Jerry's article on the Power of Reward: Part 2, Building Searches is the lead article in september/october issue of Police K9 Magazine....

http://www.policek9magazine-digital.com/k9magazine/20090910/?sub_id=CeGcklKJiws8u

Here is an article I wrote for Off lead Magazine for the Fall Issue in Digital Format.....

The regional event was excellent. We had probably the best overall quality of dogs from top to bottom - from the PDCs to the PSA 3s and it was a pleasure to see the teams so well prepared. The venue was excellent at Brandon Woods park in MD near Baltimore. The same venue will be hosting the Nationals on October 31, 2009.

The weather held out for most of the day until the level 3s. The event was a joint event hosted by Metropolitan K9 and our own TK9 Protection Sports Association. The decoy work was top notch. Rob Kelly, Shawn Edwards, Chad Reynolds, John Daniels, Patrick Salerno, and Albert did a great job testing the dogs. Judge Rick Furrow made a very fair and challenging evaluation. The level 3 scearios were tough but very fair, and both days Greg Williams of Metropolitan K9 came extremely close to getting his level 3 closed out. I'm sure we will se him do it at Nationals!

The PSA Forum has all the results (www.psak9forum.com) and in fact Janet Dooley of TK9 twittered and facebooked real time results, and we hope to continue to do this at all our trials including upcoming nationals, so that interested PSA followers can find out scores and results up to the minute!

Special thanks to Tree Furrow for coaching TK9s Gina Allen on how to do the trial secretary work, they both did an excellent job keeping the trial moving quickly and getting the final results tabulated.

Congratulations to all the participants, and thank you for the great sportsmanship!

In some tests of green dogs, I see trainers take a dog on a sleeve, and then shoot the gun directly over their head.  The vast majority of green dogs will at a minimum startle over this unless they have been conditioned (taught) to bite under gunfire. Using this as a method to weed out dogs at the beginning of training, is in my opinion, faulty as it weeds out perfectly good dogs.

I do agree that a dog chosen for patrol training should have some reasonable threshold at which it will accept gunfire - such as 30 or so yards away - so that it doesn't startle at strange noises. Agreed.

The way I like to see the test, is to start at 30 yards, and if the dog stays on the grip through the gunfire, move the gun closer to the dog and decoy (about 5 yard increments) and repeat, then closer and repeat, and finally move AWAY 5 yards and shoot a final time. This is a successful training session employing successive approximation. We are tryig tosuccessively (incrementally) approximate shooting directly over the dog's head. If you continue this process, in about 2 or three more sessions, the gun will be directly behind the decoy and the dog has been conditioned to accept the gunfire in proximity to him, as he bites through the noise.

As you can see, this can be done in training as well. A little pre-planing can make it so that you don;t create problems you then have to go back and fix.

Think about how you can use this method to teach youg dogs to bite on stairs, open stairs, tight spaces, bite through thresholds, bite up on top of objects, etc.....pre planning and successive approximation is the key!

Note: When the gunfire gets close, protect your dog;s hearing. Use the same successive approximation (perhaps using food reward) to get your dog to accept cotton balls in his ears without scratching at them. This will come in handy when you go to the range and practice shooting over your dog.....of course after proper successive approximation.

http://arkansasvarsity.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=992976

Kudos Mr. Morgan....I hope he gets that shot to play big time college ball....

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/us-government-warns-americans-traveling-germany/Story?id=8654933&page=1

http://www.policeone.com/manufacturers/Tarheel-Canine-Training-Inc

http://archive.constantcontact.com/fs027/1102018903310/archive/1102648615808.html

Click on the above link to go to our newsletter archive.........

http://www.policeone.com/K-9/articles/1836102-N-C-community-rallies-in-support-of-K-9-vests/

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

Click the link and stop by often!

http://www.policeone.com/terrorism/articles/1882921-Study-Terrorists-shifting-focus-to-soft-targets/

Advanced Narcotics & Explosives Detection Seminar

Pennyrile Narcotics Task Force

November 18, 19, 20, 2009

Hopkinsville, KY

The seminar will be open to Law Enforcement K-9 handlers and supervisors. The class will be open to up to 15 handler/dog teams. Spectators, including supervisors are welcome to attend. The class will comprise both classroom instruction and practical handling in scenario based problems. Advanced Detection will cover practical detection scenarios and problem solving all aspects of detector dog teams in both explosives detection and narcotics detection.  This seminar will also include operations for searching warehouses, tractor trailers, checkpoints, and vehicle stops. Includes classroom and field work.

