News

Lots of new videos on the Youtube Channel: www.youtube.com/TarheelK9

March/April newsletter will release at 10:00am...if you aren't recieving the newsletter and want to, please email me your address to: malinois_jb@mindspring.com

Check out the new videos on the blog's youtube channel.....

www.youtube.com/TarheelK9

I wrote a piece on Policeone.com about machines and K9s, here is a report from Thailand about hand-held explosives scanners, where the PM of Thailand has stopped machine purchases because of the poor performance rate in favor of increased use of K9s....

http://www.straitstimes.com/BreakingNews/SEAsia/Story/STIStory_490911.html

Watch the instructor pictures scroll.....

http://www.invictustactical.com/

February 22-24 2010, Tuscany Hotel Las Vegas

I just finished reading your book and had a couple of questions for you regarding some of the techniques you described. First it was a great read and I really enjoyed it and I am definitely recommending it!

Countering Techniques:

Pushing the Head.
 
Do you find that this technique develops a dependency? I have only seen it used by a few trainers but I have found in most that use it their dog's either only counter when their handler uses this technique or counter when they seem to anticipate this (ie the handler coming up the line and moving towards the collar or neck...much like the anticipation or dependency of a choke off.). I would imagine this would be most useful when part of a decoy's repertoire to first teach a reluctant dog to counter but if over done it may lead to a dependency or if only used in rare form to keep from developing a dependency? Do you find any conflict for the dog that has needed a method of induced gag reflex to teach the out? Just curious on your thoughts and experience with this.

Jaw Manipulation.

From your description this technique sounds a lot like implementing a traditional forced-retrieve method to bitework. Is that essentially what it breaks down to and how much repetition do you find is required with this method? Is this something you only use from time to time or does this method have a starting and end point (ie a "finished" retrieve)? Also curious if there is a rate of dependency with this method?

After reading your book and watching more KNPV footage I have been wanting to ask someone why the KNPV Decoys do their face attack as they do?
It looks as though they absorb the hit and pretty much jam the dog every time. I have little experience with KNPV other then videos etc. but was curious what your thoughts are on this decoy approach in trial.

Answer:

Good questions. I think with almost all techniques for countering, there is some kind of physical cue from the decoy/handler (stillness, setting the sleeve parallel to ground or perpendicular, pushing the head, etc) that preceeds the actual physical counter, which is then rewarded. This is why we use the "walking backwards" technique to get the dog to push himself into the grip with the helper doing a natural movement, walking. This is done in conjunction with the head push, and so the dog learns to push in on his own. Also, doing it after a drive, so the drive becomes a cue for the adjust, allows the dog to learn to push both in prey and defense on his own. In the case of how I work dogs, mostly the dog cues on being set down to re-grip (the head push somewhat secondary) and that is easy to fix, using successive approximation, and voila the dog regrips on his own. In PSA and KNPV or Police work, a "pulsing" grip isn't penalized as it is in schutzhund so our dogs tend to constandly drive into the grip while biting, and this is often a more natural bite for a malinois, instead of getting munchy sideways, they drive in to release some of their frustration.......if decoyed properly you eliminate the help from decoy and handler on the adjust and then reward it when it happens on its own......aghain a successive approximation technique at work. I also use the stick over the head, hooking on the back of the neck, and pulling the dog into the grip with the stick itself, so that the dog cues to come into the grip from the stick motion.....

Serendipitous - definition - to come upon by accident.

I have found over the years, that a lot of my best insights into training have come about by accident, and are therefore classified as "serendipitous." Here is an example.....

I am sitting in a chair out front of my building, one of the police K9 handlers comes around a car, and his dog sees me and the dog is in that moment of conflict between lighting up on me and not......the handler immediately verbally corrects the dog, making him less likely to aggress on me or any other passive person. I think it is important, obviously, to let our new handlers know how to recognize those moments of serendipitous training that occur all the time, so that their dogs are more likely to give them the responses they want, even when they come outside of structured training, or at least to take a lesson from these situations and set them up as training.

Another example: We teach our detection handlers to make a clear context for a narcotics sniff. The dog usually comes to the search area, is made to sit, and then started with an initial presentation.....but how many times does a handler walk to the area, close enough for the dog to already be in odor at the start, and the handler corrects the dog into the sit, away from following his nose dorectly to the odor he already got a whiff of??

If handlers are aware of these serendipitous moments, we can prepare them for these accidental gems, to be on the lookout for them, when the dog comes upon it on his own, and his head is already engaged without the handler telling him what is to come.....

http://www.youtube.com/user/tarheelcanine

More to come soon, these videos were taken with my FLIP video camera, built in USB makes it super easy to video ad upload, and then to make movies or share.....highly recommend the HD Video option.....

So much for good intentions. One shortcoming of the hotel we were staying in is a lack of in-room high-speed internet access. To get internet access you have to climb down the hill to the lobby and connect there, so after long days of training, that became a less than inviting option. That's why there were no posts after the first day. Our training schedule ran from 10am - 8pm most nights, so we were a bit tired when we got back.

We sit here now, on Saturday afternoon, in the restaurant bar of the Best Western Emerald Beach Hotel, waiting for 5pm to come in order to check in. We were supposed to be back in NC by today, however, the weather event on the east coast prevented our flying out, as all flights from Miami were cancelled to RDU on friday and saturday, and the best re-booking option ended up being Tuesday morning. So we moved out of the Point Pleasant Resort and came to the Best Western for the last two days of our extended trip.

On this trip we accomplished a lot. The 5 dogs we sold to St. Thomas, with the leadership of Sgt. Gonzales and Trainer Ecedro Lindquist, look great 3 months out from their handler courses. The green handlers have improved their handling, and the dogs have advanced. We were very happy to see that we could spend a majority of our time training with them in scenario-based training exercises. There were very few issues that needed remediation. The 2 new dogs we brought performed well. The black GSD took a few days to aclimatize, but when he did, he looked sharp, civil, and has a hell of a grip.

My new FLIP video camera has taken about 140 videos of our time here, and as we are going to be marooned on this island for a couple more nights, I will be uploading them for all to see.

While here, we rode along with the SRT teams to a few calls, one being a gang-related homicide, another was automatic gunfire, and as we were leaving our very last training session, were able to listen to the radio traffic as one of our dogs, K9 Taiphun & Handler James Dowe, were able to flush a burglery suspect from a perimetered wooded area to patrol officers for arrest and a nice apprehension.

The K9 officers here have to contend with very thick brush, of jungle-like consistency, and a very dense population on an island of only 32 square miles. Outside of the resort areas, there are some really hardcore gangs and really bad guys out there. Their per-capita homocide rate is one of the highest in the US (VI being a US Territory). The police here are dedicated, and the police administration is serious about attacking crime here, and the re-emergence of the K9 unit is one of the steps they are taking to fight crime here.

The K9 training we did incorporated night-time apprehensions, bailouts, multiple subject apprehensions, recall exercises, tactical applications of obedience skills, building searches, area searches, cadaver, explosives and narcotics detection in a variety of venues, and some tracking.  On monday of last week, the sister island of St. Croix sent their 3 handlers over with the three dogs they also got from us, and I wish we had more time to work with them, as they came only for the second week of training.

Jeff and Rob at TK9 did a great job working with these guys, and put out a good product. I got to see for myself the quality work they put in (along with all the others that contributed to the USVI handler course and training and preparation of the dogs, including Kyli, Janet, and Matt). I am proud of all of them for their work and dedication to be the best.

Videos will be posted soon on our photobucket account, and once we are back, on the website.

I hear it is below 20 degrees on most of the east coast.....sorry for your bad luck, we're at the beach, yo!!

Jeff and I arrived without incident into St. Thomas, and were met by our friends from the VIPD to take the last 2 dogs on the contract, and give us a ride to the hotel. Being that it was late, around 9:30pm. we couldnt see much of the island from the roads.

We got to the hotel, and discovered that everything on the island shuts down around 10:00, and someone could make a fortune if they started an after-hours delivery service here.  We went to bed hungry and had a comfortable night's rest.

Our accomodations are on the top of a large hillside overlooking the bay, but it wasn't until the next morning that the full glory of the landscape was revealed to us. The water is a beautiful deep blue-green, and the lush hillsides that surround the bay, as well as the numerous uninhabited Cays, lend such depth to the view. Our room balcony stays in shade most of the day, and the warm breeze comes right to us being so nice and high above the water.

We ventured out this morning in search of something to eat and came to the hotel lobby for a quick bite before descending down the hill to the waterside where we ate and enjoyed the view of the bay. The walk back to the room was challenging as it is all uphill on winding roads for about a half mile, or you take some steep stairs cut into the hillside. All in all, though a very nice place to have to work.

Our hosts picked us up, and we doid some food shopping, since we are here for 2 weeks, we chose an efficiency. We are scheduled for a meet and greet with the police commissioner's asst. and some other big wigs this afternoon. Links to pics and more to come tomorrow!

http://www.policeone.com/explosives-eod/articles/1988568-Answering-criticism-of-explosive-detection-machines-and-K-9s/

Layered approaches to security are needed. Terrorists are rational problem solvers, and will work to stay ahead of our systems, we need to layer systems to reduce the probability of a successful attempt. As it is now, we are completely "reactive" to these events, scurrying about after the Christmas day attempt - talking up body scanners and other technologies, as if we shouldn;t have bee talking about this all along.

Further, I believe private-public partnerships can reduce costs and bring better screening. The new found American belief that only government can keep them safe is wrong headed. In Europe private security companies run all kinds of security in transportation networks, and are skilled and successful. It is time we start realizing that government cannot be the only entity to keep us safe, and as their mission increases in complexity, so does the bureaucracy which thwarts the mission. Government by its nature is very inefficient at solving problems of this kind, and we should at least talk about public - private partnerships.

Many more police departments are seeing the utility of sending senior handlers or departmental trainers to get formal instruction. At TK9, we offer a variety of K9 Instructor courses - for Detection only, or full Instructor courses covering detection, trailing/tracking (hard surface), obedience and Patrol.  This instruction allows increased performance on the street, as instructors are better educated and equipped to handle traiing issues, deployment issues, and problems that come up in the course of a dog's service. It also allows the instructor to challenge the teams during i serviuce training with fresh ideas about training and deployment procedures. Instructors will be equipped to answer questions and explain the "why" behind an approach to a traiing exercise.

Instructors get the opportunity at TK9 to both work with dogs in training for our customers as well as to assist with handler courses, where trained dogs are matched up with handlers. At TK9 we want instructors to understand the "why" behind training, so that they can properly problem solve issues that come up during training. We stress open communication with our instructors, and full hands on participation in both training and instructing.

A full complement of lectures are also provided covering the various training technologies that we employ for detection, tracking, obedience and patrol training. We encourage you to contact us today to ask about our courses, and upon request we will send you references, and pricing, and a syllabus of the courses. Courses are tailored to an agency's needs ad the experience level of the student instructor.  Courses begin the first monday of any month of the year, except for December. Courses run 4, 6, 8, 12 weeks. We also have a special 2 week accelerated course.

Call today to talk to Jerry or Janet about our instructor courses!

Tarheel Canine: Janet: 800-766-9032 or email Jerry at jbradshaw@tarheelcanine.com

http://www.wral.com/news/local/story/6657852/

Our thoughts are with Scott and his family......best for a speedy recovery!

When training dogs, it is the little things that matter. If you can't do a full session of training, break down a small aspect of a behavior chain, and reinforce it. Set out one drug hide, and one blank area insteas of ah hour's worth of training.

Do 5 minutes of heeling, 5 sits and 5 downs while waiting for a call, practice recalls and finishes with rewards when you let your dog out to pee. If you think of all the times you put off working your dog because you had no time for a full session of training, and think of what you might have achieved if you just did 5 reps of a simple behavior, you might realize thet the little things add up to a lot over the course of a year!

Read the article here.....

http://www.wickedlocal.com/plymouth/news/x2072223724/Local-man-makes-national-news

The real story here is how he gives credit to everyone else for the success......very impressive!

I recently was asked this question: "Using the Reward from Source device in boxes, I'm on my 3rd or 4th session, and I'm afraid the dog will become conditioned to respond on boxes, should I vary the context in which I use the device, and get away from boxes?"

This question highlights an important issue in dog training. That issue being discrimination in training. In other words, when we teach a dog to respond on drugs, say, in a box using the reward from Source device (RFSD) there is a chance that the dog will associate the reward with the object - the box. However, if our training is set up properly, there is little chance this will happen.

The blank boxes are critical in this training, because it is through use of blank boxes and placing other distractor odors (fresh, uncontaminated plastic baggies, kongs, PVC pipe, etc) in them that the dog learns to ignore the associated objects and their odors, and respond only on the drug odor. We must be careful to realize that during this process the dog may try to respond on these other odors/objects that are associated with drug training, but the trainer must realize this is a natural part of the training progression.

The trainer must be patient, and withold rewards for incorrect responses (negative punishment), in order for the dog to make the leap of understanding that it is only a final response while in the drug odor that will bring his reward. Trainers get too impatient, and then choose to avoid the issue altogether. However, by failing to do this extinction training, you almost guarantee that your dog will respond on toys, boxes or any other odor that might be associated with his detection training.

Have patience and understand how to properly work the dog through these issues, and you will end up with a dog that is TRAINED to ignore distractors.

Issue: In detection work, the dog's drive is over the top, and he spins and barks during the search pattern, and it distracts him from good searching. What should I do?

You may need to change your context cues for his searching. Most handlers show the toy and get the dog in drive, before sending the dog to search. You might want to work on a long down, and put him in a down for a minute or two before quietly starting the search. Whisper his search command. Don’t talk to him while he is searching, and wean off a lot of presentation (movement in the search area by you can kick him into higher drive) and let him work it out on his own. He needs to learn that barking and spinning doesn’t win him the toy. As his handler you need to complement his temperament. You need to be quiet and calm to counter act his over the top drivey behavior.

Imagine you had the opposite problem, where the dog didn’t show enough passion for the searching, what would you do? You would give him easier finds, and quick rewards, and lots of very vocal praise, and probably more handler assistance to build interest. In this case you need to do the exact opposite. You need to make the hides more challenging, and as well, do a very large proportion of blank areas to non-blank areas. The dog needs to realize his searching will go on for a while. Dogs that have this problem are usually being worked in their in-service training with short problems and quick finds, so the dog comes to anticipate his reward is coming very fast, adding to the anticipation of the outcome. If the dog has tons of energy, giving him his Kong at the beginning usually will not result in getting him calmed down, but rather more excited, because you give him what he wants right out of the gate as you have found out.

Many Malinois are very impatient and impulsive dogs and must be taught to work their scent detection and tracking in a lower than normal gear, as they are often wont to work in “sprint” mode as opposed to “distance” mode. Making the problem more complex, demanding more concentration, with rewards spaced out longer, will over time, teach the dog to work longer at a good level of concentration. Make the rewards a little more variable, and don’t reward every find with his toy. Sometimes just praise him off of it, and start another search.

Unfortunately, by virtue of the limited training time available to most officers, scenarios are often set up and worked rather quickly, with fast results, and while for some dogs this works, for other dogs this makes for very impulsive behavior.

One of the green dogs we sold to New Castle DE PD was shot during an apprehension.......

http://www.philly.com/dailynews/local/20091112_Del__police_dog_wounded_on_duty.html

Our best to the K9 and his handler for a speedy and full recovery!

