Working to get my dog to get more serious - Page 26

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emoryg

by emoryg on 31 October 2018 - 17:10

Juno, for most of my career I was K-9 handler in the States.  I left a career in the fire department to work a police dog.  In the end I would go back to FD for an early retirement.  I started training dogs in my teens and somehow knew I would end up working with them.  I trained many different breeds, but I only worked with the German Shepherd.  Best job ever!

Rule of engagement, translates to the police officer into use of force.  Just like the can of pepper spray, baton, Taser (that came later in my career) and firearm, the police dog can be used as an instrument of force.  A police officer’s use of force to effect an arrest varies from state to state.  I hope that I didn’t come across as suggesting everyone gets bit by the police dog.  On the contrary, probably less than 1 in 10 suspects that I located had the police dogs used on them as a means of force directly.  I use directly, because the shear presence of the police dog can be interpreted as a use of force.  His presence alone will often allow the officer to effect the arrest.  A typical scenario would be that a crime has been committed and the suspect has either taken flight or concealed himself to avoid detection.  The K-9 unit responds to the area and uses the available senses of the police dog to locate the criminal.  Depending upon the crime and other circumstances, the handler makes the determination on how to properly apply the police dog as a means of force.  Most often the police dog is stopped from physically apprehending the suspect and verbal warnings are issued.  I trained handler control, where I had the sole discretion on how the police dog was used.  Police K-9, show me your hands! This was normally the first commands to the suspect once he was located.  The police dog would be up in drive and displaying characteristic signs of aggressions.  Verbal commands may have to be repeated and the experience handler knows what needs to be said to gain compliance.  In the great number of cases, this would be all that is required to gain control.  Again, there’s a lot more to it than this (severity of the crime, actively resisted/resisting, armed, unarmed etc..) that will help in the decision process.  Some suspects have announced their intentions to surrender just upon hearing the police dog bark in the back of a patrol unit when it arrives on scene.  Others have no intention of being arrested and will resist at whatever cost to avoid going to jail, including taking their own life.  These are more likely the scenarios that a police dog may be used directly as a means of force.  These suspects have often committed or attempted to commit a violent crime.  They may have brandished, fired or implied they had a gun or other means of inflicting bodily harm or even causing death to the victim.  Again, circumstances will dictate when the police dog will be given the command to physically subdue to suspect.  I would say most of my encounters lasted less than 15 seconds.  I only remember one suspect who was on the bite longer than 30 seconds before the dog was ordered to return to me.  He was dead before the dog engaged, but I did not know that at the time.  Unlike most videos on youtube showing police dog bites, some dogs always bite deep and hard.  It doesnt matter if its the suit or a real person, they enjoy the fight.  The power in the back of the dog’s jaws can be immense and the sequence of events once the dog engages is very predictable.  On the case where the guy was already dead, my first indication something wasn’t right, was not hearing the scream or yell and not seeing the instinctive act of trying to pry the dog’s jaws open.  The second thing was the dog not countering his grip. 

Though it is trained for often, the actual physical force of the police dog is seldom called upon.  Again, the dog can help gain compliance and minimize the exposure that a police officer would have to take in order to achieve the same outcome.  After all, the number one function of every K-9 team should be officer safety.  Rather the use of the K-9 is expressed or implied, the goal is to make sure every officer on your shift or officer you encounter that night, goes home in the same condition as when they came to work. 

If not already bored, I would like to explain the role of the K-9 team while on duty.  I don’t want you or anyone else to think of the police dog as a biting machine that's sole purpose is to hunt down criminals.  Though their functions varies from agency to agency, here was my experience.  I worked with two departments.  One employed around 700 officers, the other was smaller and had less than 100.  Both had dedicated K-9 teams.   Dedicated not as in personal commitment, but dedicated in terms of working solely on K-9 functions.  I did not have to go out and work accidents or traffic, write tickets, take reports on thefts or other crimes, do domestics and other general grunt work that the patrol officer would do.  That’s a thankless task and I don’t know if I would’ve wanted to do that anyway.  My job was to have a police dog ready to work when called upon.  Most of my night was geared at training and maintaining the police dog for actual K-9 calls.  We would run practice tracks (3-4 or more a night), often laid by myself or other officers.  Occasionally I would track somebody walking from the store, etc. I would have articles thrown out to locate, practice control work, obedience, etc, In addition to several hours everynight at work, one day a week was solely for training. 

Here is a brief summary of how the dog and I functioned within the department, if we were not out training.

As stated earlier, my number one job was officer safety.  Any call where there was potential violence to the officer (fights, aggravated domestics, unruly crowds) I responded.  I would go years without having an officer assaulted when I had the police dog on the scene.  I would back up officers on alarms such as burglary or panic alarms.  Or go to any call where an officer wanted our presence, ie warrant service.