                                                  Participants Will:

• Learn to properly deploy their K9s in real-world scenarios.
• Be challenged on hides of varying height, depth, weight and permeation times.
• Prepare to perform above currently existing canine certification protocols.
• Prepare for the NORT explosives detection certification.
• Prepare for Scenario-based NTPDA certifications  www.tacticalcanine.com
• Learn techniques for more efficient deployment: free searching & scanning
• Learn techniques through hide placement to create a more independent K9
• Reduce the handler dependency of their k9 in difficult problems.
• Learn how to set up training to extinct responses to distractor odors.
• Learn how to set up maintenance training plans to improve performance
• Improve final response behaviors: scratching or passive-stare to source.

"Innovating the future of dog training.”

Registration Form.

Please send this in to register for the seminar. Send to: Tarheel Canine Training, Inc. PO Box 1694, Sanford, NC 27330. Registration can also be taken on first day of seminar for a late registration, but please call ahead to reserve a spot, 919-774-4152 or 919-244-8044. Hotel Info & Schedule of events will be provided by contact persons, or after registration has been received.

Name _________________________________________________________________

Agency Affiliation _______________________________________________________

K9 Certified with ________________________________________ (Agency or Organization)

Address ___________________________________ State__________ Zip ____________

Tel # ____________________ (C) ____________________ (W) E-Mail________________

K9 Team participating $200.

Spectator participating $80, shall not be pro-rated.

$_______ is enclosed. Make Checks Payable to Tarheel Canine Training, Inc.

     This release is intended to discharge National Tactical Police Dog Association, Tarheel Canine Training, Inc.  and their owners, officers, agents, and sponsors, The Pennyrile Narcotics Task Force, KY, the state of Kentucky, Hopkinsville, KY or any of the seminar host’s  agents and assigns, from and all liability arising out of or in connection with my participation in any of the seminar events for which I am registered or in which I am participating.

     I understand that serious accidents can occur during police dog training, events, and other dog-related activities. Participation in such activities may occasionally result in serious personal injury and/or property damages. Knowing and appreciating such risks, nevertheless, I hereby agree to assume those risks and full responsibility for the actions of my dog(s) and myself.

     By signing below I acknowledge that I have read, understand, and agree to this hold harmless agreement.

_____________________________           __________

Applicant’s Signature                                     Date

Seminar Location:

First day assembly – 0800 Hours.

Location TBA

Hopkinsville KY

Contacts:

Detective Tye W. Jackson

Pennyrile Narcotics Task Force

K9 Supervisor/Chief Trainer

tyewjackson@yahoo.com

 Jerry Bradshaw

Tarheel Canine

malinois_jb@mindspring.com

Hotels:  TBA

Upcoming Decoy Seminar in Cumming GA with Forsythe County SO......

Police K9 Decoy Seminar

November 2, 3 & 4, 2009

Forsythe County GA K9 Unit

Cumming, GA

A lack of decoy skill will reflect in the poor performance of patrol dogs. There is no way around it, decoy skills in the police K9 world need to improve to have the performance of patrol K9s improve. The good news is, these skills can be taught.

This class will take place over 3 working days, 24 hours of instruction, and be open to Law Enforcement participants. The class will be open to up to 15 participants. Supervisors are welcome to attend. The class will comprise both classroom instruction and practical decoy work. Classroom work will cover reading K9 behavior during controlled aggression, drive manipulation, and goal setting for training sessions. Practical instruction will include proper technique in the suit and hidden sleeve. Proper mechanics for safely catching police dogs in training, and techniques to work dogs to their goals in foundation and skills training will be covered in depth.

Specific Skills Taught

·          Decoy as an instrument of operant conditioning.

·          Alert on passive suspects with no equipment

·          Bringing out civil aggression.

·          Drive channeling

·          Eliminate equipment orientation in any dog.

·          Proper sleeve mechanics: sleeves don’t create equipment orientation, decoys do.