Here is his profile in the St. Lucian Star Online.....

http://stluciastar.com/content/archives/8661

Congratulations Daron!

K9 Jimi at Griffin GA PD was murdered, his body dumped in a ditch. Our thoughts are with his handler, Chad Moxon, and former handler Josh Oxford, now with the Bureau of Reclamation Hoover Dam.

Here is the link. We hope the people responsible for this heinous act are brought to Justice. Clearly Jimi was killed for doing his job a little too well.

http://www.ajc.com/news/reward-up-to-6-188514.html

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

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://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://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

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

Click the link and stop by often!

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/

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!

A few months ago I wrote a column about K9 trainers who were know-it-alls......recently I got a private email form a new K9 officer who attended a training course for his dual purpose dog. He was looking for some validation on why his dog had issues engaging on the street after having read my book, Controlled Aggression, he correctly diagnosed that the fact that the in the course the trainer only ever used a sleeve during aggression training might have made his dog to cue only on the sleeve during bitework. The handler asked for the trainer to use a hidden sleeve, but his requests were rebuffed without explanation.

In my opinion, such behavior on the part of the trainer - unwillingness to explain why the hidden sleeve was not ever used in class, and the handler's stated fear that the instructor will blame the dog's failure on the handler (the handler hasn't told the trainer of the failed apprehension as the guy gave up when the dog pursued and simply circled him).

This kind of fearful atmosphere, and unwillingness to see reality for what it is sickens me because ultimately this handler is in danger if his K9 partner cannot be relied upon do do what he needs to do. Exascerbating the issue is the unwillingness to confront the problem by the trainer, and the handler's fear of being targeted as the problem child (probably a very real fear as many trainers, rather than owning up to problems, take the easy way out and blame the handler). This dog should be remediated asap, and the dog probably could be fixed - but doing more of the same and expecting a different outcome is the definition of lunacy.

Trainers who tie their egos to their methods need to be drummed out of this business - whether they work for a PD as a trainer or are private....remediate and then if necessary replace a dog if it isn't working - you have a responsibility to the K9 handler and his family to do so. Many times it is simply that the dog hasn't been given the proper training to make him civilly aggressive enough to be a police dog - and so maybe the Know-it-all needs to update his knowledge.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/08/090810025241.htm

Link to an article in Science Daily, says dogs have an intelligence about equivalent to a 2 year old human,

"As for language, the average dog can learn 165 words, including signals, and the "super dogs" (those in the top 20 percent of dog intelligence) can learn 250 words, Coren says. "The upper limit of dogs' ability to learn language is partly based on a study of a border collie named Rico who showed knowledge of 200 spoken words and demonstrated 'fast-track learning,' which scientists believed to be found only in humans and language learning apes," Coren said." according to the article.

It goes on to mention, that dogs can "count up to four or five, said Coren. And they have a basic understanding of arithmetic and will notice errors in simple computations, such as 1+1=1 or 1+1=3."

During play, dogs are capable of deliberately trying to deceive other dogs and people in order to get rewards, said Coren. "And they are nearly as successful in deceiving humans as humans are in deceiving dogs." the article went on to say.

What does that last bit say about human intelligence?

What does all this mean to the Police Dog Trainer/Handler

1. You need to be smarter than a 2 year old to be a dog handler.

2. Don't be surprised when your dog anticipates an out after 4 or 5 seconds, because that is how long you allow him to bite every time he gets a grip.

3. Don't ask a 2 year old to make decisions that a trained police officer should be making.

 This class will take place over 3 working days, 24 hours of instruction, and be open to Law Enforcement K-9 handlers and supervisors. The class will be open to up to 18 handler/dog teams. Spectators, including supervisors are welcome to attend. The class will comprise both classroom instruction and practical street work.  Classroom work will cover tactical approaches, deployments, and apprehensions, using trained police dogs in building/area searches and felony vehicle stops.  K9 teams will run through scenario-based problems in these areas. Instruction will also cover the integration of K9 patrol teams with tactical teams in these scenarios.  Additional instruction will cover proper decoy techniques, including proper use of bite suit, hidden sleeve and muzzle. The methods taught in this seminar allow for safer approaches to high risk deployments, easier integration into tactical units, and significantly reduced liability exposure. Additionally we will cover progressive use of e-technology for distance control of K9s both in training and under deployment. Explanations of how to train with e-collars, and integrate them into the functions of your K9 unit will be covered in detail.

Participants will:

• Learn progressive methods for deploying in high risk scenarios
• Deploy in building search, area search, and felony vehicle stop scenarios.
• Learn how to achieve fundamental training goals while practicing common high risk scenarios.
• Learn integration of K9 Patrol Teams with Tactical teams: Both Entry and Perimeter Usages.
• Learn proper decoy technique for training these high risk scenarios
• Learn progressive use of e-technology for distance control and deployment.

  “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. 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 _______________________________________________________

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________________

Handler 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, Cohoes Police Department, the city of Cohoes NY, from and against any 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

Hotel Information:

HOLIDAY INN EXPRESS

400 OLD LOUDON RD

LATHAM NY 12110

518-783-6161

GOVT RATES ARE $111.00 A NIGHT INCLUDES FULL BREAKFAST BUFFET DAILY

CENTURY HOUSE CLARION HOTEL

997 NEW LOUDON RD

LATHAM NY 12110

518-785-0931

GOVT RATE $103.00 A NIGHT ALSO INCLUDES HOT AND COLD BREAKFAST

ALL ARE WITHIN 5-10 MINUTES FROM TRAINING LOCATION

This is an excerpt from Controlled Aggression by Jerry Bradshaw....available by clicking on the link on this blog's home page....

The Patrol Test

 The patrol test begins with evaluating the dog’s demeanor as he comes into the testing area. It is preferable to choose a neutral testing area that is unfamiliar to the dog. Try to avoid doing all the testing on the dog’s home field. Remember you are testing his nerves in addition to testing his drives. We are looking for his pack sociability (how he relates to his handler including the bond in evidence, or possibly any negative attributes like hand shyness) and his public sociability (how he relates to you and anyone else unknown to the dog in the testing area). Is the dog is social or neutral, or worse, decidedly unsocial.  If the dog is very civil, and that is something you value highly, he should be alert to the people around him but confident. There is a difference between a sharp dog and a fear biter – the difference being confidence. Once you are happy with the dog’s public sociability the dog is ready to be tested.

 Defense Evaluation

 The testing begins on the back tie.  If it is a young dog in early adolescence, the dog can be held by the handler on leash. However, I prefer to see the dog work independently and as such I want the dog’s handler completely out of the picture.

We begin by testing the dog’s defensive instincts. From a hiding place, the decoy (dressed in street clothes, he may have a hidden sleeve on) comes out slowly and makes defensive contact with the dog by staring in his eyes and moving very slowly toward the dog, from a distance of about 30-50 feet. This is not training. We are evaluating how he deals with the stress of a confrontation with a stranger, without any hint that this will be fun or familiar. There should be no protection equipment in the testing area, and no warm up bites for the dog. No prey items at all should be in evidence.

The slow approach allows the dog time to think about what is happening, the posture of the decoy is to be threatening, forward, always engaged with his eyes on the dog, and the decoy must, in his mind, pretend he is going to hurt the dog when he gets close enough. You must watch the dog for his response. If he growls a low growl, and puffs air, that is a good start. But, you are looking for how the dog handles the stress of the approach, when his aggression doesn’t immediately scare off the threat.

There should be an aggressive and confident response. Look at the body language of the dog. You will likely see a mix of signals. Maybe some hackles up, snarling (short mouth), ears up or flat, tail up, out or slightly tucked. A dog in defense is posturing to look scary. Once he looks scary you then continue to apply the pressure. It is critical that you do not reward this with prey (quick movements, side to side or in and out) in any way, but keep pressing.

As you come further in, look for changes in behavior: does the tail tuck further, up ears flatten back, does the dog quit and look around as if looking for an escape? Does he back up or stay hard into the collar, his entire body coming forward? As you come forward match his reactions. Make your shoulders rise, bend forward more, lower your head and stare hard. Harden your facial expression into a human snarl. Look for how he deals with your aggression.

A dog in a defensive mood can do three things: He can fight, flee, or displace. In reality he can show a mixture of behaviors, as the pressure builds, maybe first trying to be aggressive to bluff you into retreating, and then choose displacement.[1] He might choose to flee, and run away hard into the back tie line. What we are looking for is a dog that meets threat with threat, and comes forward into the collar with confident aggression.

When you are close enough to step into the circle described by the back tie line, you can swing the hidden sleeve in for a bite or make a movement as if you are delivering a grip, and see if he bites the hidden sleeve or he clacks his jaws at your arm passing just out of his reach. You want him to turn that frustration and defensive energy into biting. Aggression must be met with more aggression, for this dog to be capable to fight in a street situation. Granted, there will be much more training to come to develop his drives, but we want a solid aggressive response to work with. We don’t want the dog to think about a way out of the confrontation.[2] If you use the hidden sleeve, work him hard and see how he deals with the fight after the confrontation. Look for weakness in the grip, and other signs that show he is not fully committed. Use lots of vocalizing, and sound real. After a short fight, weaken your fighting, and see if he wants to thrash you and punish you. Look for his confidence to rise.[3]

Prey Evaluation

If you are satisfied with his defensive reactions, now change gears and do a prey drive test. Go to a visible sleeve, or bite suit depending on the dog’s level of development. Use a lot of movement, use a whip and stick to stimulate the dog with familiar noises. Do a couple of pass-by moves, and then deliver the grip. Now you are evaluating his behavior in the prey mood. Evaluate the quality of the grip. Look for any stress that remains from the earlier defensive encounter.  The dog can become “stuck in defense,” and therefore unwilling to chase you around. If you didn’t give him a hidden sleeve bite after the defense test, he may not want to even bite the sleeve if the stress has caused him to be too concerned with the possibility of more threat to come, regardless of the decoy’s posture.

The ideal response is a change in attitude from a defensive posture, to a more relaxed prey posture. The ideal posture should be forward, with maybe a change in the pitch of the bark to a higher pitch, or perhaps silent, but straining to get the prey. The classical prey postures include the dog pulling forward into the line, front feet off the ground. The dog’s ears will be forward, and if he barks, the dog will do so with a big wide open mouth. The pitch of the bark may be a little higher than when he is in a defensive mood. He may still carry a bit of the seriousness from the initial defensive confrontation, and that is fine, as long as you are getting the response you desire. We seek a confident picture, one of a dog that wants to follow your movement, and lunge to catch the sleeve on the pass-by misses.

Once on the sleeve, look at the grip. We want a nice full grip. On one of your pass-by bites, intentionally deliver a half grip to the dog, and see if he will counter in when you offer him the opportunity. We want to be sure he is confident to press forward into the grip when the opportunity presents itself. Test him with the stick over his head, petting him with it, and give a few hits to the line on the back tie, finishing with a hit on the side while on the grip. Look for any changes in the grip with the pressure.

Further we are looking to see if the dog targets the sleeve well, coming in the middle and not to the hands or elbow. Coming low to the hand can signal a lack of commitment to the grip, by coming to an area on the sleeve that is farthest away from the body of the helper. Further, basic sleeve targeting is not something you want to have to teach a good green dog. Finally, check him with the bite suit as well. Make sure he will engage the suit. If he has never been on the suit, start by offering him a prey bite on the back of the arm, and then offer him the inside front shoulder. For some dogs, this will cause them to avoid the grip altogether. Look to see how his grip changes, if at all, when biting in the front.[4] The bite suit itself adds a lot of defensive stress to a prey encounter by virtue of the fact that the dog must come into the helper’s body much more than an outside forearm bite on a sleeve. This will tell you a lot about the dog’s nerves in general, and if he will look later to avoid more stressful encounters. Remember that we are not asking to see perfect targeting in the front inside shoulder, just a willingness to take the grip there, and be in the grip confidently. We will add more pressure to these inside bites later in training, but the dog should at a minimum be willing to take the grip there with at least a ¾ grip.

Courage Test

Once the evaluation is concluded in prey and defense, and you have tested his desire to bite the sleeve, the hidden sleeve, and the bite suit, you can do some tests of his desire to come in for a grip under environmental distractions. You can go back to sleeve bites here if you wish, or if the dog is strong take him in a prey position on the bite suit. This would be the outside of the forearm or the triceps area in the back of the suit. Good environmental distractions can include: a clatter stick barrage, a jug with rocks in it, or a hula-hoop with caution tape streamers. These are all good choices due to their unfamiliarity. Further, be sure to test the dog on slick surfaces, preferably in a large building. Large buildings that are open, like warehouses, are a much different test than seeing if the dog will work on a slick floor in a small house or clubhouse. The openness of the warehouse can be disorienting, and the echoes can unnerve weaker dogs. Test him also in a tight space or a dark room if you can. Test the dog going up open stairs. Remember you are buying the dog. It is better to test thoroughly, than to have to come back and plead your case after you tested and bought the dog. The key question is this: will the dog’s drive carry him through any unfamiliarity.

Test the dog to his limits of his age and training, without throwing the dog into any kind of avoidance. If you see him avoid something, immediately help him. This goes for any portion of the test. But remember, if you push him into avoidance, you are not going to buy him, and you should help the vendor give the dog a positive training session at a minimum. Otherwise you may not be welcome back for another buying opportunity.

Once all these phases of the test are complete, you can make your determination as to whether the dog is suitable for your training program. In every dog there will be strengths and weaknesses. What you want to determine is that the weaknesses are minor and the strengths abundant. Accept only weaknesses you know that you can work through. Keep in mind most nerve issues are genetic in nature, unless the dog is simply young and inexperienced. For example, suppose the dog is biting nicely, did a nice defensive test, and you raise the jug of rocks over his head, and he pops off then comes right back on. You try again, applying a de-conditioning technique and the dog shows only moderate concern over the jug the second time, stressing a little but not coming off the grip. The third time, he pretty much works through it. That is a dog you can work with. He bounced back.

