In the old days, police dogs were kenneled in a central location and rarely were taken home by K9 officers. That has changed to the point where it is unusual to find a K9 that does not come home with his handler every day.

This means that the dog is going to interact with the family. Often times when I get asked to provide a dog for a department, they want a dog that is perfectly safe with kids and with the wife. There is no such thing as perfectly safe no matter how great the dog appears to be socialized. Never forget he has a mouth full of teeth. Here are some ways to help ensure a good outcome with a new police dog in the home.

(1) The dog shold not live loose in the house. Period. You cannot supervise him adequately if he is running loose in the house. He can get himself into trouble. The police K9 should have an outdoor kennel with a good igloo dog house, and a roof over the kennel to both prevent the weather from getting to him as well as to prevent him from getting out by bailing over the fence. In the house,  the dog should have a vari-kennel for times when he needs to have some quiet time. The dog needs alone time, just like you do.

(2) Kids need to be educated. It is not the dog's responsibility to know how to deal with your children, no matter how many Lassie episodes you have watched. Dogs view kids as co-equals and sometimes subordinates. Even when the dog is well socialized into the family, disagreements among equals are solved with growling and snapping and sometimes inhibited biting (mouth on skin but not with a lot of pressure). Unfortunately, children's skin is not as tough as a dogs furry coat, and what is not intended to do damage actually does. Kids need to learn to leave the dog alone when eating, sleeping, and to give him a break from being annoyed. If you ever find these words coming out of your mouth, you are asking for trouble: "The dog SHOULD be great with kids." There are no SHOULDS in dog training. You must anticipate what will go wrong and set up to avoid what can go wrong,. That is the essence of being a dog handler and trainer. Don;t put the burden on your dog, he has the intelligence of a 3 year old.

(3) Police dogs are posessive and relatively more dominant than the average dog, Unlike a normal fido, these dogs are selected to have a high degree of posessiveness. This can sometimes bleed over to posessiveness of food, toys, and resting places. Allowing others in the household to try to take away these things can often lead to aggression. Most of the cases where a family member gets bit by a police dog occur over a posessiveness issue which could have been prevented with some foresight.  No sleeping in the bed for god sakes! No taking toys away from him. If you do not train him, you don't get to discipline him - that includes your wife and kids.

(4) Police dogs are usually very territorial. In the car or in the outside kennel, or even in the fenced yard, barrier aggression and territoriality of the property is a real issue. Handlers must not delegate feeding the police dog to kids who have to reach into kennels, or enter kennels. Allowing people to approach kennels and then let the dog out to meet people can lead to disaster. Letting people come into an area in which the dog is running loose (like a yard) can lead to the dog seeing that as a violation of territory (especially if his pack is inside the fence).

We tell our K9 officers that your dog is a piece of law enforcement equipment. You wouldn't be cavalier with how you allow your gun, pepper spray or taser to be handled by kids and family members, so the same should be true of your K9. Dont treat him like a pet.  Once the dog learns that he can get his way by aggressively dealing with family members, it will continue. As the K9 vendor, these dogs are usually sent back because their temperament is "faulty,"  when in fact the officer/handler is faulty in their expectations and how they allow the dog to interact with the family.

Each of these things I have mentioned have been situations we have had to deal with, most of the time taking the dogs back because the dog is blamed for the aggression.

A recent article on PoliceOne.com highlights some lawsuits brought in TX to challenge using K9s to make suspect identifications. The article is here:

http://www.policeone.com/K-9/articles/1851697-Lawsuits-target-Texas-K-9-scent-lineups/

Of course the arttorney's for the plaintiffs make the assertion that there is :junk science" behind the idea of scent identification. This is absolutely not the case, but who expects a lawyer to worry about the truth. Now, it is possible that the scent identification procedures set up in the case in TX may have been flawed in some way, or that the dogs and handlers have not had the appropriate training, but to argue that the concept is faulty is not the case.

I had the pleasure to attend a semiar given by the Dutch Professor Dr. Adee Schoon, of the University of Leiden, Netherlands, present her research, and its application in Dutch Law enforcement. Here is a sample of her writing on the subject. There is no shortage of research and empirical studies to show that dogs can in fact make proper scent identifications, but the procedures used are critical to getting success, and not every K9 and handler are cut out for this kind of work. A lot of training has to go into this and I would venture to say, there are few if any K9s in the US who have had proper scent identification traiing, or that the procedures used to conduct the same are scientifically valid. To read more about it, check out Adee Schoon's research, contained in the book K9 Suspect Discrimination :

http://www.amazon.com/K9-Suspect-Discrimination-Adee-Schoon/dp/1550592335

 Here is a link to an FBI newsletter article about the subject of scent in criminal investigations, it contains an extensive bibliography:

http://www.fbi.gov/hq/lab/fsc/backissu/july2004/research/2004_03_research03.htm

While there are limitations, this is an area of K9 use that will grow in the future, and handlers interested in this subject must get the proper training and use proper best practice procedures, and not rely on old wives tales.

