One of the most dangerous tasks that any K9 handler faces is a felony building search. Training a police service dog to search buildings is also one of the most difficult jobs that every K9 handler faces.

This police k9 training DVD was done with the help of Kevin Sheldahl. Kevin is an International Police Dog Judge for WPO, DPO and PSP. He is also a full time K9 handler and head of K9 training for a large Sheriff’s Department in the South West.

The goal of our video is to show new police K9 trainers how to approach the task of training the building search. We will show handlers how to teach their dogs that the primary tool a dog must learn to use during a building search is his nose.

1. Too often poorly trained dogs rely on their eyes more than their nose to search a building.
2. Too often poorly trained dogs find the odor of a hidden suspect only to leave that odor and then never actually find the suspect.
3. Many police dogs find passive suspects in a building, but then fail to indicate or engage the suspect.
4. When dogs develop bad habits and miss suspects they expose their handlers to unnecessary dangers. Our video hopes to show handlers how to improve their training and reduce their personal risk during a building search.

This tape is not intended to teach handlers the personal tactical skills that they must learn to do a safe building search. I have two training videos that teach handlers how to safely search a building.

New trainers often underestimate the complexities involved in training their dog to do building searches. They tend to skip training steps because they assume that their dogs already have the necessary skills to do the work. Too often they are wrong.

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1. He must be able to bark and hold (or find and bite), in a building, with a clean out


2. He must be able to be directed, by the handler, to search a specific area that the handler wants searched


3. He must be able to recognize the odor of a hidden suspect and understand that he is to alert on that odor without actually seeing the suspect


4. He should be able to be called back from a suspect that he has alerted on


5. He must be able to protect himself or his handler if attacked by a suspect

To most service dog trainers these seem like pretty basic exercises. But let me play the devils advocate and talk about some of the issues new dogs have when facing building search training for the first time.

If dogs are anything, they are creatures of habit. By the time they reach the point in their training where they are ready to start learning to do a building search, they have developed certain routines or habits which will need to be expanded and/or changed to allow them to become comfortable working in a building at night.

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1. Many dogs that are sold as police dogs have come from Europe where they have lived their entire life as a kennel dog. They have seldom gone into buildings. Some of these dogs will become distracted when first taken into an unfamiliar building. This shouldn’t happen but it often does.


2. Most new service dogs have never done bite work in a building. The only bite work they have ever been exposed to has been on a training field. Whether it’s a Schutzhund field or a KNPV field, it’s always been outside. Many dogs need to learn that it’s OK to bite in a building.


3. Most dogs have only done bite work during daylight hours. Now they must learn to work in the dark
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4. Up to this point in training, the dogs have always been able to see the helper that they have indicated on. Visual contact has become an important issue to the dog. Now they must learn to indicate on a suspect they cannot see. They must learn to indicate on the odor of a suspect. This is an important concept that is often missed. While it may seem pretty obvious when I talk about it right now, new handlers often underestimate how difficult it is to retrain a dog to indicate on odor and not vision.


5. During early bite development, when dogs were called back to their handlers they learned that the apprehension work was probably ending or at least delayed after being called back, so they went down in drive.
   
   This must change in building search training. The dog must remain in drive after being called back from searching one part of a building and he must remain in drive after he has found a suspect and that suspect has been taken into custody and out of the building.


6. Up to this point in training the dog has been under direct supervision of his handler. There will be times during a building search when a dog will have to work on his own, independent of the handler. This is something that needs to be taken into account when designing a training program. We must set up scenarios where the dog is forced to make decisions.

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1. We will begin with a short discussion on making sure you have the right dog for the task
2. We will explain exactly what skills a dog must know before starting building search training
3. We will help you identify problems that exist from earlier training
4. We will then take you through the training steps of a building search

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Where a dog should be in training before building search training is started:

Every aspect of dog training is built on a foundation of previously learned skills. Teaching the building search is no different, it can only begin after the dog has learned a foundation of other skills. If this foundation is not in place before the training starts, the handler is setting himself up for problems.

There is an old saying that it takes 30 repetitions to teach a dog a new skill and 60 repetitions to fix a problem in a poorly trained skill. So the moral of the story is to take your time, build on a strong foundation and do the training steps.