Here is a basic test for suitability of a detection dog (specifically a lab)

1. Test the dogs sociability, he should come out and be happy, excited, and eager to see people. If he is aloof and ready to work more than socialize that is fine. Some labs prefer to greet people than to work, so make sure he is not just a social butterfly. Reject dogs that exhibit fear of people or are unsure about approaching.
2. Buy from a police dog vendor. If you go to a bird dog trainer, just remember they have a very different mission. Dogs from bird dog trainers have usually been force fetched and will not perform on drive usually, and are taught to use their eyes a lot for marking where birds fall. That is not what we want. We want dogs with little obedience and a lot of natural drive to hunt and retrieve.
3. Test in an unfamiliar place if possible. If at the vendor’s site you can test there first, but make sure at some point you take the dog to a place the dog has not been to and see if the dog will still hunt and retrieve there.
4. Choose the toy you will use for training. I start with PVC pipe, because if the dog will hunt and retrieve that, he will be easy to train. Some labs prefer a ball or kong.  Just make sure you test at a minimum on the toy your dog will use in training.
5. Once the toy comes out, he should be focused on the toy, not socializing with people anymore.
6. Do 4 or 5 retrieves out in the open where the dog can see the toy. You are looking for how fast the dog goes out, and looking for a fast pick-up. Dogs that run out and smell the object and pick it up gingerly are not preferred. You want a retrieving beast that hits the object like a linebacker, and kicks up some grass and dust!
7. Do 4-5 throws into tall grass with the wind direction coming towards you if possible. Let the object land, and then spin the dog in a circle. Many labs are trained to use their eyes to mark location, so make sure he doesn’t see it land. While he is hunting, make note of if he is using his nose or eyes. You want a dog sniffing for the object not looking for it.
8. You should see him quarter in his searching, and make a hard head turn when he gets close to the object, and pick it up fast.
9. Take the dog inside, and do some retrieves on slick floors, into bathrooms, into dark rooms, and make sure he will go up stairs and down them.
10. Take the toy and tease the dog with it, and pretend to hide it in a bunch of places in a room with furniture (not a giant room, but an office or a section of warehouse or classroom), then place it where it is not visible but where he can get to it, and see if the dog will search it out. Some dogs don’t know this game, and you will have to teach him. Most vendors teach the dogs to do this prior to sale. But some dogs will not hunt
11. Do some throws into a car (not your patrol car) and see if he will hunt for the toy in the car. Don’t make it difficult. Make sure he will not get distracted while inside the vehicle and stays focused on the task of finding the toy.
12. If the dog balks at any of the environmental challenges, if he is unsure, see if he will do it for the toy. You need to know if he will overcome environmental problems for his toy. There will always be something that will be new to him. If the toy doesn’t get him over the issue, select a different dog. If the dog shows fear, do not try to reassure him, use the toy to excite him to overcome the problem. Reassurance is praise, and you do not want to praise him for fear.
13. Make sure the dog will go into your vehicle cage for his toy or some water.
14. Drive him to a location like a strip mall, and walk him around and make sure he is comfortable going in and out of the car and going past crowds.

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.

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.

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 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....

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/

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

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

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

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!

Go to.....  http://signaturek-9.blogspot.com/

Check out the interview.........

Recently I sold a green lab to a police department for an explosives dog class. The handler received the dog and took it for testing prior to the class, and the dog was passed by the trainers. The trainers also told him to take the dog to the mall, go on escalators, elevators, etc to get the dog familiar with these environments.

At first this seems like good advice, except for the fact that this green handler has no experience dealing with behavioral issues that might come up with this kind of environmental exposure. Without instruction otherwise, most people will treat a fear resonse in a dog the same way they would a scared baby - by trying to soothe the fear. This is exactly the opposite of the proper approach with a dog who has a fear response because a good trainer will decondition the fear using a classical conditioning approach such as playing with the dog in drive as you ease him incrementally into the new environment.

The phone call went like this: "Well Jerry, he was doing great on the floors in the mall, so I took him to the elevator, and walked him into it, and when it started to go up, he kind of flattened into the floor, and then when the doors opened he wanted to get out of there quickly." So I did it a couple of times, and praised him throughout the ride, but he kept staying flat on the floor, and every time he wanted to run out of the elevator. I explained to him that praising a fear response reinforces the fear response. It is like saying to the dog....."Yes, that's it, be afraid now, good boy." So although he thought he was doing some good, he was actually making the problem progressively worsse and worse each time he repeated the exercise.

To properly introduce the elevator ride, you need to first get the dog near the elevator doors, and engage him in play. Let him see the doors open and close while you play kong with him just outside the doors. Preferably use a kong or a ball on a string so you can use some opposition reflex in the play, keeping him busy tugging if he will. Then, hold the doors open and toss the kong in, and let him go in and get it, and come back out a few times. When he is comfy with that, toss it in and go up or down one floor, playing tug all the while, and as the doors open toss it in and out on the new floor. Take the stairs down, and do it all again. If you see the dog get a little startled by the motion of the elevator's floor, keep with the in and out for a session or two. It is unnatural for the dog to feel motion like that so keep his mind focused on the toy until he is immune to the ride. Go slow with your progression and let the dog acclimate. Anticipate the problem points - doors opening, tight space, moving floor, etc and get the dog as hign in drive as your can just prior to each of these potential problem points.

Whatever you do, do not praise the fear response. In fact if the dog shows fear, your job it to act completely oblivious to it, and keep on playing. Do not call attention to any negative reaction, that will only reinforce the response. If you see fear you can't overcome, back up the progression to a point where you had success, and stay there for a bit, until you feel like he is ready to move forward. Break the problem down even further. Open the door, toss the kong in, and open the doors before riding up and let him out, and do this over and over until he is comfy with being inside and playing vigorously before trying to move the floor again.

Classical conditioning is conditioning a response by association. As you associate play and good doggie endorphins with each of these objects, and introduce strange things slowly and incrementally in drive, you will not overload the dog, and you will keep his mind in a positive mood when he is introduced to new things.

The other point to be taken from this is to treat socialization and environmental conditioning like any other key trained skill. You wouldn't give a new untrained handler the instruction: "Go start the imprinting of your dog on narcotics, we will see you in a few weeks," and so as well, dont tell your unskilled handler to go "Socialize your dog."  If he doesn;t know how to resolve problems as they come up, you are likely to have him do more damage than good.

The alert on command, which places the dog’s aggression on the command of the handler, is an exercise that is often ignored, but it may be your most important exercise in police patrol training. In much of the training I watch, the dog is brought to the training field, the decoy starts the action by agitating the dog, and the dog is sent to bite. The problem with this sequence of events is that the dog learns that his cue to get aggressive is the agitation rather than the command word of the handler to alert. The problem stays hidden, until the dog is deployed and the suspect has no bite equipment on, and is passive (sitting down or laying on the ground). In many cases the dog shows confusion and begins to look around at back up officers who may be standing up and moving around (his familiar context for bite work). The dog fails to engage, and rather than blaming the training as incomplete, the dog is blamed.  

The proper sequence, which should be trained during each and every bite session from the very start of the dog’s training, is that the decoy always starts out passive, and the handler alerts the dog on the passive subject. Once the dog shows aggression, the decoy reacts to the aggression either by pressing the dog in defense, or by fleeing in prey, depending on the exercise. The aggression is placed on a variable reward system, where sometimes the passive decoy will flee after one bark, then the next time we would make the dog bark at the decoy for 15 or 20 seconds before motion or advance on the dog, and back to 5 or 10 seconds of barking, varying the amount of aggression required to bring the decoy alive. In the dog’s mind, he is bringing the passive person “alive” by his aggression. The decoy must reward this behavior at all times. Once it is done well, you can point your dog at anyone, give an alert command, and expect aggression and focus.

This teaches the dog aggression on command, rather than on the context (movement or threat) the dog perceives from the decoy. In fact, as the handler, you may perceive an apprehension situation well before your dog, and so if you can put the dog in an aggressive mood on command he will be ready to react immediately, and not be caught off guard. Work your bite sessions with the decoy in a hidden sleeve, sitting in a chair, or laying on the ground. You can work on a slick floor to slow the entry down, and set up furniture to protect the exposed areas of the decoy, and always send the dog on a long line to maintain positive control. The dog learns to alert on passive subjects in all positions, and becomes aggressive on your command. 

A further extension of this exercise is to roll up to a strange place where you have already stashed a decoy behind the corner of a building or a dumpster, and take up a tactical position and give your alert command. Your dog may at first be confused, but be patient, and when he gives one bark, the decoy should jump out and flee, and in response send your dog for a reward grip. Do this in a bunch of different contexts with that one bark bringing out the decoy. Then ask for a few more barks, and then finally place this reward on a variable schedule so that the dog learns he has to sometimes bark for a while to get this result. The dog learns he can both turn a passive person alive by getting aggressive on command, and as well he can make people appear from behind objects and around corners when he becomes aggressive on command. I think you can see how this will help develop the start to your building search.

NTPDA is seeking members, evaluators, and thse interested in hosting NTPDA scenario based certifications. NTPDA is on the verge of growing significantly in the coming 6 months, as many agencies are looking for an alternative, scenario based police K9 Certification on which to base their in-house certs.

Our next push for 2010 will be a themed educational conference. We will announce the venue and topics for the seminar, and we will encourage trainers to submit abstracts of their proposed presentations. The conference will provide substantial discounts to NTPDA members, and will be open to non-members as well.

Take a look at the certification standards, and see if this isn;t something you have been looking for!

www.tacticalcanine.com

Kentucky State Police Special Operations

Police K9 Decoy Seminar

Lexington KY

May 18-20, 2009

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.

Location:

Kentucky State Police

Special Operations

Bluegrass Station-BLDG 30

5751 Briar Hill Road

Lexington, KY.  40516

Contact:

Shawn Podunavac, Kentucky State Police, shawn.podunavac@ky.gov, telephone # 606-232-7087

Jerry Bradshaw, Tarheel Canine, malinois_jb@mindspring.com, telephone 919-244-8044

Something which has been bothering me lately when i see certain individuals test dogs, is how some agencies have developed testing criteria that they have placed down in print on a sheet of paper, where on each attribute the dog is rated, say 1-5, with one being poor and 5 being excellent, and all the gradations in between.

The evaluator writes down the number, and at the end of the test, the numbers are added up and if the dog falls below a certain target number.....how they arrive at THAT arbitrary number I have no idea....the dog fails, and if the dog scores above a number the dog passes.

In my entire career buying dogs, I have never used a numerical test, as I believe that dog training is more art than science in respect to selection. I can test a dog and look at his performance, and the overriding issue for me is, "Can I get this dog to do what I need him to do?" Thgis is a subjective evaluation, that in no way lends itself to a score.

What about the dogs that come up 1 or 2 points apart? one dog failing and the other passing? That seems silly. A good trainer should be able to make a call based on experience rather than relying on some possibly flawed numerical test. If the evaluator has to make a judgment call on dogs close to the failure tipping point, than why do we need the numerical evaluation at all?

One of the big flaws I often see in these numerical score tests is giving equal weights to each aspect of the test. There are some attributes, such as sociability which cannot be overcome necessarily by other aspects of the dog's temperament - hunting drive perhaps - and so should not be assigned equal weight. Sometimes certain environmental aspects (i.e. stairs, tight spaces, slick floors) are each assigned a numerical score, but in the end, how the dog does on the test is of little importance if the dog can be worked through some of the lack of exposure he might have had. So scoring something like "recovery" should be scored rather than an absolute measure of how the dog showed on some environmental test.

In the end it comes down to having an eye for dogs. An eye for what can be worked, and an eye for what is a deal breaker.

Brazillian TV Interview, Link:

http://www.redetvmais.com.br/tvnews/index.asp?idnoticia=118

Pictures on Photobucket for the Brazil Seminar:

http://s412.photobucket.com/albums/pp207/TarheelCanine/Brazil%20Seminar/

Finally, we get to sleep in for the first time since arriving in Brazil. We have lunch a little after noon with Luiz Gabriel and Supervisor Cesar from Diadema, exchanging a few more gifts and some CDs with photos and videos. Trades are made fr some of the clothes we brought, and then we return to the room for a couple hours, during which we packed, and during an exchange of jokes between Shawn and I he thought I was joking about him needing a slip of paper we were given upon arrival, to turn in at departure. He tore the paper and then spent the next 5 hours worried that he would be stuck in Brazil. His plan was to rat me out as a pig flu patient if he didn't get through.....

We were then picked up for our last bit of sightseeing before heading off to the airport. Over night, my head cold kicked into high gear, and I was feeling pretty miserable, but heading into downtown Sao Paulo took my mind off of it. We started the afternoon with a visit to some of the military surplus stores. We were also taken to a place that sews patches, and found out that Luiz Gabriel made a patch for the class and gave Shawn and I a few of them each. Very nice. The rest were to be distributed to the attendees.

We then went to the Mercado Municipal, which is a big central food market which carries virtually every food Brazilian you can imagine. Varieties of fresh fish, meats, mountains of fruits, nuts, candies are everywhere to be found, as well as restaurants upstairs where you can order up some of the foods for lunch. We stopped and got some dried fruits, and sampled a bunch of the candies and fruits, amd we could have stayed a while longer but time was drawing late, and we walked around the streets for an hour or so around the market looking at the goods the street sellers were peddling. The guys at the seminar joked about the goods in the streets being "made in China" and they weren't kidding.

We decided to start off toward the airport, and the traffic was hell. Shawn fell asleep in the back and the exhaust fumes that came off the trucks into the car were choking me, being that I had such a bad cold. Whoever designed the exhaust pipes to blow directly into the cars adjacent to the trucks needs to be shot. Finally we made it to the airport, and we went to the United counter to check in. The ticket agent made Shawn think he was in serious trouble for ripping up the immigration form, which I thought was hilarious, but he was relieved to know that the woman was just kidding, and he wouldn't be detained after all.

We upgraded from Economy to Economy plus, got good seats, and settled in for a long 9 hour flight home to our families. We arrived on time. I was so Nyquilled-up I barely remember getting the car from the long term lot. Shawn drove to Baltimore (I recall none of that part of the trip except for a brief moment looking at the washington monument wondering how that got moved to I-495), and then I took the car to the house. I slept the majority of the day between coughing fits.

As I sit here writing this, and reflecting on the 5 days we spent there I have to say the people were very warm and open, and extremely hospitable. The culture is a lot like America, with a mix of cultures melting into one Brazilian culture. Everything about the culture is eclectic from the food to the music, and they are very proud of what they have, and they are a very hard working people. They love to speak about their country. To think they were governed by a Military dictatorship only 20 years ago, they have come a long way from that. We listened to countless conversations about friends they knew who went into the Amazon basin, and some who even lost their lives (evidently a trip to that region is not to be taken lightly). They told us about the industries, what they produce, where they work, and how they see their country progressing. They are not afraid to ask for help, to learn new things, to improve what they do. That was evident from the reaction to the seminar, with people taking notes, and asking a lot of questions.

Shawn and I will miss our friends, and hope to see them again soon, as we were invited to return in the early fall for another adventure this time in Rio. We hope we can get it arranged, so we can both come back and see a new place and also see some of our old friends from this seminar.

Thank you to Luiz Gabriel of LGK9 for taking the time to contact me and set up the seminar which gave Shawn and I a great experience we will remember for a long time. Thanks also to Shawn Edwards for being a great partner in teaching the seminar. We had a lot of laughs over the 5 days that is for sure.

The official seminar was concluded yesterday, and today (tuesday) we were picked up in the morning at the hotel by the Guarda Civil for the district of Diadema. The Guarda Civil for Diadema was established in November of 1999 in order to reduce the violence in that district. The homicide rate was through the roof in the 1980s and 1990s, and in addition to establishing the Guarda Civil, the authorities limited bar hours to closing at 11pm instead of being open 24 hours, and installed cameras in high crime areas and streets.  By 2007 the violent crime rate was reduced by 75%.

We were introduced to many of the administrators on our tour, including the comandant of the Guarda. We got to see the K9 Unit Kennels, which were very well designed and spotless, and also were shown the Motorcycle Unit, and were taken to the transportation authority which houses the traffic cameras and crime surveillence cameras. Interestingly, many of the officers carry revolvers, and the supervisors carry .380 semi-automatics. Each police car is equipped with a 12 Guage shotgun as well. We put up some photos of the K9 cars, but the dogs rarely ride in the cages, preferring the back seat and open windows.....

We then were taken on a drive around the city. The district has about 375,000 people, and we got to see the markets, and the city center, and took some pictures of the local area before being taken back to the police station.