The new PSA message board is up and running......come and visit the chat site for the American K9 Sport!

http://www.psak9forum.com/

There are sections on upcoming events, training and behavior, videos, pictures, health and nutrition, etc....come and check it out!

NTPDA Certified and Tarheel Canine trained K9s from Hobbs New Mexico get vests........

http://www.newswest9.com/Global/story.asp?S=10565957&nav=menu505_2

Congratulations to Stanley Jordan and Bach for getting profiled in the article! Stan is an extremely dedicated handler and 50% of a very productive team for Hobbs PD!

Click on this link to go to the NTPDA discussion forum: http://members.boardhost.com/tacticalcanine/

Or, look to the right column of this blog ad you can see a direct link there.....click and discuss.....

Check out the upcoming semiar events by clicking here: http://www.tarheelcanine.com/seminars-consulting-events.cfm

If you or your agency are iterested in hosting a seminar, please read over the procedures for hosting (could be completely cost free for the host) and contact Jerry at malinois_jb@mindspring.com

I had an interesting question come up in a conversation the other day. A police department has a dual purpose dog (narcotics/patrol) and the handler left the department. It is a small agency so the only one willing to take the dog was a narcotics officer, who doesn;t have the need or the time available to maintain the patrol functions in the dog. He is only interested in the narcotics detection and the tracking functions.

His question was: "If I just recertify with him in the drugs and tracking, does that present any liability issues to the agency?"

My answer was, yes it does. Case law argues that a K9 must be trained, certified and reliable. Allowing any training to lapse presents a problem, but especially the apprehension training should not lapse. Because the dog was trained to apprehend and bite in a controlled fashion, allowing the training to lapse, as well as the certification, opens the handler to liability for not making sure the dog responds to all of his verbal commands properly. If the dog makes an accidental bite it could be argued that the impetus was the lack of control due to lapsed training, making a bad situation (accidental bite) worse by turning it into negligence. Further, if the supervisor allows this situation to occur, there is the possibility of a negligent supervision claim. Therefore, my answer was for the handler either to retire the dog, find another handler for him and get himself another dog for narcotics only, or continue all of the training with the dog and certify in all areas with him.

Here is a question I received via email from a reader of this blog:

When a dog turns in a near perfect performance in one of the dog sports (KNPV, Belgian Ring, PSA, etc.) and the handler is unable to provide a correction in the ring/stadium or whatever, what can that near perfection be attributed to, since the dog is not wearing an e-collar, prong, etc.? 

This is a fairly complex quesiton, however, the simple answer is the dog's behavior has been well conditioned to replicate in all manner of contexts. The way that we get there is to set up a standard of performance, and no matter what, hold that dog to that standard of performance at all times. This is the critical piece of the puzzle. It is also why the vast majority of handlers do not achieve the near perfection you are alluding to, because they are inconsistent in their expectations, or vary their standard of performance to which they hold the dog from training session to training session.

A dog is a creature of habit, and if you vary the standard of performance, there is no chance to create a habit to which the dog will revert. Thus you get a wide variety of behaviors, and you hear a lot of this: "My dog never did that before!" The other variable is time. Many handlers do not allow enbough time in training to have a dog establish a completely conditioned response. In fact, many handlers, once they see a response to a command cue a few times will claim their dog has "learned" the behavior, when in fact the dog is only in the fluency phase of training and the dog needs a lot more conditioning to get through the generalization phase (phases of training are discussed in Controlled Aggression: acquisition, fluency and generalization). This can be why the dog fails on a new trial field or with a slight change in a scenario context - the behaviors have only just started to take root, and slight changes in the environment or the scenario throw the dog off track. The response is not generalized yet.

As to equipment, it doesn't matter if you use a leash and pinch collar, a choke collar or an e-collar, or completely motivational food reward if you can get the results you need to establish the conditioned response. (As long as the dog moves through the acquisition, fluency, and generalization phases completely). The training approach needed will be dictated by each individual dog's temperament. However most trainers take the religious approach rather than match method to the temperament.  It is my opinion that purely motivational approaches or purely compulsive approaches are incomplete approaches and do not allow the trainer to completely condition the responses to their highest potential, and an eclectic approach that rewards the standard of behavior, and also corrects deviations from the standard of behavior, will achieve the best, and most enduring conditioned response in the majority of dogs, and especially with high drive working dogs.