Next in line, I served as a deterrent to crime.  I drove around at night checking businesses with the windows down.  Several times I interrupted burglaries or thefts in progress by the use of the dog’s nose.   The criminals often saw me coming and would hide. They could get out of sight, but they left a lingering odor behind.  Four-legs would start sniffing the air coming in his windows and I would hear their tail brushing up against the aluminum kennel.  I knew someone was recently there, or could still be in the area.  Then it was just a matter of calling the cavalry and start conducting an area search.   If there were areas getting hammered by burglaries, thefts, entering autos, robberies, etc.. I would patrol those locations and also train the dog in highly visible areas.  The police dog is valuable tool in deterring crime.

Locating criminals, clearing buildings, locating evidence or property of crime was another function.  Much more glamorous, but falls below officer safety and deterrent to crime in how often we did it.  Every night I provided officer safety and acted to deter crime, but not every night did the dog come out of the car to for real street work.  I can remember going a few nights without running a real track. 

Bridging the gap between the public and the police was another task.  The police dog can serve as an excellent public relation tool.  These dogs had nerves of steel allowing them to be sociable and approachable. I took the police dogs anywhere they were requested.  Schools, churches, private businesses, holiday and sporting events, you name it.  If there was a chance to get my four-legged partner in the public, I did it.  Over the years those dogs gave thousands of puppy kisses to kids and adults alike.  On a few occasions we even made the paper. What better way to get support for your agency and promote the most valuable tool in a department’s crime fighting arsenal…the police dog.

I realize I answered more questions that were asked.  Hope you find it informative.  


by Juno on 01 November 2018 - 00:11

Emoryg,

I really appreciate you taking the time to write this. This was a great read and gives a real perspective what a working K9 and handler really do. I can also understand why you need a dog that is balanced with a clear head and the nerves to back you up when things get hairy and also be a great canine citizen when need be. Where the dog has to use all its senses to do it job as opposed to having these spectacular bites and crazy heeling. By reading your post I appreciate my dog more - he is not spectacular, he is not flashy, but he is (I believe) what a good police k9 ought to be. I am sure if you ever met him you would have liked him. If you were down in Fl (Miami) or GA feels free to contact me and I would love to meet you and pick your brains and experience and have you evaluate my partner and family member.

Thanks again for your time and post.

by apple on 01 November 2018 - 11:11

Juno,
When you talk about crazy heeling and that your dog is not flashy, is that because he lacks prey drive or that you have no desire to train him to be "flashy."

mrdarcy (admin)

by mrdarcy on 01 November 2018 - 11:11

Love reading about your experiences emoryg, a breath of fresh  air here. Long may you continue to post your life stories.Thumbs Up


by Juno on 01 November 2018 - 12:11

Apple,

A little bit of both. His prey drive is not over the top and I have no desire to train him to do heeling where he is looking up at me. So long as he is next to me and listening to my commands I am perfectly happy. My goal for doing PSA is to learn and use the different aspects of the sport for real life applications such as recall, recall without biting after being sent on a bite, listen and obeying my commands even if he can’t see me, be environmentally sound, overcome distractions and listen and obey my commands, out after a bite at a distance etc. These all have great practical applications and for me MUST be transferable to my home, other locations, besides the training field. I am not doing PSA to garner maximum points not being high in trial, my goal is to use the exercises in PSA for practical applications. In this way he gets his title (hopefully) in the sport and is also a great dog in real life. Hopefully, I got across what I am trying here. In a nutshell, a great trial/points dog that can’t execute the same off the field is kind of useless to me.

by apple on 01 November 2018 - 13:11

I think that is where the whole sport vs. real gets so distorted. The goals you stated are fine and you don't need to get top points to get a title. But there are great trial/point dogs that will fight a man for real. More so in some sports than others. For example, many in French ring want a dog that is locked in prey, or else they won't pass some of the exercises. It is true tough dogs are more difficult to train for points. It sounds like you want more of a PP dog. I think you can have both with the right dog, the right training and a very good decoy, the latter being the hardest to find. I think part of the anti sport bias comes from the amount of time and repetition it requires to get the precision and accuracy to be competitive. It can become boring, especially in the beginning. My dog that I am training in PSA is nine months old. We started out with imprinting indirect learning using a place box. Then sit and down with a food and toy reward. Then teaching a service/flip finish from the seated front position and progressed to focused heeling using food. He became a little bored with that and we started him on a flex pole to build drive in the heeling and his drive from the frustration of the flex pole is very high and will hopefully help as we progress in the focused heel and other obedience commands. In the bite work, he has mostly only bitten a large leather covered bite wedge, working on strikes, pushing grips, protection obedience and outing. He comes into drive as soon as he sees the decoy and the decoy does not move or use a whip. I either sit or down him and then give the command to bite. I am confident this dog will not become equipment oriented as we progress to the suit.

emoryg

by emoryg on 01 November 2018 - 15:11

MrDarcy, Glad you enjoyed the story.  I'm not so sure about being such fresh air.  I am from what many may call the ‘old dog school’, and though my training methodology changed (for the better) over the years, my demands on what a German Shepherd should be has never been altered.  Policing with them was a great ride and I had a wonderful time doing it.