In the afternoon, we were interviewed by the local paper, the regional newspsper, and Brazilian TV. Questions were asked of us about the differences and similarities of US and Brazilian police departments, as well as our impressions of the police dogs in Brazil and how the seminar went off. They are even sending one of the supervisors to us in the morning with a CD of the photos and TV clip so we can have it before we return. Shawn did a demo with a couple of the K9s letting them bite him, and that seemed to be big excitement for all the reporters. I almost had the TV reported talked into taking a bite from one of the dogs, but she chickened out at the last second. They also did a drug detection demo with one of the labs handled by one of the K9 unit supervisors. Click here to go to the TV Interview:

http://www.redetvmais.com.br/tvnews/index.asp?idnoticia=118

After the press interviews, the 3 K9 officers who attended our seminar took us to a Churrascaria for a great lunch. Shawn amazed them with the sheer qualtity of food he was able to consume. After lunch we made out way back to Sao Paulo and said our goodbyes to the K9 guys, with agreements to trade some patches and t-shirts by post.

Dinner with our host Luiz Gabriel and translator Roberto Bautista followed at about 8pm, and we discussed another trip to Brazil in the near future to do 2 seminars, one in Diadema and another in Rio. Hopefully we wuill be able to return. Although we have had a great time here, we both miss our families back home, and it will be a welcome relief to be back home sleeping in our own beds and with our loved ones. Tomorrow is an easy day, we finally get to sleep in, and then we go to the famous Mercado Municipal in Sao Paulo a la Anthony Bourdain on the Travel Channel. We are going to pick up some gifts for the home front and some rememberances of our travels, and get to sample some of the more unique foods available here in Sao Paulo. More on that tomorrow!

Some of my impressions of Brazil.....

Nothing is as it seems from the street. Almost everywhere, stores, small shops, specialty markets, look like a garage from the outside, and once the roll up door is open you see a plethora of entrepreneurial activity. Little Bars, hardware stores, pet shops, cantinas, etc are literally on every street.

Napkins made of a wax-paper substance in some of the resturants.

They need some toilet engineers to help them design a toilet that actually flushes the first time you press the handle.

The food is very good.....lots of meat and lots of great fruit is available. There are Churrisacria Restaurants literally on every corner, and unlike in America they are relatively cheaper by a long shot.

Americans take our technology, and its portability for granted....Shawn's Ipod Touch was a big attraction. I forgot to pack my power cord for my Blackberry, and nobody seemed to think one would be available for purchase, or perhaps it would have been too much of a pain to find a store that sells it.

Traffic in Sao Paulo is a serious issue. Everything revolves around traffic and there are a million side streets. When we went to the Seminar it seemed we went a different way almost every time.

There are speed bumps on virtually every side street every .25 of a mile or so it seems to keep traffic slowed down.

The city of Sao Paulo is gigantic. The city has a population of around 11 million people, and the entire Sao Paulo Metropolitan area has something on the order of 21 million people.

The dog business is booming here. Pet shops, kennels, agility clubs, schutzhund clubs are popping up everywhere!

The people are warm and genuine, sometimes passionate, but empethetic and hospitable. We were treated with great care and in the small K9 circle we travelled in, we were treated kindly and with great resect. 

The last day of the seminar there was again a miscommunication regarding who was to come and pick us up from the hotel, and we arrived about 20 minutes late. Once we arrived, there was coffee waiting, and we began with Shawn doing some lecture in obedience theory. With the language barrier, it is very hard to discuss the nuances of obedience, so we did a rough outline in lecture, and then came out to the training area to show them the ideas.

Shawn took a few of the dogs, and demonstrated the procedure for using the Jute roll in obedience, and how to develop attention in heeling. We also demonstrated how to use food. Both the food reward and toy reward methods were well received, and it struck us how different the US is from the rest of the world when it comes to using reward in obedience for police dogs. In my travels all across Europe, almost all trainers, be they in ring sports, IPO, SVV or Police use a reward method to, at a minimum, teach new behaviors in obedience.

The Argentinian handlers and trainers go even further, using an instrumental method, where by the dogs are first taught "concepts" of following, left, right, up down, etc. and then these concepts are used to develop actual behaviors using a clicker training method. The dogs are expected to work around their rewards (toys, decoys) and are sent to the rewards for a successful chain of behaviors. We spent a fair bit of time having the spanish translated to Portuguese, and back to English, so it is amazing that we were able to understand what the trainers were saying about the methodology thyey used.

The last part of the morning was spent with Jerry explaining the method for using the e-collar. Everyone was very interested, as there seems to be very little information available in Brazil for good E-Collar methodology. The class was very interested to see how we used the e-collar in heeling, recalls, outs, redirects and call-offs, and to learn both the advantages and limitations that had to be considered with this tool when training police dogs.

The lunch break was called, and for the third day we went to the cantina in Sao Paulo. Upon our return, some photos were taken, gifts exchanged, and contact information was exchanged. Many of the participants expressed a heartfelt thanks for us coming to share our experiences and methods with them. In return we expressed our gratitude for the invitation and thanks for their attention and good questions.

We went on to bitework, and showed some techniques for building and improving bite quality in some of the younger dogs. As a rule they move to far too fast, and don;t take enough time to develop drive channelling so when the dogs work in prey they are very impressive, but when defense is brought the dogs have a hard time staying committed and even engaged, so we showed them techniques to slowly step-by-step build the dog's confidence when working in defense.

To end the afternoon session (we decided to call the end at 4pm as many had to travel from very far away) we set up a tactical building search exercise to clear a room with a 3 man team. We showed them how to position the dog handler, how to take consideration of cover, and manage the suspect once extracted. We set the extraction up so the dog would ebter through a window, and we did the extraction exercise a couple of times. The Argentinian dog did beautifully. The team did a nice job of maintaining proper position, and doing a tactical removal once the suspect was to a previously cleared position. The participants seemed to enjoy this application, and were very interested in the method.

What ensued next was a discussion of arrest techniques using a K9 and a cover officer, and we showed the procedures we teach fr avoiding cross-fire, and for using the dog to impress the subject. These were no bite scenarios of arrest. We then began discussing various other tactics, until we called the seminar over. Everyone was very interestyed in what we do and why.

The last part of the afternoon was spent handing out certificates and taking a lot of pictures with everyone at the seminar. In 3 days we made some new friends, and even with the language barriers managed to make some jokes that will be remembered. As I travel to ever more places, it strikes me that people do live somewhat differently, but on the whole, it always impresses me how similarly we all live. Despite what you hear on the news in America, people look to America as the example of what prosperity can bring when people are left to their own abilities. They always ask us how we live, what we eat, what our daily routines are like, what cars we drive, and unlike what you may hear in the media, we are still the example of what is posssibe. I think when people have a chance to meet as individuals there is a big difference, as everyone sees how alike they really are at the core.

Even more Pics are up on Photobucket........

Shawn and i woke up and realized we hadn't set our clocks to Atlantic time (Sao Paulo is in the Atlantic time zone, one hour later than EST) so we were a tad late getting to the seminar. However, once we arrived, we were introduced to the ranking Lt. representing the Brazilian Military who welcomed us to Brazail and to the seminar. They actually have a protocol to turn "command" over the instructors, and so we did.

The facility that is hosting the seminar is a large agility center and boarding kennel, and from the street you woud never know how nice a place it was.....there was a full agility field, covered, and lined with astro-turf, and surrounding that pavillion were some training fields. There were swimming pools for the dogs, classroom area, grooming, boarding kennels, and plenty of parking. The owners were also very gracious and hospitable. The agility class was running in the morning when we got there, and I have to say they looked very competitive, and the training looked very tight.

Back to our gig...Seminar attendees wanted to learn how we train narcotics/explosives dogs at TK9 - so we spent the better part of the morning in classroom instruction, with a translator and a white board. We also had some attendees from Argentina so the English was translated into Portuguese, then Portuguese into Spanish.....but surprisingly it all went very well. The attendees all took detailed notes, and asked a number of questions at every hour break. There was a wide variety of experience among the attendees, as some were experienced trainers and some were new handlers.

Once the classroom was finished, we began working the dogs, and we tested a number of the dogs for detection, and the quality of the dogs was generally good. As is usual, they do too much obedience, and supress some of the dogs too much, so we explained how to build the dogs without taking the intensity out with too much obedience and making the dogs too "polite."

Lunch was had at a Cantina in Sao Paulo, buffet style, and we got to try a few new foods. Overall, the food has been delicious. And the hospitality has been tremendous. Both of our hosts Luiz Gabriel and Roberto Bautista, have seen to our needs and have been very gracious.

After lunch, we then ran a test of the more experienced trained dogs on 2 odors with distractor odors in the search area (they requested this, which I was happy to see). Here we saw many of the training issues that began with the young dogs. The handlers were not familiar with off leash searching at all(we tested in an agility ring so it was fenced off), and so they tired the dogs out in the large area with too much presentation and a lack of systematic search patterning. Many of the dogs did not have a strong alert, so the handlers talked the dogs into a number of alerts with Portuguese versions of "is it there?" and "what's that?" - one day a dog in a seminar is going to answer the handler with "Hell if I know, but it seems like you want me to alert right here, so here goes!"

We then showed them how to do independent search work, and the dogs all improved - the one lab danced around like an imbicile because he probably never had so much freedom - but he quickly came to his senses and performed well. It was hard for the handlers to not be involved, but standing back I think they could see their dogs' potential to search more efficiently and search independently.

Shawn then took one of the trained dogs and showed how to handle the dog, and flow in the pattern without stressing the dog or getting in his way, and the malinois performed nicely, and it seemed this helped them understand the handling aspect - The handler manages the search, and the dog does the search.

The day was finished with some work with green dogs, doing some basic drive building as the dogs were of medium intensity. All the dogs seemed to improve, and the participants had a lot of questions about how to proceed. We wrapped in the classroom with a quick summary, and some more questions.

In Brazil, Breakfast is at a normal hour, lunch also at about noon, however, dinner is customarily eaten at 10 or 11pm! By 9:30 pm our host Luiz Gabriel and his wife and daughter picked us up to take us to a big restaurant ... we arrived to one of the largest restaurants I have ever seen.....and the wait at 10:15 at night was estimated to be one and a half hours....we had a drink and decided to go elsewhere to a deli-style restaurant and has some Brasilian Pizza and Cheese-steaks....we had a chance to talk with Luiz Gabriel over dinner and discussed the seminar and how to proceed with the next two days.

On the way home we were informed that we would have a tour of the Military base, Federal Police Training K9 Center and we were going to be interviewed by Brazilian Television on wednesday......So far we are having a great time. I have never had to teach with a translator, and at times it was frustrating, not being able to say things exactly as i would to a US audience, but it has been an education in choosing my words carefully and being brief (not a strong point of mine) but complete in my teaching. At the end of the day i was exhausted, and Shawn was ready to get to the bitework where he will be more directly involved as the teaching helper for the attendees.

Shawn and I were 15 minutes eary to the seminar today.  The classroom was ready, although we still had some technical difficulties with the AV equipment (none available) which meant I had to lecture old school. We began with a discussion of Explosives recognition, and some of the newer advances in explosives training aids including NESTT, Scent-X (TATP & HMTD), and how we structured, specifically, the explosives training regimen. A lot of good questions followed the lecture, and we pressed on to the bitework.

As I began the lecture, discussing prey & defense drives, and drive channelling, one member of the class had some kind of objection to the theory - something to do with dogs don't go in defense in bitework - he was quite vociferous about it all....and then the entire class started arguing with one another about the veracity of what I said....never had such a thing happen in a seminar, so Shawn and I stepped out of the room, had some coffee while they continued to argue, and then when all calmed down, I tried to explain it again (was met with a disapproving look, again) and so I asked him if he had his dog with him (of course he did not) so instead we showed some video of Shawn doing a PSA style courage test, tried to relate a cop running after a suspect to a suspect fighting him for control of his weapon, etc to get the point accross thet defense is real and dogs experience it, and if they don't get trained in defense, they will more likely get run off a grip,

So we asked who had a dog thet could take the pressure seen on the video, and one guy from Argentina said his dog was very strong, so away we went to the agility field, moved some jumps and PSA in Brasil began. After Shawn ran the dog to a one tooth grip in the shoulder, the objections quieted, and we worked the rest of the dogs to introduce defense, teach drive channelling, and in some of the younger dogs, simple prey work, grip building, teaching the adjust, etc....

Lunch was called at about 12:40pm, and we adjourned to the Cantina for another lunch - some new stuff on the menu today (ribs, vegetable tempura, roast beef, abnd various rice preparations). After lunch we drove to the Brazilian equivalent of Costco (about 5 times bigger) and bought some DVDs so we could burn powerpoints, add pics and video clips to them, and that is what Shawn is doing now.

After lunch we discussed training skills of out and redirects, and demonstrated the out with a schutzhund dog who was having some out issues.....which we cleared up rather quickly. Nice solid black and red GSD and a very appreciative handler. We moved to the out with a couple other dogs, and then onto the redirects with the dogs from the Argentinian police. The dogs from Argentina were very powerful Malinois, big and strong, with very good fundamentals. Eartlier in the day we worked these dogs in the shoulder, PSA style, and they responded nicely, pushing into the grips, and moving with rather than against the helper. This afternoon, we  worked on the redirects, using both compulsion to work the out, and also with a couple other dogs, using only motivation to get them out. Some of the dogs with existing out issues, showed some improvement, but will certainly require more training to get the exercise. The exercise itself was well received and new to many.After re-directs we got a couple new people to decoy, one Brazilian and one Argentinian) - and both did very well.

We left re-directs to discuss a tactical application, felony vehicle stops & extractions, and there once again erupted an argument about tactics, cars were moved, bulletproof glass was mentioned, local laws in Sao Paulo that generally prohibit any apprehension bite save for one where the suspect pulls a gun to shoot an officer in plain view of that officer or another one. Once the dust settled we explained how it works in the USA, and they liked to see how we do things, even if they can't do it themselves.

The day ended with a short lecture on tracking by Jerry, and then the Brazilians did their version of a tactical perimetered night track. Unbeknownst to Shawn, they brought 3 dogs into the area, and he ended getting blinded by a flashlight and double dogged without any prior warning.....I guess the language barrier got the better of everyone. Shawn was unscathed. We left for showers at 7:30pm after starting a 9am sharp, so it was a very long day.

Oh, and during one of the coffee breaks, there was a Brasilian Jiu-Jitsu match with Shawn and one of the cops in attendance. Shawn won by tap out from an arm bar in about 10 seconds.......I was pretty impressed and the crowd of Brasilians was pretty shocked. Shawn was happy, it was a nice side note to his trip here.

We had an update on our press appearances (I say that tongue in cheek) but we will be going to the Federal Kennels in Diadema - SP Brasil. Evidently a car is being sent for us to go to the kennel for a tour, and then we will be interviewed by a local reporter. Still a possibility of a TV appearance on wednesday before we leave.

We miss our families, but this is a unique experience. There was talk of another trip in the fall to Rio de Janerio for a seminar for the local authorities in Rio in August of this year. Depending on how things go, maybe another return trip to Brazil.

