On February 9th a documentary entitled "What's That About? Episode #3" premiered in Canada on the Canadian Discovery Channel. The show covers "Spy & Security Operations."  In 2007 a crew from Pixcom Productions, Montreal Quebec Canada travelled to Sanford to film a portion of the show, featuring Personal Protection Training with Trainers and friends of Tarheel Canine Training, Inc.

I want to send a special thank you to Sean Siggins, K9 Officer, Southern York Regional Police Department, PA and Mr. Scott Battle, a PSA Certified Decoy for working the dogs in the scenarios that were filmed. Sean's K9 "Jack" is featured at the end of our segment doing the longest run to a courage test in history!

Tarheel Canine's Head Trainer, Janet Dooley (PSA 1 National Champion 2007) and her K9 Zuko were featured in an attempted kidnapping scenario. Hillary Daly and K9 Zhennon of TK9 Protection Sports and PSA runner up at the 2007 nationals in level 1, participated, along with one of our personal protection clients, Sally Howell with K9 Austin in a multiple attacker scenario showing off Austin's redirect skills. Annie Schottmuller of Ponderosa Kennels in Maryland, and a former intern at TK9 participated with her K9 Zombie in a car jack scenario. Thanks to Sean's girlfirend Tiffany Slonaker or being the getaway driver in the scenarios!

The show will be featured on National Geographic Channel in the Fall of 2008, so unfortunately we will have to wait a bit to see it in the USA. I would love to hear from our Canadian friends if they have a chance to see the show. The show also features other prominant security companies doing what they do. We are proud to have been chosen to be featured as a representative of the K9 industry, as we believe we put out top quality personal protection K9s not to mention our main mission of putting on the streets some of the finest law enforcement K9s in the USA.

Thanks again to everyone who made this documentary possible, and to the professionals at Pixcom, for doing a wonderful job putting us amateurs at ease in front of the cameras!

I am off to Las Vegas to present a seminar at the Invictus Tactical Law Dog 2008 Seminar at the Tuscany Hotel & Casino. This will be my second consecutive appearance at the seminar. Last year was an excellent opportunity to learn cutting edge information in our field, and to network with other K9 professionals.

Last year I presented on the topic of "Resolving Behavior Issues in Police K9s" & This year I will be presenting on the topic: "The Misapplication of Force in Police K9 Training."  

This presentation will discuss the application and misapplication of compulsion in police K9 training by using the examples of the misapplication of force in specific training situations including: dominance/rank issues, general obedience/behavior problems, out on command, and the recall (or call off).

 Alternative ways to achieve training goals will be discussed, including proper application of punishment and negative reinforcement, the balancing of reward/compulsion, proper methods for de-conditioning rank and other behavior problems, and improved methods for teaching control commands such as the out and recall commands that minimize conflict and speed the acquisition of desired training goals.

I will have copies of the training manual, "Controlled Aggression" (see post below) as well as pre-prepared copies of both last year's and this year's power point presentations on presentation CDs.

I look forward to participating. For more information on the seminar, click on:

http://invictustactical.com/flyer.html

See you in Vegas.....

This manual of police K9 patrol training basics serves to introduce the reader to both developmental foundation training including prey drive development, defense drive development, drive interaction, working in the bite suit, and fundamental man orientation training, as well as important skills such as the out on command, hold & bark, redirects, and call-offs (recalls). Also inclided in the appendicies are the following topics: "The Dog Sports of Europe", "Required Equipment," "Attention Training & Heeling," and "Off Leash Training and Progressive Use of the E-Collar."   Ordering is easy, just click on over to the Tarheel Canine Pro Shop, and look under the topic of "Educational" supplies.

Here is what some people are saying about the book:

This book presents a very detailed introduction to many important topics in police K9 Training - for K9 officers, the sections on eliminating equipment orientation, proper work in the bite suit, and the novel way in which the call off exercise is developed will help anyone with a strong dog develop clear and consistent outs and call-offs. Great book!

Sgt. Shawn Edwards

Baltimore City Police Department - VCID

Baltimore MD

On February 9 & 10, Jerry Bradshaw returned to Glynn County Police Department in GA for an NTPDA decoy seminar. Special thanks to Lt. Bobby Putnam and his K9 Unit for their active participation. The seminar consisted of classroom instruction regarding the importance of the decoy as a reward mechanism for the K9's aggression, and how proper decoy work rewards desireable behavior, and withholds reward from undesireable behaviors. Basic decoy skills, pictured here, were developed on the backtie including encouraging proper alert behavior, aggression on passive subjects (a problem when decoy work is not done to encourage aggression without stimulation), proper targeting on sleeve, suit, and hidden sleeve. Tactical removal as well as out training was also covered.

 We then introduced training steps for encouraging human orientation (combatting equipment orientation), and we then progressed to working in a building on proper decoy techniques for the building search, redirected sends, and call off work. A special thank you to Jeff Trawick of the Cochrane Police Department, GA for taking these photos. If your agency would like to set up a decoy seminar, please contact Tarheel Canine at 800-766-9032 or e-mail us (see contact information on the home page).