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The foundational skills that a dog must know before he starts building search training are:

1. He must be doing pursuit bites
2. He must know a recall
3. He must understand Bark and hold
4. He must understand the out exercise
5. He must understand on leash wind scenting

These are the previously learned skills that you must bring to the table if you expect your dog to start to learn how to search buildings. If your dog is not proficient in all of these skills then you are premature in expecting him to learn to do a building search.

If you think you can start this training when your dog is not proficient in one or more of these skills, you will develop problems that will only take more time to correct down the road.

It’s not the goal of this tape to teach you how to build these foundational training steps. There is too much to building search training to go into detail on bite development. These skills are covered in my other training videos.

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Here are the training steps in our video that a dog must go through to teach it a building search.

The steps in the video are:

1. Pursuits into a building
2. Announcements
3. Learning indications in a building
4. Learning to work the odor cone
5. Control work and passive suspects in a building
6. Muzzle work in a building search
7. Directed searches and multiple suspects
8. High finds in a building
9. Search tactics and backup officers

I would like to thank the following Police K9 Handlers for their assistance in producing this tape:

Kevin Sheldahl
Todd Kurtzhals
Mike Graff
Van Eldredge
Victor Hernandez
Andy Adee
Terry Matthews
Mark Van der Bloomen

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K9 Policy and Procedure For a medium Sized Department
Examples of Large & Small Departmental K-9 Police and Procedures
Police Dog Examination - by Kevin Sheldhal
The Theory Of Corrections in Dog Training
Police K-9 Use of Force Information
RURAL MANHUNTS- Coming Home Alive is a Factor of Training, Mental Attitude, Becoming a Detail Man, and LUCK
The German Shepherd as a Police Service Dog
Selection Testing for the Police Service Dog
Training the Police Bark & Hold
The Relationship Between the Helper & Dog in the Bark & Hold
Problem Solving in Training the Police Bark & Hold
The Importance of Fight Drive in Building Searches
Training the “CALL BACK” for Police K-9 Work
More information on Police Service Dogs
Police Canine Certification Programs
Information Concerning Narcotics Detection Dogs
CHAIN GANGS as known by the Minneapolis Police K9 Unit
GABBY HAD A DREAM - a children’s story about my narcotic Dog
Why Police Departments Drop Their K-9 Units
The Split Between the German Police & the SV at the 1999 Bundessiegerprufung
The Difference Between Schutzhund & KNPV Dogs and Their Ability to do Police Service Work
Pseudo Narcotics Section
Use of the Stick in Police Dog Training - Sport Work vs. Police Work
An Article by the Hessian Police Academy in Muhlheim am Main Germany
Drug Busts and More
Drug Interdiction on the Highways of Western Wisconsin
Puppies Don’t Make the K-9 Cut from the Modesto Bee Online
How do you get a DEA license so that you can possess narcotics to train drug dogs?
How to fit a Prong Collar
Director of search team is charged with faking evidence
RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) Police Dog Service Handler Training Manuals
A List of 16 Defensive Shooting Training Videos - the instructor is John Farnam
With Dog Detectives, Mistakes Can Happen

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Kevin Sheldahl Police Canine Certification
FEMA Advanced Certifications
DPO Certification
PSP 1 Certification
Heart of America Police Dog Association Certification
North American Police Work Dog Association (NAPWDA): Narcotics Dog Certification
North Carolina Police Dog Association
United States Police Canine Association (USPCA)
Mid-South Police Association
Royal Canadian Mounted Police

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• Tactical Training with Police Service Dogs
• Training Police Service Dogs to Search Buildings
• Training OFF-LEASH Control to Police Service Dogs
• Training Narcotics Detection Dogs

Dear Mr Frawley,

I am just writing to thank you and your staff for the excellent service having just received my DVDs in England. I am a veterinary surgeon involved with police dogs and was wanting to improve my knowledge of working police dogs. The DVDs are extremely clear and informative and as a non law enforcement person they have given me a good idea of what the work is all about. It has helped me in my understanding of the needs of the canine officer in relation to what I can do to help our dog teams.

Thanks again for supplying me with outstanding products. Keep up the good work. I'm hoping I can get some more DVDs to at a later date to increase my understanding. I was lucky enough to spend a week with Dallas canine unit last October and it was one of the instructors that recommended your site, having done some of his training with the RCMP. I can now see where he was coming from.....

Keep up the good work.

Simon BSc BVetMed MRCVS
Veterinary Surgeon England, UK

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