 Photos are coming.....here is the URL of the photobucket folder where the pictures will be:

http://s412.photobucket.com/albums/pp207/TarheelCanine/Brazil%20Seminar/

Basic E-Collar Training for the Police K-9 - By Jerry Bradshaw

New article in this month in K9 Cop Magazine.....

http://www.k9copmagazine.com/PAGES/whatsinside.cfm

Shawn Edwards & I arrived in Sao Paulo Brazil this morning....9 hour plane ride from Washington Dulles. Weather is pretty mild, high 70s during the day, and showers in the afternoons.....city of 4 million people ... lots of traffic everywhere. Our host Luiz Gabriel of LGK9 picked us up at the airport and brought us to the hotel for some rest and a shower....then we went to a real Brazillian Churriscaria Barbecue a la Fogo de Chao for dinner.

Tomorrow we go to the Military base in the morning to set up for the detection portion of the seminar. There are 40 people registered for the seminar, coming from the Brazilian Military & Federal Police and from Argentine Military and from Chilean Military. We meet with our translator Roberto tonight to go over the details, and tomorrow we let it rip!

I will post pics here as soon as we get them.......

Just a quick wrap up......Ft. Belvoir Patrol Seminar...Dave Colborn and I did a 3 day patrol seminar for the military at Ft. Belvoir - handlers from Belvoir and Ft. Meyer were represented, with about 13 teams all together....both lecture and practical work....we introduced some new techniques for Human Focused Aggression training and redirects....as well as shared some new techniques on the standoff exercise for them to incorporate into training. A lot of time was spent on fundamentals of alert training, passive apprehensions, and civil aggression work.

The HITS conference was a big success as well. TK9 Head Trainer Janet Dooley and I attended, and we had a chance to see some of the TK9 handlers and customers who were attending and spend some time developing new relationships with potential clients at other police agencies.

Jerry presented on "The Power of Reward" to 2 classes, one on tuesday afternoon and one on Wednesday afternoon. We had a great response to the material which covered integrating reward methods into obedience training to improve controil and K9 handler relationship in general. The talk then covered using reward methodologies in the control exercises for aggression  work in out training, developing more reliable recalls and outs (guard and returns) and redirects....

We had an excellent time and also had the opportunity to learn some new things as well to incorporate in our training programs.....

Over the past few weeks I have received contact from a few prospective K9 handlers. The story is the same. Their department had a dog-handler team, and the handler decided to leave, so the dog was passed to them. They tell me they are a certified handler (because they had a dog at one time in the past, evdently) so they  say they don't need a full handler course with this new dog, but want a short course and certification. Here are some facts:

1. There are NO CERTIFIED HANDLERS only certified K9 Teams. No dog? You are not a certified handler. New Dog? You need to be certified again, and recertify each year at roughly the same time (doesn;t need to be to the day, but within a month or so annually).

2. The handler course is for the dog team - allowing the team time to learn one another in a structured training environment. No matter how many dogs you have had in the past, you need to train with the new dog for a sufficient time to learn the dog before going on deployments that matter. If you think your experience with one dog carries over automatically to the new dog, you DON'T have enough experience in K9, and you should avail yourself of a full handler course.

Tarheel Canine accepts K9 teams for handler courses, regardless of if TK9 trained the dog initially. We put you through a 4-week handler course (with the trained dog) and do a certification in the last week, all for the price of $3500 including housing. We also include free lifertie in service and annual recertification for that $3500. Contact Jerry at malinois_jb@mindspring.com for more information.

As a police dog vendor I see a lot of testing of dogs. Here are a couple things I have seen recently that don't make any sense at all.....trust me, I have a million of these....

1. Detection Test: The trainer doing the testing throws 3 or 4 retrieves in a row, where the tester uses a 2nd toy to induce the dog to release after bringing the first one back ...then throwing that second toy, and so on....(ok to this point) then on the 4th throw.....he throws the toy and times how long the dog holds the first toy without dropping it.....and what do a number of the dogs do?....YES, you guessed it, they run to the tester and drop the toy in anticipation of the next throw!! Thus failing the test!!

2. Testing a green patrol dog on a bite suit, and when the dog bites, the trainer doing the testing who is also in the suit, goes passive for the next 3 minutes.....and the dog stays strong in the grip for quite some time then starts getting into a little conflict because nothing he has ever done before in his short life as a biting dog has prepared him to bite a cadaver!

3. Stand in front of a patrol dog candidate, pull  out a bull whip (yes, a real 8 foot long bullwhip) and flail it in helicopter fashion ..... the malinois being tested stood fast and I watched his head circle as his eyes tracked the motion of the whip....when asked what the purpose of that was, the trainer doing the testing said to see how the dog reacted to unfamiliar things.  I would pay to see the stats of how many B&Es are committed with a bullwhip - I guess I'm old school testing on slick floors, tight spaces, and gunfire reaction.....This was clearly the stupidest thing I think I have ever seen.

4. Same trainer, calls his decoy to test the dog on a sleeve, the decoy proceeds to put a left handed bite bar sleeve on his right arm (as his trainer has taught him to do) and the trainer notes the poor bite of the dog, who is literally trying to bite under the sleeve, but has such a bad presentation there was no hope from the start......

4. Same trainer, puts a choke chain and leash on the same green malinois and starts speaking Dutch commands to the dog.....when I say the dog is from Slovakia AND knows no obedience at all, the trainer replies to me...."All dogs know the same language....." and he continued to jerk the collar, and say some bastardized version of "Heel" in Dutch.....with no response from the dog.

....yes I have seen a million of these!

Last week Tarheel Canine hosted Dr. Terry Fleck for a K9 legal update in Baltimore, MD. We attracted close to 60 participants from NY, NJ, PA, MD, DE, VA and NC including handlers, supervisors and a state's attorney.  If you haven't been to a legal update, make arrangements to do so. Not only are the most recent federal cases discussed, but Terry also does research on state case law for the state in which the seminar is held.

I think one of the biggest eye-openers of the seminar for anyone who hasn't been to one before is how the legalities of K9 usage need to impact training. Issues in patrol work such as:  how announcements are given, when such announcements are given during a tactical operation, what kinds of methods should be used in training building searches (as in clear, down and cover which we teach at Tarheel Canine), and where the dog is TARGETED to grip in an apprehension. There will be a blog post on here shortly to discuss both the training and legal reasons why targeting should absolutely be taught, and police dogs should not be taught or encouraged to bite just "anywhere," despite the loads of conventional wisdom to the contrary, and active instruction to the contrary.

I want to thank Terry for his knowledge, insight, and expertise and if you haven't had a chance to work with Terry, visit his website and make contact with him. www.k9fleck.org he will be retiring from his work in 2012 - so take advantage of his expertise while you can.

One of the main things that separates a great K9 handler or trainer from a good K9 handler or trainer, is what I call "Canine Intuition." Canine Intuition is developed through quiet observation, experience, aplying training and problem solving skills with both successful and non-successful outcomes, and a lifetime of being open to learning new ideas and seeking new ways to train efficiently.  The antithesis of this ethic in dog training is the "Know it All." The real experts in our field are self-evident by their accomplishments and the demand for their expertise as teachers, but in my experience these truely accomplished people are open, like to share their knowledge, can admit failure (but don't associate the failure of a training exercise with a personal failure but rather a learning experience of high value), and they tend to give credit to others rather than heap it on themselves. When they see a good idea, instead of criticizing it, they ask questions, they try to adopt it, and tweak it in their own way, but give credit not just privately but publicly to those who had the intutiion first.

The Know it All Canine Handler - This handler, after getting his dog for approximately 2 weeks, has, by some divine intervention, become the world's leading authority on training dogs although he has yet to train even one dog to completion. If a training exercise is not successful, he wants to buck the system and try to do things "his way" - even though he hasn't had enough training experience to anticipate the flaws in his idea of training - usually with disasterous outcome.  These handlers go home with their dogs outside of training and usually do exactly the opposite of what their trainer has told them to do. If the trainer says lay off the obedience, the handler does excessive amounts of obedience. He knows so little, he has no idea how what he does will affect the overall outcome of the dog's training. His one good attribute is his drive to be successful, although it needs to be channelled into openness rather than arrogance.

The Know it All Canine Trainer - This person is in charge of training other people. This person has little humility and a boatload of arrogance. They tend to live in the past of their accomplishments, and do not look to change anything. They most likely started their careers as the "Know it All Canine Handler" and had success and promotion to their present position where they can exercise their authority over others. The know it all feels like less of a success if he didn't develop a technique, or has to admit that it is time to change something he has done for years, and so it becomes easier to criticize new ideas and stagnate. These trainers are usually people who are "Big Fish in a Little Pond" in some region of the country, out of which they rarely venture, because that would put them in the position of having to be faced with new ideas, techniques and approaches. They surround themseves with sycophants who worship them. Look out for these people, because their arrogance is infectious, and they tend to create copies of themselves when training handlers. Remember the bible proverb: "Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall." Humility will, eventually, find you. The fact is that when you open your heart and mind to become a student and not seek to show what you know, or behave arrogantly because you have experience or past success, you grow and change with the times.  You add more to your toolbox as a trainer, and you come to realize that there is always room to improve, change, adapt your training to new knowledge of canine behavior, or new techniques that are proven to work, even though you may not have thought of it first or used it in the past. Embrace your own development and learning.

Seek out trainers with real expertise and standing in our profession, and they will tell you that they have reinvented their training programs many times as they have grown and learned new things. This experience, this openness, is what having canine intuition is all about. Training isn't about "my method" which is an egocentric view of training, but rather training is about doing what is best for the dog and handler team. It is driven by having a successful outcome, no matter who had the idea to fix a problem, or get the dog out of a training issue that was holding the team back. From these experiences a real trainer will simply absorb the experience for the next time.

See Jerry's new article in Police K9 Magazine "The Power of Reward: Obedience" in the March/April issue, available now! If youa re not a subscriber, go to www.policek9magazine.com and subscribe!

Jerry Bradshaw and Tarheel Canine will be at the upcoming HITS conference sponsored by Police K9 Magazine, in Louisville KY in April 2009. Come stop by the booth!!

Tarheel Canine welcomes agencies from around the east coast to the Terry Fleck Legal Update seminar in Baltimore, MD tomorrow at the Ramada Inn at the BWI airport.

Schedule your legal update with Terry Fleck at www.k9fleck.org

I have been slack in completing my New Year’s Training Resolutions (what’s new? They are New Year’s resolutions) that I started on this blog in January. I completed the first two in that original post, and now included are 3-5, and so for completeness, I have all of them here in one place:

1. Establish Goals
2. Break Down Training into Steps
3. Train from the result to the start (Back Chaining)
4. Anticipate Outcomes and set up for success
5. Use more Reward, and Compel Efficiently

Establish Goals

Too many police dog handlers fail to establish goals, whether for a training session they are about to begin, or for a more medium term goal such as the dog indicating on a high find deep in a building on a building search. As a handler you need to take control of your training program and understand why you are doing a particular exercise in a particular way. You should set up training to achieve specific, defined goals. Don’t just set out drug hides to run the dog on without regard for difficulty or objectives you may have in training. In every session you should be working on particular skills, such as the alert, or the searching behavior, or ignoring distractions you set up such as food or novel odors to proof the dog’s odor recognition. Training record forms set us up for lazy training: We fill in drug odors and amounts, and rate performance. Don’t confuse your records with training goals. Know what your dog needs to improve upon, and note it in the narratives, and then set up training to directly address those weaknesses. Set up training to reinforce strengths as well. You should be able to state your training goals with your dog for every skill set he possesses at any time. If you can’t do that, start thinking about it so that you can. Write down everything you want your dog to be capable of doing (within reason) and set those as long term goals. Then decide how to break each goal into a set of manageable training steps you can consistently train.

Break Down Training into Small Steps

 Let’s say a dog has an issue you are addressing in training. Say the dog is having trouble with the bark alert in the building search. If the alert is the problem, we need repetition of the alert to train and condition the response we want. So set up your session to address that specific issue. Having the dog search a giant building for one alert opportunity is inefficient and lacks focus, and is poor training planning because it fails to break down the training to focus on the issue your dog needs to have addressed. A simple search problem which will not tire the dog out and an easy find is what we want to create so we can concentrate on training the alert behavior. As the alert behavior becomes a habit, we can slowly make the search problem more complex, and if the alert maintains, we add further complexity. I hear so many times how handlers have been “working hard” on an issue and the dog isn’t responding, but working hard and working smart are two different things. You can dig a ditch with an ice pick, and yes, you will work hard at it and it will take a lot of time. Training must be goal oriented, and the session must be focused to achieve those goals, and this is accomplished by breaking the problems down into small manageable concepts and training in a progression, step by step.

 Train from the Result to the Start (Back Chaining)

One of the biggest novice mistakes in training is to train a sequence of behaviors in the same order that you view them in the final result. For example, when sending a dog to search for a suspect in a building search and perform a hold and bark on the hidden subject, the biggest mistake you can make is to not train from the result backwards to the start.

 Let’s take an even simpler version of this exercise, the hold and bark in a Schutzhund I. The dog searches 2 blinds one blank (first) then comes around and is sent to the hot blind where the decoy is passive, and the dog must bark at him for a fair bit if time before disengaging.

 I start with the dog on the back-tie developing the barking behavior – barking brings the decoy to the dog. The bark must be developed to the extent that the dog will bark at the decoy for the period of time defined in the rules, and this is developed with variable reward for the length of time the dog is barking with a grip reward.

 The decoy starts at a distance from the dog from behind or inside the blind. He moves on each bark in a quick prey-like step toward the dog for each, or every other bark, until the decoy is a step or two away, and on a good bark, give the grip as a reward. When the dog does this easily, every time, drawing the decoy our of the blind to him, and barking at him on a loose line when the decoy is within striking distance (this in itself is a process – getting the dog to settle in close), we can then transition to sends to the decoy. We start close to the decoy, first from only a few feet away (I like to do it on slick floors to control the dog easily without a lot of correction). Then the handler moves back from the decoy around the blind in the direction he wants the dog to run.

This is repeated systematically, using reward and correction (also varying fly-out bites with hold and barks of variable length followed by a reward grip), until the handler and dog are all the way to the start position called for in the trial rules – i.e., we have moved away from the decoy, around blind #5 (empty in the trial) back into the middle of the field.  The result, a hold and bark in the blind, is developed by starting at the result, and working backwards toward the start position.

 The building search for a police dog is developed with the same process, although there are some more variables that have to be accounted for.

Anticipate Outcomes and set up for Success

 A good trainer anticipates outcomes. Training is by definition setting up a process for the dog to complete where we, as closely as possible, set up the scenario such that we insure the outcome that we want, and we repeat this again and again to condition the response.

 For example, when training or maintaining a dog to out on command, I always have a line on the dog, ready for correction if the dog fails to comply, and I always have a reward (grip) available for rewarding the out when completed properly, no matter what scenario I am working on. Let’s say I am training a building search, and I send in the dog and he locates the bad guy, and we throw open the door for a grip, and then after a good fight we are ready to out the dog – but we have no way to enforce the command because there is no line on the dog – should you be surprised if he fails to out on command? The dog will learn in what context you are able to influence him, and in what context you are not.