·          Proper Bite suit targeting and “catch” mechanics.

·          Proper use of hidden sleeves and muzzle fighting.

·          Explanation of decoy technique for training and maintaining control commands: out, guarding, hold & bark, redirects, and call-off (recalls).

·          Integrating fundamentals into police K9 training scenarios.

Top level decoy work will increase the ability of your patrol K9s to make apprehensions with confidence, protect your handlers, eliminate equipment orientation, and be an asset in preparing your handlers for success in certification with clean, conflict free outs, and recalls.

Improve the efficiency of your limited training time with your decoys by learning how to integrate fundamental & skill exercises into real-world scenarios.

 “Innovating the future of dog training”

 Registration Form.

Please send this in to register for the seminar. Send to: Tarheel Canine Training, Inc. PO Box 1694, Sanford, NC 27330. Registration can also be taken on first day of seminar for a late registration, but please call ahead to reserve a spot, 919-774-4152 or 919-244-8044. Hotel Info & Schedule of events will be provided by contact persons, or after registration has been received.

Name _________________________________________________________________

Agency Affiliation _______________________________________________________

Decoys should bring a dog to work on other decoys if possible.

Yes, I am bringing a patrol K9 _______ No, I am unable to bring a patrol K9 ______.

K9 Certified with ________________________________________ (Agency or Organization)

Address ___________________________________ State__________ Zip ____________

Tel # ____________________ (C) ____________________ (W) E-Mail________________

Decoy participating $200.

Spectator participating $80, shall not be pro-rated.

$_______ is enclosed. Make Checks Payable to Tarheel Canine Training, Inc.

     This release is intended to discharge National Tactical Police Dog Association, Tarheel Canine Training, Inc.  and their owners, officers, agents, and sponsors, The Forsythe County Sheriff’s office, the city of Cumming, GA, their agents and assigns, from and all liability arising out of or in connection with my participation in any of the seminar events for which I am registered or in which I am participating.

     I understand that serious accidents can occur during police dog training, events, and other dog-related activities. Participation in such activities may occasionally result in serious personal injury and/or property damages. Knowing and appreciating such risks, nevertheless, I hereby agree to assume those risks and full responsibility for the actions of my dog(s) and myself.

     By signing below I acknowledge that I have read, understand, and agree to this hold harmless agreement.

_____________________________           __________

Applicant’s Signature                                     Date

Seminar Location:

First day assembly – 0800 Hours.

Forsyth County Sheriff’s Office-South Precinct

2985 Ronal Reagan Blvd.

Cumming, GA 30041

Contacts:

DFC Rodney Pirkle

770-861-5574

rbpirkle@forsythco.com

Sgt. S. A. Wilson

404-392-0713

sawilson@forsythco.com

Hotels:

Holiday Inn express

Nightly room rate: $80.00

The final day of the semiar began with some Q/A and a brief discussion on E-Collars and how we integrate them into the training of our police dogs when requested to do so. Many SOPs preclude the use of e-collars, and we discussed the reasons why using e-collars adds an additional line of safety and would actually reduce liability for the agency. We also talked about the relationship between temperament and the e-collar (For a free copy of an article on teaching the e-collar for email Jerry at malinois_jb@mindspring.com).

We then discussed the most hairy of all the tactical deployments, the area search, using the same method of clear, down and cover. In the scenarios we set up, the 3 man teams (K9 and two back-up officers) had to clear about a 5 acre area which included old buildings, and wooded area, with a large amount of open space and 2 hidden subjects.

All the teams did well. We had to set up training for some of the very newly trained dogs who had difficulty understanding the context, or who were used to finding only one subject and so didn;t want to continue searching after the first find.

 Each officer had tactical control of the deployment, and each used his best judgment about how to work the area. There were opportunities for us as instructors to suggest improved approaches and arrest tactics to keep the teams as safe as possible in this scenario.

Instructor Sean Siggins decoyed and hid himself under one of the buildings in an open crawl space, and all the dogs made quality apprehensions in the tight / dark space. The other decoy was former Tarheel K9 employee Ariel Peldunas, who hid on a metal platform about 10 feet off the ground, and most of the dogs alerted without problem to the high find. Ariel played a great "crazy lady," in the scenario and the K9s had no problem working on a female decoy which was nice to see.