However, I will say this, using an e-collar makes distance control easier, and it makes the timing of corrections during the training process much easier and more precise, and this is why you find most high level competitors using the e-collar.  The collar is not a fix, it has to become a part of the dog's everyday life both in training and deployments in my opinion (this is why NTPDA www.tacticalcanine.com allows K9 teams to deploy in certification with the e-collar receiver on, though the judge holds the transmitter) and the handler must hold the dog to the same standard of performance day in and day out.

Conditioning takes a good plan, good implementation of the plan, and the right tools for the dog in question.

National Geographic Video........

http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/player/news/latest-news/austria-dogs-apvin.html

Chief Supply Grants Page:

http://www.chiefsupply.com/grants/opengrants.asp#le

American Working Dog Council:

http://www.awdck9.com/grants.htm

From NatGeo News......

http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/player/news/latest-news/austria-dogs-apvin.html

Looking for a natural tick repellent? Oil of Rose Geranium is sworn to be effective by a number of people....

http://www.care2.com/greenliving/tick-repellant.html

In reaearching the topic, I also found Garlic (eat some Italian food...Mange!) and Tea Tree Oil to be natural bug and tock repellents.....

Tea Tree Oil is a natural bacteriacide and fungicide, and if you have a tick on you they recommend putting a few drops of the oil on the tick, and it will in short order fall off, keep putting a couple drops of the oil on the bite for about 5 days to speed healing of the would as well....

http://www.theherbsplace.com/Tea_Tree_Oil_Uses_sp_153.html

Good luck with these nasty bastards!

The first canine cancer treatment is now available after winning FDA approval.....

http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/features/mutts/blog/2009/06/drug_to_treat_skin_cancer_in_d.html

Read this link before reading on: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/05/090521112711.htm

There are a few things I concluded from reading this article in Science Daily:

1. It excluded from the research sample, dogs that are more likely to be highly dominant, such as high level working dogs. While working dogs do end up in shelter environments, the vast majority do not.

2. If you conclude from reading this article that dominance - related aggression doesn't exist you will be doing a disservice. They are correct to point out that the blanket attribution of dominance, in Cesar Milan fashion,  to all situations is in fact ridiculous, as most professional trainers and behaviorists have known for years since he showed up on the scene. However, there are situations where dogs attempt to manipulate control through showing aggression (because they learn it works) and the dog is in fact not scared or fearful. The researchers attribution of fear and anxiety in blanket fashion is just as ridiculous as Cezar Milan's all encompassing dominance. This is the same victimology that is attributed to everything canine to justify force-free training in all situations. If the dogs are simply trembling victims of abusive training methodologies, and if they are ALL just frightened and anxious, we cannot use anything but love and a clicker on these poor canine victims of society.....it is the same reason why we now have a society full of kids who no longer respect authority, because there are no consequences for anti-social behavior, for after all they are just victims of economic "abuse." That is another show.

3. The article does verify something I have been saying for years, that even if you have a dominant dog (call it what you like, but a master manipulator - they are after all predators - that uses aggression to satisfy his drives, hunger, or other innate needs) the Alpha-Omega model that uses physical dominance techniques like alpha rolling is a poor method to use because when people use it they are inconsistent and weak minded, unlike another dog would be using the alpha roll, and usually it does in fact lead to the owner or someone else getting bit.

Trainers beware of the all or nothing. There is usually some ideology lurking in the weeds.

You leave your dog alone for a little while, and you come home to discover something distroyed, or a steaming present waiting for you in the middle of the kitchen floor, and you shoot a glance at the dog......GUILTY! He has that look of defeat, because as a dog he just can't hide it, right? Wrong!

Alexandra Horowitz, an assistant professor at Barnard College in NY set up an experiment where she lied to pet owners about their dog doing something wrong. Here is what she did:

"During the study, owners were asked to leave the room after ordering their dogs not to eat a tasty treat. While the owner was away, Horowitz gave some of the dogs this forbidden treat before asking the owners back into the room. In some trials the owners were told that their dog had eaten the forbidden treat; in others, they were told their dog had behaved properly and left the treat alone. What the owners were told, however, often did not correlate with reality."