 What I do is affix a short correction line on the dog once the dog is on the grip during the fight with the decoy so that either myself or my “back up officer” – just another trainer - on the apprehension can make a correction if the dog does not out, and if he does, the decoy will give him another grip as a reward for the release. No matter what I am working on with my dog in training, there must ALWAYS be a way to make the dog comply, and as well a way to reward compliance. I am ALWAYS anticipating the possibility of non-compliance, and setting up the training session to achieve the outcome I desire – clean outing in every context. I never rely on the dog to “be good” I always assume non-compliance, and am pleased to reward when that assumption is wrong! Imagine if your training as a cop was to assume suspects were unarmed, and rely on them to not take advantage of that assumption! Yet there are handlers who work their dogs with no way to ensure outcomes all the time in training!

 Use More Reward, and Compel Efficiently

 In 2009 I hope to get police dog handlers to use more reward in general. Forget about the old idea that praise is enough for the dog. This is outdated nonsense. When will you stop working for a paycheck and work for only praise from your superiors and the public? Tangible rewards (Ball, Jute roll, grips – or money for you) are far more effective in motivating behavior than praise. The idea that praise is enough is based on an ego-centric notion of the alpha - that your dog somehow lives to please you, the “great master.” Get over yourself right now, and give your dog something he really wants!  Not that praise isn’t nice, but to your high-drive K9, a jute roll and a vigorous game of tug is much more satisfying!

 And when you do have to correct, for a dog’s willful disobedience, do it efficiently. Don’t nag your corrections, do it once, get compliance, and then reward that compliance. Dogs will go down the easiest path. Make that path a clear one in terms of what to avoid doing (with correction) and what to perform (reward).

 Look for my article “The Power of Reward Part 1: Obedience” in the current issue of Police K9 Magazine which discusses in detail how to use reward in your obedience training to powerful effect!

I recently watched one of those police shows on spike where the Special Enforcement Unit did a drug raid, and then they called in a drug dog. The dog searched very nicely off leash without interference from the handler, until the dog grabbed a hold of a duffle bag and then started scratching and biting it, with the handler encouraging the behavior with "Did you find the drugs?"  and "Get it boy!"....before opening the bag. If you ask your dog a question, and he answers you, please seek professional help. But be careful with overpraising and rewarding on the street!

I see this all the time with handlers praising their dog and even rewarding with a toy for an UNCONFIRMED alert - meaning the handler has no idea if he just rewarded the dog for finding drugs, being frustrated and tearing something up, or for locating with excellent precision, a ham sandwich.

No matter how reliable your dog is, rewarding unconfirmed finds on the street is likely to cause false alerting somewhere down the road, because no matter how good your dog is, he will eventually alert on something at some time, that isn't cotnraband. he is a dog and is not perfect.

The proper approach to a street alert is to gently praise the dog off the find, place him in a down or walk him away and confrm the alert. If the dog is correct, allow him to search from a different angle than he did previously (disorienting the dog so he doesn't run to the location on memory but rather searches with his nose) and then when you get the  alert on confirmed contraband reward him with a toy and generous praise. This brings your reward system into the variable stage and will make your dog's alert behavior stronger and stronger.

You can spot a seasoned detection handler by how he approaches a search area, whether on a deployment or in a certification. They look at their area before they leap into action. New handlers tend to step off at 100 miles an hour into a search problem before giving a moment's thought to how to approach the problem. Here are some tips:

1. Survey the area you will search and identify your anchor points. Determine if you will free search, scan, or direct the search. If you can't free search or scan, your training is incomplete, so learn from someone who can how to teach your dog to do all three.

2. If trained properly with well thought out hide placement, and the dog has a nicely conditioned search pattern to locate productive areas, you won't have to be too involved so you will likely scan or free search (safety is a consideration). Then your role is to note where he doesn't go, and where he does go, and complete the pattern with this knowledge and some direction.

3. Identify your hazards, to you and the dog with a safety check before proceeding as well.

4. Identify obstacles to a thorough search: something preventing your dog from going deep into an area, or high into another , or low somewhere.

5. Read the Air: Understand the likely air movement and ventilation of the area, both mechanical and physical. Are there vacuums created with gaps under or over exterior doors, where scent might gravitate? Are there intakes or vents in the area that might push or pull scent? Is the wall (sun beating down on it from behinde, say) or window near your search area relatively cold or relatively warm compared with the rest of the room, thus inducing convection currents?

5. Note places you will particularly want to present high or low, because of the air movement or ventilation. 

6. Then start your search, and watch your dog and read his behavior. Think about each search problem thoroughly prior to starting. It will likely take less than a minute to notice all of these things.

If you have trained like you should have, you will trust him. If you haven't trained like you should have, make a commitment to be better than you have been, but don't get pissed at your dog. He's not the one who would rather watch the game than train.

Have you ever got into a verbal altercation with another person who argues back very forcefully, or turns the argument around to attack you? Yes, we all have, and usually it makes you even angrier, and prolongs the fight.

Have you ever gotten into a similar argument with someone, who instead of arguing back, or turning it around on you, says something like "I see you are upset, please don't yell at me, let's talk about it," and they keep a calm, non-combative, demeanor? It diffuses the argument, and puts you back on a productive road.

Relate this to dealing with your police dog. Do you have a dog who sometimes comes up the leash out of frustration, or reactivity to a correction? In the old days, we were instructed to not let the dog "win," by fighting fire with fire, if you get my drift. But the real work of solving handler aggression does not come in the moments when we see handler aggression, it comes in how we structure the relationship with the dog in the 99% of the time when he isn't showing us handler aggressive behavior. You need to learn K9 Judo rather than K9 Karate. Reject the model of the Alpha, and learn the model of the Super Alpha.

What if instead of going full bore, you stay calm, hold the dog up a little, and then calmy redirect him into some obedience. Give him something to do with his conflict - sit, or down or heel with you a little - before you address the issue that caused the argumant in the first place.  What if in the time in between these episodes you set the dog up tfor te kind of relationship where he is eager to show you the deference you want him to show you. Here are some tips:

1. Disorient his expectations, and set the dog up to have to show deference to get anything he desires, including affection, rewards, food, etc.  (including toys, bite sessions).

2. Use obedience as a pre-cursor to his favorite activities or those where he gives you problems (e.g. obedience for bites).

3. Keep a level head – leaders do not explode with anger. Be results oriented, and do not become upset if you need a few trials to get the desired behaviors. Regiment his life. He makes no decisions, and he makes no choices on his own.

4. Use negative punishment to reduce unwanted behaviors (dominance behaviors). Positively reinforce appropriate behaviors. Use rewards in obedience (food rewards work well – little chance of fighting over possession of the reward).

5. Focus on the pre-cursors to aggressive responses, and plan your training to set yourself up to win any possible confrontations. (e.g. You know he gets frustrated and impulsive prior to bite work, and challenges your authority to control him).

6. Desensitize the dog to triggers (e.g. corrections, by focusing the dog outwardly during the use of physical correction, and planning ahead).

If anyone would like more information on this topic, email Jerry at malinois_jb@mindspring.com for a copy of the powerpoint presentation on this subject of handler aggression and dominance in Police K9s.

The book continues to get good reviews and feedback from police K9 schools, and trainers from as far away as Finland's customs service who we met at the Vegas Law Dog Conference.

Link to the publisher's site:

http://www.lulu.com/content/paperback_book/controlled_aggression/2317473

For large bulk orders for police K9 classes, please e-mail Jerry at malinois_jb@mindspring.com There is a substantial discount for bulk and educational orders.

Thank you to those who have purchased the book and given me feedback!

 Dominance aggression is usually shown by male dogs (85% of cases) and is most intense as social maturity is approached (2-2.5 yrs). Social maturity takes a lot longer to arrive than sexual maturity. This means that with the typical dog in a police training program, you can expect dominance aggression to rear its head later in your relationship than sooner if you are starting with a young dog (12-16 months).

Dominance aggression is both genetic and learned. The genetic component is formed while still in the womb when a testosterone surge “masculanizes” the brain. If no testosterone surge occurs, a female brain is created. Therefore, castration has little effect on correcting this behavior. However, since the behavior is also partly a learned behavior, extinction, to some degree is still possible.

 Dogs tend to direct their dominance aggression toward those that are threats to their social position (i.e. the K9 handler, or family members if the dog is allowed to interact with the family). Because family members interact with the dog less often than the handler, they are often perceived as passive and generally submissive from the dog’s point of view, thus easy targets for the dog to exert and "try out" dominant aggressive behaviors. For these reasons we suggest limiting all free interaction with the family, and only supervised, limited interaction until all the obedience training and drive focusing training is completed.

Common Triggers of Dominance Aggression: K9 Handlers must learn how to desensitize their dogs to these triggers.

n      Affection

n      Placing or removing collars/leads which initiate control on the dog.

n      Punishment (staring/discipline).

n      Withholding rewards (e.g. keeping the dog under obedience when he thinks he may do bite work).

n      Grooming (Postural)

n      Can be context driven (e.g. place associated)

n      Can be psychologically dominant and physically submissive (e.g. allow physical touching/handling).

n      Handler Over-protectiveness.

n      Can be psychologically dominant yet physically submissive.  

If you are having problems with dominance aggression with your police dog, email Jerry at malinois_jb@mindspring.com for a copy of his power-point presentation on the subject which includes strategies for reducing this response in your police K9.

I saw a detection handler training tip on another website (www.caninesolution.com) which said "Take control when you have to, not because you want to."

For new K9 handlers, this is often one of the hardest things to do, which is to allow your dog to work without influencing him. Your detection dog is trained to search an area, locate a scent cone and work into source, and if properly trained, he won't likely need your help. In fact, intervening will more than likely break his concentration and take his mind off of the problem he was solving and put it on you.

In detection, tracking, building searches, your dog is the one with the capability to solve the problem (nose) not you, and so you must let him work it out.  Another tip on the website said, "Searches are 90% dog and 10% you." I agree. Keep out of his way, use your eyes to note areas he missed - your function is as his spotter - so you can make sure he makes a complete search of an area. Your function is not to solve the problem.

You need to work on known hides and known blank areas in training in order to learn your dog's behavior and behavior changes when searching - if you do this you will soon develop the confidence to allow him to work uninfluenced.

This article is meant to get you to think about your training, and is not a how-to or fix-it article, but one meant to get you to think about what you would do to make more out of your training time. I will expand the article in the near future to cover the remedies for these problems outlined below.

Recently at a police K9 decoy seminar I spoke to the decoys about how to organize their inservice training time more efficiently.  I asked them how they set up their building search training, and as usual, during an an service day a building search scenario is set up and the dog is sent into the building and it is "one and done."

I asked them to think about how a building search is broken down: (1) Taking the Start (2) Searching and Locating the Subject and (3) Indicating that Location. Then I asked them how many times they ever, in training after their academy, separated out the 3 components and trained each one of them with sufficient repetitions to allow the dog to actually improve in either one of the areas.

When approached in this way, you can actually set up training to make progress, but only if you work repeatedly on the same concept, instead of always training the whole. One exercise which incorporates one repetition of all three components does little to help improve any one of the individual skills.

Supose your dog takes the start poorly, perhaps goes in the building after you release him with little enthusiasm, or in fact gets confused and shows a behavior like searching for narcotics, or he looks to the handler to help him out. The typical remedy is to show him the decoy, and then send him in, but this creates a dependency on what we call "hot" starts, where the dog associates the behavior with the visual or auditory stimulation of the decoy. This is necessary initially in developing the behavior, but must be faded out of the cue for the start before we can say we have a finished exercise. Once the decoy appears the dog may search with enthusiasm and locate and indicate well. But this is moot if the start doesn't go well. The answer is that you must train his start, to be sure that each time you deploy, he is in the right frame of mind. You need exercises to improve how he takes the start, because if he can't take a cold start (by cold I mean without any stimulation, as he would for a hidden subject) it doesn't matter how well he searches or locates or indicates. This training requires repetitions, and needs to be separated out of the rest of the building search and trained with sufficient repetition to develop a solid and reliable behavior.

The same can be said about tracking. I have seen a number of dogs that, once on the track, track well, and locate their subject easily, however, they have a hard time actually casting and locating the track. This, taking a cold start on a track, or taking a cold start on a building search for that matter, is a skill unto itself that needs to be developed.

Now, expand how you think about your building search training to include the other two areas: Searching and Indication. Many dogs I see usually have one part of the whole that is weaker than the others. This is normal for any K9 team. If this is the case you need to get multiple repetitions on the weak link in order to develop the entire skill.

Terry Fleck’s K9 Legal Update

March 11, 2009

Baltimore, MD

Presenter: Terry Fleck, Sheriff’s Deputy II, El Dorado County Sheriff’s Department, CA

www.k9fleck.org

This seminar is presented by Terry Fleck, deputy sheriff and canine handler (retired) and author of the Canine Legal Update and Opinions for supervisors and administrators plus patrol, narcotic and contraband, explosives, tracking, search and rescue and accelerant dog teams. This seminar has been taught nationwide to over 21,000 students. Praised for reducing canine unit liability and increasing K-9 officer safety, this seminar has been updated and is now available.

This one day course will address the following issues:

• Canine deployment issues
• Canine policy
• Report writing
• Handler compensation Issues
• Accidental bites
• Canines as a less-lethal force
• Extensive case law on canine applications
• Canine training
• Vicarious liability issues
• Narcotic and contraband canine case law
• Explosive canine case law
• Tracking canine case law

The course will address the legal issues of canine usage, canine tactics, and the prevention of litigation.

TERRY FLECK

Deputy Sheriff II / Canine Handler (Ret.)

South Lake Tahoe, California

Terry Fleck, Ed.D, is a Deputy Sheriff II / Canine Handler (retired) in South Lake Tahoe, California. Terry has been in law enforcement for 27 years and has been involved with police dogs during that time. Terry has been a police dog handler and trainer for 26 years and has trained and handled three police dogs, patrol dogs cross-trained for search and rescue, narcotic detection, evidence recovery, cadaver recovery, avalanche recovery and tracking / trailing.

Terry is an expert in canine legalities. Author of the Canine Legal Update and Opinions for supervisors & administrators plus patrol, narcotic & contraband, explosive, tracking, search & rescue and accelerant dogs, Terry tracks and updates the canine industry on current case law and legal trends.

With a degree of Doctor of Education in Criminal Justice, Terry teaches Canine Legal Update and Opinions Seminars throughout the United States and Canada. He has taught over 21,000 canine handlers, supervisors, administrators, agency attorneys, prosecuting attorneys and risk managers nationwide. His classes focus on canine legalities, the prevention of canine litigation and canine tactics.

Terry is also an expert in canine tactics. He studies canine tactics and develops techniques to keep canine handlers safe, utilizing their dogs to maximum tactical advantage. In addition, Terry teaches several canine tactical seminars, including Defensive Tactics for K-9 teams, Tactical High Risk K-9 Tracking, High Risk Vehicle Stops and High Risk Vehicle Assaults with a K-9 Team, Chemical Munitions Deployment with a K-9 Team and Tactical Handgun and Urban Rifle Techniques for K-9 Teams.

Legal Update Registration Form.

Send to: Tarheel Canine Training, Inc., Legal Update Registration, PO Box 1694, Sanford, NC 27330. For any questions, please call Jerry Bradshaw at 919-774-4152 or 919-244-8044. See below for the schedule of events on March 11, 2009. This seminar is limited to Law Enforcement Personnel ONLY. Pre-registration is required by March 4, 2009.

