a couple of months ago and it appeared that all the LEO's wanted was a dog that would bite.  As many have already stated obedience was bad to say the least.  When most were bought onto the field the K9 was dragging the LEO. 

The best one there was a GSD that happened to be from a local breeder and trainer.  The LEO worked with the dog under supervision of the trainer for the final 5 weeks of the K9's training.  The dog worked exceptionally well and outed on the first command (following a full and long bite).  Most of the other LEO's yelled their lungs out and the still had to physically remove the dog.

Again, several bragged of having imported dogs.  But they did not fair well.

Got me to thinking.  Are the Europeans actually sending their best to us? Or their culls, as most profess to be  street ready but work very poorly in most cases.  My conclusion is, many trainers are simply getting high drive imports working them a minimum of time and selling them for maximum $$$.  Then blaming the untrained LEO when the dog goes bad.  Some would say that is maximizing profits - I say its poor business and will shut down the K9 programs of many departments if it doesn't stop.

TUFF 

>  As a PSD handler and trainer for over 30 years I must respond in favor and against some statements made here. First I still primarily rely on donated dogs, I know, I am a dinosaur!! I am not interested if the prospect is social or not if he is a donation or coming from a vendor, my primary concern is can he use his nose. The public pays for a service that is searching for bad guys, narcotics, explosives. I do not have the luxury of sport dog handlers selecting  the so called perfect candidate, if I did, then I could cypher through and locate that so called social dog each and every time.

>  I am in agreement with most, too much time spent teaching the dog to bite and not enough scent work or most importantly, "OBEDIENCE"!!. This has always been a problem in our field and will continue to be. My teams will spend the majority of their time utilizing the dogs olfactory capabilities and only on occasion bite scenarios as most of our finds do not involve a bite. This is to ensure the K9s give a good indication when unable to make contact with a perp upon locating him. As a rule I give 1 bite in every 5 searches so that the dog knows how to engage a suspect resisting arrest when located.

>  Now as far as the tracking comment, my teams start out tracking first then trailing and lastly air scenting. Once again I don't have the luxury of working in nice grassy fields like the hobbyists and sport trackers, my teams spend the majority of their tracks on non vegetated surfaces. I train my teams to track exclusively off lead when watching them trail a non LE would say the same thing as you have stated but our stats prove otherwise. Also as a rule I pull my teams off the street once a year and go back to the woods for 1 week and perform on line all vegetated non distraction tracks to get their noses back down and work on any problems or bad habits that may have been picked up, the k9s seem to enjoy it very much as well. Lastly there is always a quarry at the end of our tracks since that is what we are hunting anyways, no food no toys!!

>  I as well did not care for the video, it serves no purpose in what we as PSD Handlers do. As I was not there I could only hope some exercises involving the scent capabilities were performed prior to the bite work.