What the research uncovered  was this: The dogs who appeared most "guilty" looking were the ones who were admonished by their owners for eating the treat. Interestingly, the ones who were described as most "guilty" looking were the dogs who were in fact obedient and did not eat the treat, but whose owners were misinformed by the researcher and told (falsely) that their dog ate the treat!  The research concluded that the dog's guilty look is in fact a response to the owner's behavior (body language, facial expressions, verbal admonishments) and not necessarily related to any canine self-awareness of bad behavior.

Trainers are always careful to be aware of anthropomorphism, the tendency to attribute human attributes of reasoning or emotion to dogs. The dog owning population is full of people who make these attributions, and we as trainers should be clear to not accept them when they are brought up in conversation. Even K9 handlers, who handle highly trained dogs in very important situations will still throw out the occasional anthropomorphisms.

Hand this article to all your fellow K9 handlers, so they can understand and appreciate the effect of the handler's behavior and frame of mind on the dog's behavior. Ths relationship, commonly referred to as the handler's feelings "going down the leash" has a lot to do with the handler's expectations and assumptions. If the handler thinks the dog is screwing up, say the handler assumes there is a drug hide in an area that was set up as a blank area, all it may take to make the dog false respond (throw out a sit or scratch) is body language and facial expressions, and voice patterns that indicate the handler is upset with the dog's behavior. Even though in such a situation, the dog would be right and the handler wrong.

Here is the article reference: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090611065839.htm

"The small percentage of dogs that bite people is monumental proof that the dog is the most benign, forgiving creature on earth."  - - William R. Koehler, The Koehler Method of Dog Training

"But ask now the beasts, and they shall teach thee" - - Job 12:7

"Your dog will look at you when you are worth looking at."  -- Sam Malatesta

Here is an email I received from the Ben Rothlisberger foundation .....

Hello Jerry,

I work on Ben Roethlisberger’s Foundation, where he gives grants to Police/Fire Departments around the country to purchase K9’s. Ben gives grants away in each of the away cities that the Steelers will play this season as well as in the city of Pittsburgh.

We are currently accepting applications for the following cities:
Chicago

Cincinnati

Detroit

Denver

Kansas City

Baltimore

Cleveland

Miami

Please visit www.bigben7.com for more information.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Thanks,

Kerry

The message board of the National Tactical Police Dog Association has been repaired, with a new URL. Tomorrow there will be a direct link from the NTPDA home page. The NEW URL for the message board is:

http://members.boardhost.com/tacticalcanine/index.html

Stop by and start a discussion thread,, ask a question, or tell us about your work with police dogs....

Have you noticed in your training, that when a dog is in a high state of stress, he doesn't process information clearly, like obedience commands that are well conditioned?

In the canine brain there are two key centers of activity that we must be concerned with; (1) The Limbic System and (2) The Cerebral Cortex. The Limbic System is concerned with emotion and the cerebral cortex with cognition, or thinking. Interestingly, activation of the limbic system inhibits activity in the cerebral cortex. Thus when the dog is in a high state of emotional aroural (i.e., stress), the thinking center will progressively shut down. He just phycically cannot think clearly.

This stress effect can come from outside the dog-trainer relationship, such as a threat trigger of the dog's defensive instincts, or from within the relationship, as the trainer puts pressure on the dog in obedience. In the latter manifestation, the dog resorts to emotional behavior (avoidance, safety-seeking) in response to the limbic system taking over. If the trainer doesn't recognize this, and presses the apparent "disobedience" with further pressure, it will create a vicious cycle, perhaps resulting in the dog resorting to aggression to halt the stress. The dog can no longer think and now simply reacts to reduce the stress.

An experienced trainer will recognize when stress is affecting the training session, and make an effort to change the training environment to remove the stress, and return the dog to a mood where he can think and process information.

One must be sure to slowly introduce stressors into the dog's training. This  will teach the dog how to simultaneously cope with stress and learn at the same time. By taking this process slowly, you will be able to create a trained response that can be reproduced under all manner of stress.

References: http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/limbicsystem.html

                 http://www.ttlntl.co.uk/index.htm

Try this basic Canine body language quiz.....see what your percentage is......

http://www.ttlntl.co.uk/3/bodylangquiz.htm

Tarheel Canine's Professional Dog Trainer School is a cut above the rest, not just for the progressive instruction, or the skilled instructors, but also because it is one of the only places where you can get hands on time with lots of dogs. Be they pet dogs in training for those working to be an obedience and behavior coach or instructor, or if you are going all the way into Police K9 Instruction, you get dogs and lots of them, at all levels of training, so you can master the adjustments needed to make every dog successful.