Name _________________________________________________________________

Rank __________________________________________________________________

Agency Affiliation _______________________________________________________

Address ___________________________________ State__________ Zip ____________

Tel # ____________________ (C) ____________________ (W)

E-Mail_____________________________________________

The Seminar Fee $175, and includes a catered lunch.

Make Checks Payable to Tarheel Canine Training, Inc.

Tarheel Canine Training also accepts, Purchase Orders, Visa, MC, Amex & Discover.

To pay by credit card please call Jerry Bradshaw at 919-244-8044.

Return Registration Form & Seminar Fee of $175 to:

Tarheel Canine Training, Inc.

Legal Update Seminar Registration

PO Box 1694, Sanford, NC 27330.

 ____________________________________________________________________ 

Ramada Inn, BWI Airport

7253 Parkway drive

Hanover, MD 21076

www.bwiramada.com/index.htm

Hotel Rooms are blocked for overnight stays before and after the conference until 2 weeks prior to the seminar. Please contact the hotel directly and ask for the K9 Legal Update Seminar rate.

Schedule

Date: March 11, 2009

Time: 8am – 5pm (Check-in starting at 7am) Lunch from 12:00pm – 1:00pm

Location: Ramada BWI Airport, 7253 Parkway Drive, Hanover MD 21076

Rooms: $99 includes continental breakfast

Phone: 410-712-4300

Fax: 410-712-0921

Cost: $175 includes all materials and a full catered lunch.

Pre-registration is required by March 4, 2009

*Limited Capacity*

Questions/Contact:

Jerry Bradshaw

Tarheel Canine Training, Inc.

Malinois_jb@mindspring.com

Tel. 919-244-8044 (cell)

Fax. 443-817-0761

Seminar is classroom only. Please, no dogs in classroom.

Tarheel Canine Training Inc – Police K9 Decoy Seminar

Jerry Bradshaw, Tarheel Canine Training Inc., Instructor

Kingsport Police Department

 Please wear comfortable athletic clothing that you would normally decoy in. I recommend wearing cleats or duty boots for outdoor work, and sneakers or duty boots for indoor work. Please bring water and keep hydrated. If you have your own suit, bring it with you. Thursday and Friday will be COLD! Dress warmly.

Wednesday January 14, 2009

7:30am – Meet & Coffee

8:00am – Introduction & Foundation Theory

9:30am – 12:30pm - Field Work –Training Area - Outside

·         Equipment Orientation

·         Decoy’s Goals (Bite Mechanics, Searching, Independence)

·         Working in the Sleeve - Safety & Mechanics (no dogs)

·         Working in the Suit – Safety & Mechanics (no dogs)

·         Working in the Hidden Sleeve – Safety & Mechanics (no dogs)

·         Working in the Sleeve – Catch Mechanics & Drives

·         Working in the Suit – Catch Mechanics & Drives

·         Working in the Hidden Sleeve – Catch Mechanics & Drives

12:30am – 1:00pm – Lunch Break (Eat Lightly)

1:00pm – 3:30pm - Field Work – K9 Unit Training Area

·         Continuation of Mechanics (Sleeve, Suit, Hidden Sleeve)

·         Decoying Skills – Passive bites (suit)

·         Decoying Skills – Out on Command (out/guard )

3:30pm – 4:30pm – Debrief – Conference Room K9 Unit Training Area

4:30pm – 5:00pm – Clean up and Dismissal

January 15 2009

7:30am – Meet & Coffee

8:00am – Theory: Human Focused Aggression & Decoying Search Skills

9:30am – 12:30pm - Field Work – K9 Unit Training Area - Outside

·         Civil Aggression

·         Human Orientation – Decoy Mechanics (sleeve, suit, hidden sleeve)

·         Human Orientation – Muzzle Work

·         Search Skills – Area Searches

12:30am – 1:00pm – Lunch Break (Eat Lightly)

1:00pm – 2:00pm - Theory: Redirects, Out & Return & Call-offs – Classroom

2:00pm – 4:30pm - Field Work – Building (TBA)

·         Decoying Skills – Redirects (suit)

·         Decoying Skills - Out & Returns (suit)

·         Decoying Skills – Call-offs (suit)

·         Injecting skills training into scenarios

4:30pm – 5pm – Debrief – Classroom

5:00pm – 5:30pm – Clean up and Dismissal

January 16 2009

7:30am – Meet & Coffee

8:00am – Theory: Decoying Scenarios & Integrating Key Skills – Back Chaining

9:30am – 12:30pm - Field Work – Building Search – Building (TBA)

·         Building Search Decoy Techniques

·         Building Search & Passive Bites with Human Orientation & Out Training

12:30am – 1:00pm – Lunch Break (Eat Lightly)

1:00pm – 2:00pm - Theory: Redirects, Out & Return & Call-offs – Classroom

2:00pm – 4:30pm - Field Work – Outside

·         Jump & Run Scenarios

·         Felony Vehicle Stop Scenarios (permitting)

·         Area Search with Human orientation

·         Remediation Issues

4:30pm – 5pm – Debrief – Classroom

5:00pm – 5:30pm – Clean up and Dismissal

Any other questions, please contact Jerry Bradshaw, 919-244-8044.

One of the biggest issues in police dog training is how the dog handles surprise attacks. If you are a police officer, you can know intellectually if you go into a particular place under a particular set of circumstances, that a surprise attack may be likely on your person, so you mentally and physically can gear up for the possibility prior to entering the situation. Unfortunately, too often, we assume our dogs should just “be ready” for such an eventuality if they have sufficient “courage.” They don’t have the benefit of our intellectual ability, so they rely on previous experience just like we make logical assessments. The problem is, a dog can get caught in the wrong frame of mind, and his defense mechanism might shift him into avoidance if he is not prepared in training. Too many dogs can get caught off-guard in a surprise attack scenario because they have not been properly prepared for it.  Foundation training should include proper defense training basics, so the dog is capable of dealing with threat by becoming aggressive, but sometimes we forget to actually train a young the dog to deal with the shock of a surprise attack, even though he is courageous. As a police dog matures, he becomes familiar with contexts through his experience, such as dark buildings and area searches at night, where he may be taken by surprise, and the conditioning he has had to these situations in the past gear him up mentally prior to being deployed. However, a young dog straight out of the training academy needs continued training in these situations. Too often inexperienced trainers do a “let’s see what happens” and they do a surprise attack on a dog doing a search exercise in a dark room with slick floors, and on top of it they also throw some strange object at the dog or threaten him with it. The dog shows hesitation and maybe doesn’t engage and goes into a displacement mode (see Controlled Aggression by the author for an explanation of defense training and channeling methods:  http://www.lulu.com/content/2317473), and the conclusion is drawn that the dog is perhaps not courageous. You can’t draw reasonable conclusions from bad training.

The surprise attack defense should be trained in a systematic progression. It doesn’t take very long at all for the dog to generalize to any situation and any distraction if a systematic approach is taken in the beginning. Behaviorally, we are simply trying to de-condition the dog to the surprise attack (suppress the startle reflex) first. Then, during the catch and drive, distractions can be introduced, that have already been trained in a more controlled situation, like on a back tie. Thus when the dog sees these on the surprise attack, he should be well used to them. These environmental distractions include: jugs of water, jugs with pennies or stones in them, sticks, large objects, water hoses, etc. The basic training progression I like to use can be employed as follows:

(1)   Place the dog in a sit stay away (20’) from a hiding place, handler at the dog’s side, holding the dog on leash on an agitation collar. The decoy jumps out and agitates defensively, fades away from the dog and the dog is released into the grip. Decoy works the dog in channeling multiples before the dog is disengaged.

(2)    Place the dog in a sit stay closer to the hiding place, decoy jumps out and agitates defensively, send dog earlier and earlier until the dog is being sent on the decoy standing still (not fading) but still agitating defensively. Be sure to change contexts often in the beginning so he knows that surprise attacks can come anywhere, and he is being set up for success.

(3)   Place the dog in a sit stay away (20’) from the hiding place, decoy jumps out agitating defensively, slowly charging the dog, release the dog on the approach of the decoy. Decoy catches the dog and works in prey first. Decoy works the dog in channeling multiples before the dog is disengaged.

(4)   Place the dog in a sit stay closer to the hiding place, decoy jumps out and quickly charges the dog defensively, dog is released ever closer to the decoy as he approaches. Decoy catches the dog and works the dog into a defensive drive after the catch. Slowly integrate the distractions in the drive, and variably increase the intensity and duration of the defensive drives. Decoy works the dog in channeling multiples before the dog is disengaged.

(5)   Place the dog close to a hiding place, decoy charges the dog from the front, from behind, or the side, dog is allowed to release on his own into the charging decoy. The decoy works the dog in ever-stronger defensive drives (variable in intensity and duration over time), then proceeds into prey and channeling multiples before the dog is disengaged.

(6)   If the dog can heel, heel around, and once in a while, have the attack come during heeling. Practice heeling past familiar hiding places with no handler attack. If you do too many handler attacks from heeling, the dog will anticipate the attacks and want to go to the hiding place and break heel position.

(7)   Put the dog into search scenarios only when he is dealing with surprise attacks powerfully without searching. Then do simple search problems and lower the surprise intensity somewhat as we are introducing a new variable. Variably increase the attack intensity, and increase the difficulty of the search problems.

This kind of handler defense exercise will make the dog very alert to his surroundings. It is critical that the dog begin to be exposed to environments that are more stressful than his regular training area. For police dogs, these exercises should be done in and around buildings, parking lots, in dark rooms and in tight places, and these places should be introduced early in the process and varied a lot while you are still fading from the initial attacks. Attacks from behind doors will also get the dog used to looking around doorways for threats, and is a good initial step before teaching formal building searches if you haven’t already done that yet.

It is critical to remember, that if you change the dog’s environment that will add its own defensive pressure, and you will be working with somewhat less of a defensive margin. The decoy should be aware to read the dog’s body and grip, and work to increase the dog’s confidence in these exercises, and the general defensive pressure builds up in scenario-based exercises. As a rule of thumb, always expect that the dog will likely have a problem, so you as the handler and/or decoy are prepared if the dog shows difficulty handling the defensive pressure of these scenarios, and you can slide into prey, or drop to the ground during the fight to increase the dogs confidence. A poor decoy will just keep on coming and cause terrible damage to a young dog in training. Use an experienced decoy who can read a dog and make adjustments. Be sure to discuss the training scenario before actually doing it, and discuss what might go wrong, and what the decoy is to do if something does go wrong. This is pre-planning.

When catching the dog in the handler attack, decoys should be careful not to position their hands too close to the target area. There should be an opening for the dog to come to the shoulder (if you train inside bites), especially when first training the dog with fades. The dog’s momentum will initiate the decoy to absorb the dog, and the decoy should not spin the shoulder away from the dog as he enters.

The following seminar dates have been set up. For more information email Jerry Bradshaw at malinois_jb@mindspring.com

January 2009

Police K9 Decoy Seminar - Kingsport TN - January 14, 15, 16 2009

Police K9 Decoy Seminar - Westwego Louisiana (New Orleans) - January 21, 22, 23 2009

February 2009

Law Dog Conference - Las Vegas NV - February 23 - 26 2009 (TK9 will attend as a vendor)

March 2009

K9 Legal Update Seminar with Terry Fleck - Baltimore MD - March 11, 2009

Police K9 Decoy Seminar - Montgomery TWP PA (Philadelphia) - March 24, 25, 26 2009

April 2009

Police K9 Magazine HITS Conference - April 20 - 23 2009 (www.policek9magazine.com) - Jerry will speak on "The Power of Reward" in Police K9 Training.

Military and Police K9 Seminar - LGK9 Sao Paulo Brazil - April 25-28 2009 ( www.lgk9brazil.com.br )

May 2009

Police K9 Decoy Seminar - Paducah KY - Elite K9 Sponsor - Date TBA (www.elitek9.com)

Summer 2009

Police K9 Seminar - National Association of Security Dog Users of Australia (NASDU) - Date TBA www.nasdu.com.au

If your agency is interested in a seminar, please contact Jerry Bradshaw at malinois_jb@mindspring.com Seminar slots for the hosting agency are free, and there is minimal cost to hosting a seminar on Police K9 Decoy, High Risk Deployments, Advanced Detection, or using E-Collar for Ultimate Performance. Jerry is also available for custom designed seminars.

Over the next few posts I want to discuss 5 New Year’s Resolutions for Police Dog Training. Today I will discuss the first two:

1. Establish Goals
2. Break Down Training into Steps
3. Train from the result to the start (Back Chaining)
4. Anticipate Outcomes and set up for success
5. Use more Reward, and Compel Efficiently

 Establish Goals

Too many police dog handlers fail to establish goals, whether for a training session they are about to begin, or for a more medium term goal such as the dog indicating on a high find deep in a building on a building search. As a handler you need to take control of your training program and understand why you are doing a particular exercise in a particular way. You should set up training to achieve specific, defined goals. Don’t just set out drug hides to run the dog on without regard for difficulty or objectives you may have in training. In every session you should be working on particular skills, such as the alert, or the searching behavior, or ignoring distractions you set up such as food or novel odors to proof the dog’s odor recognition. Training record forms set us up for lazy training: We fill in drug odors and amounts, and rate performance. Don’t confuse your records with training goals. Know what your dog needs to improve upon, and note it in the narratives, and then set up training to directly address those weaknesses. Set up training to reinforce strengths as well. You should be able to state your training goals with your dog for every skill set he possesses at any time. If you can’t do that, start thinking about it so that you can. Write down everything you want your dog to be capable of doing (within reason) and set those as long term goals. Then decide how to break each goal into a set of manageable training steps you can consistently train.

Break Down Training into Small Steps

Let’s say a dog has an issue you are addressing in training. Say the dog is having trouble with the bark alert in the building search. If the alert is the problem, we need repetition of the alert to train and condition the response we want. So set up your session to address that specific issue. Having the dog search a giant building for one alert opportunity is inefficient and lacks focus, and is poor training planning because it fails to break down the training to focus on the issue your dog needs to have addressed. A simple search problem which will not tire the dog out and an easy find is what we want to create so we can concentrate on training the alert behavior. As the alert behavior becomes a habit, we can slowly make the search problem more complex, and if the alert maintains, we add further complexity. I hear so many times how handlers have been “working hard” on an issue and the dog isn’t responding, but working hard and working smart are two different things. You can dig a ditch with an icepick, and yes, you will work hard at it and it will take a lot of time. Training must be goal oriented, and the session must be focused to achieve those goals, and this is accomplished by breaking the problems down into small manageable concepts and training in a progression, step by step.

Tarheel Canine will be providing a trained explosives dog to the Baltimore City Police Department on December 14 2009. The funds for this purchase were graciously provided by the Quarterback for the Pittsburgh Steelers, Ben Roethlisberger through his charitable foundation.

It just so happens that I have been a fan of the Steelers since first getting cable TV at my childhood home in Monticello, NY which was just an hour or so away from the NY/PA state line. We were fortunate to get the cable station out of Scranton PA, and so I began watching the Steelers every sunday. It is a huge thrill to be able to provide ths dog to Baltimore City with a grant from the quarterback of my favorite team!