The final exercise was Instructor Siggins demonstrating proper shoulder carry technique for attic insertions with his police dog "Jack" - Jack was inserted onto the roof for lack of an attic.

Pics from all there days are available on the controlled aggression facebook page, accessible from the blog by clicking on the facebook icon at the right of this page, or on the TK9 photobucket account:

http://s412.photobucket.com/albums/pp207/TarheelCanine/

http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/news/press/atlantic_city/article_bcabc126-9814-11de-a6df-001cc4c03286.html

I left to come to NY for the seminar on Monday evening, and as I approached the end of the NJ turnpike, I got a hit of nostalgia. I grew up in Monticello, NY and made the trip from there to NYC many times, and as I got on Rt. 17, and then the NYS Thruway, I passed a lot of very familiar territory from my childhood. I haven't been up in this area of NYS for some time, and it brought back a lot of memories. I arrived in Latham, NY at the hotel aroud 9pm, and I met Sean Siggins, Southern York Regional PD, my co-instructor for the seminar, and we had dinner and talked about the plan.

Classroom for the seminar started the next morning at 9am, and we met the semiar participants. We have a nice group of K9 teams mainly from area K9 units including  Cohoes PD (Host), Guilderland PD, SUNY Albany PD, Albany PD, Ulster County SO, Pittsfield MA, and the NYSP and NY Dept of Environmental Conservation. All the participants have been open and friendly and willing to try some new things, as well as sharing their experiences to add to the richness of the material discussed.

On the first day we did lecture on the tactical building search, including approaches to searching adapted from SWAT methodologies, back-up selection and rsponsibilities, and an explanation of how to implement the clear, down and cover method. We then moved to the first training location which was a house and did bitework evals and then started single room clearing work using variable decoy placement. We then walked through 3 man teams doing residential building searches, and also multiple decoys. We talked about and demonstrated methods for improving bite quality.

Many of the dogs had issues with the multiple decoys, as in their inservice training they used a single decoy, and once the dog finds the decoy, the search is called, so the dogs didn't want to go back into the house, because they believed their work was done. So we discussed the importance of making the dog re-enter the house and find multiple rewards (decoys) during searches. We also worked some of the newer dogs on how to get good head sweeps at doorways, and not have dogs run through doors and bolt to the back of the house. Some of the new dogs also needed work on coming down stairs on the grip, and biting on stairs comofortably. The day adjourned and some stayed late to work on some other issues, some had to get back to prior obligations, and we agreed to meet at 8am the next morning to do searches in a different environment, a high school.

The high school searches began with a simple on leash alarm call, where the teams found a passive subject hiding in a dark room. We worked on having the dogs alert properly on the passive subject, and tactics involved in bringing the subject into custody without a bite, and then with an attack on the back-up officer, and handler. All the dogs performed better than the previous day.

Next we took two officers who were not K9 from the Cohoes PD who came to work with their guy and walked them through back-up responsibilities of a clear, down and cover search. The guys jumped in and were clearly tactically sound cops. They did an awesome job working around the dogs and maintaining their responsibilities. We ran all the teams through with back-up guys, and a hidden suspect. There were good opportunities to instruct the handlers on tactics, dealing with the particular problems that schools present. The dogs did well, and the teams worked well together clearing the building section.

The afternoon was spent doing K9 felony vehicle stops, setting up proper vehicle formations, with appropriate cover positioning, and extraxcting suspects from vehicles, and using the dogs to clear the vehicles once the subject was extracted to be sure nobody else was lurking. The seasoned dogs performed strongly, with only some comments on how to variably reward the sends to the car so the dog will search it multiple times before the approach of the officers to visually clear the car.

Sean Siggins has done outstanding decoy work and has explained the tactical information extremely well. His experience in the field of K9 and as a SWAT team operator give him a unique perspective on using K9s in high risk deployments. Sean McKown of Cohoes PD also did a considerable amount of excellent decoy work both tuesday and wednesday, and has been a tremendous host! As a previous graduate of our decoy seminar, he implemented excellent training in the course of working the scenarios.

Tomorrow we will be starting the day with lecture, and then working on area searches. Pictures from the seminar will posted by friday as a link to our photobucket account, so stay tuned!