While theory is critical to provide a reference point for a training progression, hands on with dogs of all types and temperaments is critical. In our Police K9 instructor course, you will see Labs, malinois (both dual purpose and single purpose detection), and GSDs (Also, both dual purpose and single purpose). You will handle, you will decoy, you will run trailing tracks, and learn, above all, how to problem solve.

We will be happy to provide you with references, from civilians and police departments who have taken our courses.

For more information on our Trainer's school: http://www.tarheelcanine.com/school.cfm

For an application, woth pricing: http://www.tarheelcanine.com/Documents/NorthStateApp.pdf

For more information, email Jerry Bradshaw: malinois_jb@mindspring.com

Link to the McDowell County News, where K9 Maros, trained at Tarheel Canine Training, Inc. and Agent Jason Crisp made a big apprehension in a Murder Case......

http://www2.mcdowellnews.com/content/2009/jun/03/fugitive-apprehended-six-others-charged-murder-app/news-local/

Here is the link to the PSA Trial story in the Baltimore Sun on Sunday! Congratulations to all the competitors for a great weekend!

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/annearundel/bal-md.dogs07jun07,0,1458211.story

PSA Trial (www.psak9.org) in Linthicum Heigts MD this weekend, June 6 & 7, 2009.

Trial Location:

St. Philip Neri School, 6401 South Orchard Road, Linthicum Heights, MD 21090

Webpage
http://www.metropolitank9.com/2009BaltTrialInfo.htm

There will be live updates of each competitor on the PSA twitter page and facebook page:

http://twitter.com/PSAK9

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/pages/Protection-Sports-Association/103474990624?ref=ts

Come and see PSA...there will be level 3 dogs competing, and vendors, as well as excellent catered food both days!

Show up and meet the directors, judges and competitors!

http://www.policeone.com/K-9/articles/1837304-Selection-testing-a-detector-dog/

The Law Dog Conference is coming to the East Coast on September 8-10, 2009 in Orlando FL.

Topics include: Officer Safety, urban Tracking, Legal Updates, High Risk EDD, Interdiction, Handler Aggressive & Dominant Dogs, Obedience, Tactical Tracking......get the details by going to the Invictus Tactical website at......

http://www.invictustactical.com/

They are running a special for registration on June 8 & 9th if you register by midnight on the 9th the 3 day conference fee is only $200!

Link to the San Jose Mercury News Story....

http://www.mercurynews.com/news/ci_12496018?nclick_check=1

I just read a book that I want to share with the readers of the blog. It has nothing directly to do with dog training, but rather with the idea that life is a Journey and that our destiny is to follow a dream, which Coelho calls your Personal Legend. The story is about a shepherd boy from Andalusia, Spain who follows his dream to visit the Pyramids in Gisa, Egypt, in search of some treasure a Gypsy woman told him is waiting for him there, and all the things that happen to him along the way. Things that seem to do nothing but at first thwart that dream, but in the end, these obstacles set him up for the next step of the journey, placing him in a position to see the next signpost on the journey, or make the self-improvements necessary for him to succeed on the next step.

 The idea is that when you follow your personal legend, the powers of the universe conspire to help you achieve your dream. When we give up on those dreams, and settle for just what life has dished out to us, these powers that want us to succeed slowly stop working in our favor, until they are silent. Life becomes mundane, and patterned.

I think it is such a positive mindset, for us to believe not only that anything is possible, but we are able to move through life successfully, and that the spirit of the universe is working in your favor to bring you that success and personal fulfillment.  Our part is to be looking for those opportunities, and make decisions to take the action to pursue those things that affirm our life and success. Looking for those signs that say, "Risk it, do it, take a chance on your happiness by changing your life." All it takes is saying yes to opportunities. But remember, if at first you don't see immediate success, it may be part of the lesson to fail, or be set back, because there are lessons to be learned from struggle and difficulty. It is easy to follow an easy path. it is hard to keep your focus on your personal legend, fulfilling your personal destiny, when things get tough. But if you can see inside yourself to take a lesson from that difficulty, you will often see the next step of the journey to fulfill your own personal legend.

The book also talks of the interconnectedness of all things, and the lessons learned from people and places you meet along the way. I was just saying to a friend the other day, that no matter where I travel in the world, despite the differences that we see on the surface whether they be cultural differences or social differences in how different groups of people live, most people live very similarly, and have the same hopes and dreams, and what seems strange at first isn't so much strange as it is just a bit different. Some people are actively following the omens that are presented to them on the path of their personal legend, and some have just stopped trying to get there.