Visit the foundation website for more information on grants for police dogs through the Roethlisberger foudation:

http://www.bigben7.com/foundation.aspx

Jerry Bradshaw, President, Tarheel Canine

Question: I just certified my new dog, he is the third dog I have worked in my 16 years as a handler. The dog is a 3 year old imported German Sheperd that was sold to us a titled dog. I really do not know what he was titled in but he obviously had prior training. Overall he is doing well but he has an annoying trait I cannot seem to correct. When he heals he wraps himself around my leg and looks up at me, to the point it is hard to walk without tripping over him. I know in some sport dog circles this is desired, but I think a police dog should heel next to the handler paying attention to what’s in front of him. I have had him 7 months and have not been able to break this. Any ideas?

 Answer: This is one of those behaviors that is heavily ingrained in an IPO or Schutzhund dog, and is called an attention or focused heel and is part of the rules of that sport. Police officers don’t tend to like it because of the crowding, or because they are not used to it. I submit to you, however, that in many circumstances you can probably work around distractions much better than many of your counterparts who don’t have an attention heel. Example: You arrive on a scene that has a number of people making loud gestures and screaming and crying. Having an attention heel, when your dog gets out of the car you can keep him from loading on these people. They may be loud and seemingly aggressive, although non threatening, but you can focus him on you and keep him from alerting unnecessarily. In my estimation it is a very handy behavior. Since you have your dog’s attention, if you want him to focus outwardly, all you really have to do is hold his line or collar, and give his alert command, right?

Basically you need to reward the behavior you want, which is positional correctness (by your leg) but looking forward, and reward him when he looks forward (variably) by sending him to bite. Don’t reward him for looking at you ever again with praise or touching, or looking in his eyes. If you really want to get rid of the behavior, here is what you can do:

Question: I think I have created a monster! I have a Dutch Shepherd single purpose narc dog that I have worked for the last 3 years. One of the things I liked about him in the selection test was how possessive he was with his toy. Now it has gotten to be a major battle, there are days he simply will not give up his toy and the problem is getting worse. I have tried the two toy system but it does not work, once he has one toy, he does not want to give it up for a new one. Do you have a good way to get him to release the toy to me on command?

Answer: You need to treat the situation like training a patrol dog to out. Just remember, though, he is not a patrol dog for a reason. He may not be as hard as you think. First, do this when you have a few days when you are NOT going to have to reward him for his drug finds. Take him someplace he never normally has to work, because you are going to use some force to accomplish the task, and you don’t want him to associate the compulsion with his work.  This is critical.

Back tie him to a sturdy fence post (better than a tree as he can’t wind himself up) on a flat collar or harness with about a 10 foot long line, and put a second line attached to your 6’ leash on a prong collar. (Yes, I said prong collar. If you have been conditioned to think this is only used as a last resort, you may not be inclined to use it, but contrary to what you have learned, it is safe, effective, and used by the rest of the world over choke collars almost universally when training working dogs. It will work for this exercise much better than a choke collar).

Use an object different from his normal drug reward, and a little less enticing, like PVC pipe. Have 2 of the same toy, and give the dog one of them, and let him hold it in his mouth for a few seconds. When you are ready to make him let go, say, “Out,” or whatever your new out command will be. Don’t use the command he has been ignoring for the last 3 years, pick a new one. As soon as the “t” in out is out of your mouth, correct him into your body fairly hard until he releases it. As soon as he drops it, give him the other toy, and let him enjoy it for a few seconds, then repeat until the dog is releasing quickly. If you do this right, he will let go after a few repetitions on the command. In behavioral terms, we are punishing his holding of the toy beyond hearing the out command, and then rewarding the act of him releasing with another toy. 

When he does this well on the back tie, introduce his drug toy in the back-tie context, and do the above exercise until he is releasing it on command. Then, when you are getting a good response on the back-tie on his normal reward toy, after a few short sessions (3-6 reps and then put the dog away, and do multiple sessions a day), put 2 lines on him as before, but do not back tie him. Use the 2 lines just as before, but the handler holds the correction line and another trainer holds the back line, and acts as a moveable back tie. Throw the dog’s toy for him, and then put him between the 2 lines, and out him as before, correcting if he doesn’t release against the posted back line. Then, reward the release with the second toy. Repeat in different contexts. As this goes well, eliminate the back line, and use only the correction line.

When the dog is doing well, bring the dog to a drug training session, and set up an easy hide, and we will test the training. Put the correction collar on the dog with a short tab line on it. Do not run the dog to search on the prong. When he hits the hide, reward him with the toy and play with him. Move him away from the search area, well away, as you are playing with him. Then grab the correction line and tell him out, and if he does, let him grab the toy again and let him play. If he doesn’t, correct as usual, and then after a successful out (even if you had to force it) let him get the toy again. If he still fights you over the toy on this test, go back to correcting away from the drug searching until you are again confident he will release on command, and put it together again in another test.

As the dog releases for you consistently, and the behavior becomes conditioned to release on command, you can remove the correction collar altogether. If he regresses, put the collar back on. Don’t make him collar wise. Put it on and off randomly at times other than your training sessions for short times when he is supervised, but don’t hook anything to it. The collar is only an aid in conditioning the behavior, so don’t remove it too quickly before the behavior is well conditioned. You want to keep the option to correct so that the dog knows he cannot get away with ignoring this command.

In doing this exercise, you should use the minimum force to get the job done, and be careful of making any unwanted associations since you are using some force. You should do this under the eye of an experienced trainer until you are comfortable. The hardest part is gauging the correction to stimulate the out without overcorrecting. You may be surprised how easy this is if you carry through it. If you need more guidance before giving it a try, you can e-mail me at Malinois_jb@mindspring.com.

People love using analogies as a way to prove an argument, or show the absurdity of your argument. “That’s like throwing bricks in the Grand Canyon,” for some action that is too little too late, for example. The problem with making analogies is that not every analogy is a good analogy.   

Take for example a recent article in a leading police magazine. Out of respect, I won't name the author here. My goal is to discuss the real issues in choosing between private trainers or a traditional academy. The thrust of the article was to compare private K9 training facilities to the old standby the Public 16 week police K9 course run by police officers dedicated to a training staff.   

In the article the private facilities are referred to as “McTrainers” in an attempt to associate the product of private academies with “fast food” quality, where I suppose we are to assume the opposite comparison, that the 16 week academy course with green dogs and unskilled handlers would in fact produce a gourmet meal.  Now, I have seen great dogs produced in both environments, so I don’t think generalizing is necessarily a useful activity. In fact I found the article to be divisive and completely to have missed the point of steering administrators towards the real issue in selecting a training program: quality training so that they can employ productive and well informed K9 units.  

Considering that the author runs one of the 16 week academies, it seems to be rather thinly veiled advertisement to police administrators to send people his way, rather than to private companies.  In today's world with competition at an all time high, we are all scrambling to justify our existence. One approach I suppose would be by trying to keep your job secure by trashing all the competition, as this article came across. However, one just might take another route and strive to produce the best product and service possible and make he best guarantees so that you are the most competitive supplier in the market. This is the approach I try to take every day as the CEO of Tarheel Canine.  You will never find me talking anyone down. I prefer to concentrate on what I have control over, and that is my work.

Now, that said and being that I run a private training company, I took a certain amount of offense to the broad brush used to paint all private companies as producing a rushed and therefore poor quality product. Let’s be fair, there are poorly trained police dogs everywhere, certainly not only from private companies, either. I don’t necessarily believe that the type of academy you go through, whether it is a 16 week academy with green handlers starting with green dogs, or with a private company is really the issue.   

In the end, I believe the different type of courses are about equally as likely to produce a solidly trained dog, as long as the trainers in charge are good ones. That, in my opinion, is the real issue, not the structure of the training course, but rather the content of the training course. This is the point that the article completely misses!  

Many people believe that 4 weeks isn’t a long time to be with your dog before going out on the street. Yet in the end, in a 16 week course, by the time the dog has most of  his behaviors fully trained to a point where you can actually practice scenarios as you would see them on the street (traffic stops, building searches, etc.), you are about equivalent in terms of spending time with a trained dog practicing deployments.  The last 4 maybe 5 weeks in a traditional course are the crucial weeks for deployment, and putting it all together.  In the end it is all just about equivalent.

I think the real issue has to do with the trainers that are training the dogs and running the classes, not how the classes are structured. I have seen a lot of very nicely trained dogs come from traditional academies, and I believe we also put out very solid trained dogs in our program at TK9. In the end it comes down to convenience. Some agencies cannot afford to lose an officer for 16-20 weeks, so a private company allows them to get a K9 where they may not be able to if this option is not available. Further, making the right choice boils down to quality. Are the dogs coming out of whatever academy or private trainer you are looking at producing for the agencies that have them? If they are, you are going in the right direction, no matter how the training class may be structured. 

There are a lot of trainers who have popped up after 9/11 to get their hands into the profit opportunities, no doubt. There are bad trainers out there in private practice. But there are also some of the best trainers in the country who are in private practice out there selling trained dogs to the police. If you are thinking about buying a K9, do your research. Demand references, and a lot of them. Call the references. Also, dont assume that because a particular class is run by police officers doing the training, that the product is good. Just like any trainers, there are good ones and poor ones who work for police departments too.  Check with other local agencies who have been through the academies to give you a reference, and to give you an opinion on the quality of their dog. Is he utilized? Does he locate people and contraband outside of training?

Another issue: Ask trainers for their guarantees on their dogs if you are going private, and if you are going to an academy make sure the dog brokers that the academy uses are reputable and will stand behind their guarantees. Check the wording of guarantees.

Be advised, if you go through a traditional academy and your dog passes the certification, he is forever more your problem if you have a training or productivity issue that the trainers can’t fix. If you buy from a private trainer and the dog becomes a problem later on, you may have recourse if the trainer provides a performance guarantee, as we do at TK9 (lifetime performance guarantee).  

I suppose my conclusion is this: When choosing between a private trainer and a traditional academy, pay attention to the important issues, such as expertise (number of years training is not necessarily indicative – if you have pedaled the same poor skills for 20 years), and the productivity of the dogs coming out of the training. Look to references, and find out how productive the dogs are for the agencies that are running them. Once you are comfortable with that, then ask yourself which type of academy fits your agency best, from a manpower perspective, and you will in the end make a good decision.

Special Thank you to Dr. Katrina Kardiasmenos for her excellent photography. She always seems to catch those key moments of K9 action! Thank you for sharing your pictures with us!

By

Jerry Bradshaw

Training Director, Tarheel Canine Training, Inc.

www.TarheelCanine.com

A real street bite is the one thing that as police dog trainers, we cannot actually set up and practice as it would happen on the street. Because of this, we have numerous techniques that we use to simulate a real street bite. One of those techniques is the muzzle fight. 

There are numerous brands and types of protection muzzles. Be sure you have an actual agitation muzzle and not just an everyday wear muzzle. Most agitation muzzles have a reinforced steel bar framing the leading edge of the muzzle to keep the leather from collapsing on the dog’s mouth when he makes contact. This feature is crucial. The typical agitation muzzle you see is a “Dondi” style three strap muzzle, which buckles behind the ears (this is the part that secures the muzzle) and one strap that goes over the head, between the ears, and secures to the head strap. There are also “Belgian Ring” style muzzles of similar design but these often come with bite-bars covered with leather and affixed to the inside of the muzzle for the dog to grip during a muzzle fight. Some muzzles only have the two straps that fasten behind the head, and do not have the over head strap. These muzzles are safe to use if properly secured.  The over head strap is not the key part of the safe operation of the agitation muzzle. Make sure you choose a muzzle that fits the dog comfortably. The dog should be able to breathe and pant normally, and even bark and clack his jaws inside the muzzle. Manufacturers make many sizes. You should try a few different ones and settle on one that secures nicely and is comfortable for the dog. An experienced trainer can help you select the right size.

Once the muzzle is securely fastened, a safety check must be performed. The handler should grab the muzzle underneath and gently but firmly lift the dog straight up by the muzzle. The muzzle should stay securely fastened. Next, grasp the muzzle top and bottom in both hands and try to “roll” the muzzle down off the dog’s snout to mimic the pawing action the dog can make to insure that the muzzle cannot be taken off by a determined dog. Do this gently but firmly, and don;t wrench the dog's neck. Some people allow the decoy doing the actual muzzle attack (since it is his ass on the line with no equipment on) to make a secondary safety check. I don’t like doing this because it ruins the realism of the encounter to some degree. I do like having a second person (most preferably the training instructor presiding) do a safety check. I also encourage having some back-up by having a decoy with a sleeve hidden in close proximity just in case the muzzle comes off.  

It goes without saying that before doing any muzzle fighting the dog should be conditioned to be calm and accepting of the muzzle.  This part of the training should not be rushed, but unfortunately, it usually is. Put food in the bottom of the muzzle, a number of times a day, and allow the dog to dip his nose down into the muzzle and pull out food. As he gets accepting of the confinement, strap him up for a few seconds letting him eat the food like he has on a feedbag, and then reward him when you take it off. Strap him in the muzzle and do short, quick, obedience, ending with rewards. If the dog tries to get the muzzle off by pawing at it, try to redirect his behavior into some heeling or a recall, something active, rather than correcting him for pawing the muzzle. Punishment will only serve to create a negative association with the muzzle.  You can also muzzle him and let him watch some decoy work on another dog, and when he is barking in the muzzle, pull it off for a bite or two. Take your time with this part, and make it a positive experience. If you watch a Belgian Ring dog do muzzle work, you will see the dogs generally enjoy the muzzle, and willingly stick their heads into it for you to strap them up, because they are taught to expect some fun when the muzzle comes out. Take your time so you will not have a career of fighting your dog over the muzzle. Further if the dog never learns to fully accept the muzzle, he will never put his all into the muzzle work, but rather be preoccupied with always trying to get the encumberance off.  

Many times I have witnessed muzzle training where the dogs are sent off leash, and the dog and decoy roll around on the ground. I do not allow any dogs to be sent completely off leash for muzzle work or hidden sleeve work, simply because it is too dangerous to not have a way to positively control the dog. I will send the dog dragging a 15' long line so the handler can pick up and work the line. If there is no line, and if the dog breaks off the attack because he is unsatisfied or he is pawing at the muzzle, there is no way for the handler to control the session. The handler may end up chasing his dog as it moves away from him upon approach. If the dog breaks off the attack on his own, intensity can go from 60 to zero quickly. In such a case with no back line, if the dog leaves the engagement, there is nothing to do but have the decoy attempt to attract the dog back into the fight with agitation. Wrong, wrong, and more wrong!

We do not want to do this for the same reason that we do not want a police dog to only alert when he sees a decoy make movement or crack a whip. This becomes the starting cue for aggression, but unfortunately on the street bad guys may run occasionally, but oiften we need the dogs to key on passive subjects. We want the dog to bring the energy to the fight, not vice versa, and in fact, as with all our work, we want the dog to bring enough energy to the fight that we can do a passive muzzle attack and expect the dog to remain engaged until the handler removes the dog. Too many decoys even in non-muzzle work, start the session with agitation to attract the dog, rather than making the dog alert and load first to make the decoy move, or load enough to send the dog on a passive bite. If your dog needs agitation to start his bite session, you need to retrain that before doing any muzzle work. Muzzle work is proofing work for civil aggression and passive biting. For these reasons we must use skilled decoys and keep the dog on line during this training, and work with dogs that have had proper foundation in their aggression training.