Juno, Good luck with your best friend.  The more work you do together the better your bond/team and the more likely he will be there for you when needed the most.  But it’s not all about training.  I don’t tell people my way is better and such, but I will give you a little advice.  Make him a part of your family.  Share your meals, rub his belly, take him on vacation and to the stores with you, treat him fair and with great respect, let him sleep with the kids and splash with them in the pool, watch TV, go to the ball games, etc.  I could write pages after pages on prey, defense and fight drive (Yes, there is such a drive and I exploit the hell out of it.  There’s a reason my dog’s did not bite the suspect like the fashion designers, goosers or tinsnips you see on youtube).  But there’s another drive that has deep roots within the dog that is downplayed or often ignored, that of the pack.  It wasn’t the $10,000 personal protection dogs that stopped me from walking through their house while the owners pretended to be a sleep (I would sometimes test dogs for people in their house), or the IPO III that takes the helper off his feet.  It was usually the companion dog who lived in the house (while the protection dog lived in his kennel during the day), had no formal bite training, but ate food from the floor or from the hand, climbed on the owners lap and watched TV, rode in the cart while the family was shopping, was in the family’s picture hanging from the wall.  He was family and felt a part of it.  Family translates to pack in dog language.  It was the family dog who the moment I turned towards the kids bedroom went ballistic while the protection dog continued to sniff the small bite tug in my back pocket. 

The homeless man who lives under the bridge doesn’t have a trained dog for protection, but every few months when he lays there unconscious because his sugar is out of whack, it’s that mangy mixed breed that won’t let anyone near him.  The same mutt that days before rolled on it’s back and loss bladder control as I went to give him the leftovers from my lunch break.  That old homeless man is family to that dog and though he has nothing, shares everything with him.  A few weeks back someone had posted about the different aspects of the bite and they spoke of the relationship that drives (pack) the dog to take up the fight for his owner.  I never understood why no one followed up on that.  It can be very powerful, as mentioned in the scenarios above.   

A good training program should always include you as the one being threatened.  All too often the helper only directs his aggression at the dog and not at the handler.  Unfortunately, many dogs have to have the aggression channeled on them to elicit a suitable drive response.  When I learned helper work, not only did you also direct your threats at the handler, when the dog engaged, you drove him back to handler.  It was always a pleasure to work a dog and have them kick out of the pocket to prevent you from getting to his master, instead of just going for the ride and showing they can take a padded stick hit.   I smile just thinking about it. 

Police dogs come in various shapes and sizes, as does their drives and ability to sustain them.  I should have mentioned that the dogs I worked with were very hard to come by.  Early on I would test as many as 50 dogs (one time almost 70) before finding my kind of dog.  Mind you, these were all imported dogs from various countries and different levels of training with some having titles.  They were already deemed suitable for police work before being boxed and put on the plane.  All would crush the sleeve, dive into the suit, and beat you with the muzzle.  I could care less what they do to the equipment.  Those youtube videos I mentioned, rest assured those same dogs crush the sleeve, suit and batter with the muzzle in training.   I have a few golden rules of selecting police dogs.  Testing without equipment is one of them.   Im sure most of the dogs would go on to be what some consider a good police dog.  So just because I passed them up, doesn’t translates into a bad dog, just not the dog I need.  I had departments waiting for me to finish testing so they could load them up.  They saw value in some of those dogs.  Not everyone wants or needs my kind of dog.  I always kept that in perspective. 

 

There you go MrDarcy, another story!


ggturner

by ggturner on 01 November 2018 - 15:11

Great story on pack drive emoryg! So much to be said about the special bond between a dog and its owner. There's a reason why we call them "man's best friend."

Hundmutter

by Hundmutter on 01 November 2018 - 15:11

Emoryg's description of the roles and requirements of a Police K9 in the USA is actually very similar to the way a UK police dog handler would describe their general duties canine helper (usually a GSD, occasionally something else).
This seems to be rather different from the way many people have described and defended American LE K9s on PDB. Interesting.


BRADY BEE

by BRADY BEE on 01 November 2018 - 15:11

@ emoryg 👍👏 keep it up. You most definately ARE a breath of fresh air 👌





 


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