Training Considerations for: “Tactical Police K9 work”.

In theory: you will not get one book or authority that follows one guideline to the hilt, as an excepted best practice for training tactical police dogs. Having said that, the point is we as an industry, has adopted many standards and is guided by just as many paradigms that are held in sport. Is it not high time that we develop a training standard, and mythology that will suite the new world standards and challenges? Pertaining to core training focus for police dog utilization, that is specific to the trade. There are more, books, videos, articles, philosophies and clubs specializing in dog training out there than what there are truly trainable working dogs available to the police in my opinion, so I decided to rather formulate a theory on the correct type and approach to a Police tactical dog training philosophy, or doctrine. Don’t get me wrong, I am not trying to preach from the mountain here, I have better things to do, and its not my place. However, I have been thinking about this, and would like to see who is towing the line, if any, towards forming a , lets call it a corporate identity, for police service working tactical K9’s.

My beef is this, Police Departments who utilize only one method of training, or curriculum, year after year, keeps turning out the same products. Are we not heading for disaster by following this paradigm, they are restricting themselves, and us. Development and research should be on going and be a departing philosophy in training, we develop new ammo, BP’s and so forth, but are we changing our training accordingly? All training should be out come based or future focus driven and specific to the Units operational requirements, in my opinion. Having said that, I also realize that legislation, and departmental protocol differs as well. Nevertheless, what I would like to see is a core unit standard. This brings me to good trainable dogs and “prepping programs for police dogs”

Some Former Soviet Block countries were utilizing this foundation training method, and we had such programs running here, but it has since gone up in smoke. The idea is to teach the dog all the skills he will require later on in working life and on the street from puppy, and develop drives. We then work with a mixture of praise and correction and positive reinforcement, to develop unique characteristics in police dogs that are hard to find, gentle by nature yet very responsive to command, and fighting fit.

In my opinion. – A Tactical K-9 must be able to operate at the same levels under stress and I emphasize stress, and under control, as it would be doing at a dog display for instance, as it would in a real world situation. The handler like wise must also be put under stress, during training in my opinion. All too often, this is not the case with normal police dog training programs. Today, the main emphasis is on the dog only, and not the team that they form, and their future contest, merely the cosmetics of being able to perform commands consistently from the onset; this is where you will find hesitation with application of a K9 in apprehension work on the street if not trained under stress. Both the handler and the dog lack the experience of the kill, they need to have done a great deal of scenario training and role-play to get this under the knee. I mean someone fighting with man and dog, not just standing their like a Christmas tree in a bite suite and correcting the bite work, over and over again, session after session, and release work day in and out shift the emphasis, to transition to a real fight. These programs, where the handler get the best deal, and the dog has to work his ass off, has become out dated. Furthermore, it triggers the handler and dog into believing that assailants do not fight back, reality check, they do, and with vicious vigor.

It just takes one incident like this, and the dog is ruined, in many cases, and so are the handlers composure, and trust. I long back to the days when men were treated like men on the training field, and you came off with some bite marks and scares your self. Nowadays, the handler is someone’s customers, don’t want to get him all dirt and bruised, and dogs are expected to fighting like lions. Without having gone through a hardening process. Now we just get cool calm biting dogs that bark their asses off. I see a lot of the one and the other but very little of both these days in K9 teams, the dog is expected to do it all, the handler is the remote control, why is that? I blame it on sport, and paradigm alignment, when it comes to training philosophies. I am not refereeing to patrol dogs here, but SWAT and anti- hostage type of dogs, the high-risk warrant type of utilization dog. Where are they? Or are they a dieing breed of working dog? – just to much time and dog to handle…
<img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

So you make a lot of statements here, how do they relate to selection testing a dog for service?

I'm having trouble following this . Are you asking if there is anyone selecting and training dogs from a puppy to be a SWAT only K9 and if so how they are training and selecting for it ?

Robert & Jim

The points are:

1) Does any Police department still train Tactical dogs and handlers – on a tactical dog team course - in one course from start to finish with their own dogs. With foundation dogs – dogs that they breed and work, from puppy hood, specifically for this purpose.
2) Do they train in true CQC (close quarter combat) tradition, or is it outsourced to a service supplier. That treat the handlers like customers, no stress operant training, the same philosophy you guys follow in sport – the dog has to do all the work.
3) Does any one agency still have the expertise and capacity to do this type of training, or has it become an extinct tradition.
4) My suspicion is that they are far and in-between, but who are they and what do they do to promote this tradition, to help future generations pass it on.
5) Lastly, my opinion is that we don’t have many serious dogs left in the police, that can fight like a lion and yet be fully controllable with kids for instance.
6) Police dogs have become hands off – due to the new training philosophies.
<img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" />

Robert, this is just the point, selection testing is old school,why, if you have great working dogs, a couple of generations deep in breeding in your services then you don’t need to go out and head hunt - or do selction testing. A futile process, trying, weeding out prospects. With foundation breeding, every litter is a total prospect. Where breeding characteristics become set by the third generation of progeny.

So it stands to reason, that you just have to lift what is under the skin, by “prepping” the dogs from puppy hood. However, in order to get exceptional quality, you need and exceptional program, where handlers and dogs are united asap. trained hand in glove. Our Military and Police had programs like this that produced exceptional results. The operative word here is had, some one on the top floor needed the money for an expensive holiday. So the programs have been scrapped, or reduced to road kill.

Selection testing, and fooling around with prospects has a very low success rate, where as prepping dogs coming from real working service dogs yielded 80 to 90 % success.

Is the purpose of selection testing not to get the best possible stock?, well I am arguing that this is it, prepping foundation dogs is the real and only way, but no one has the funds or mind to do this anymore.
<img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />

"Selection testing, and fooling around with prospects has a very low success rate, where as prepping dogs coming from real working service dogs yielded 80 to 90 % success."

Reinier, with all respect, that quote just put this discussion into fantasy land. Are you saying that just breeding good working dogs will lead to 80-90% of a litter working out as PSD's? <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/ooo.gif" alt="" />

Reinier, your statements seem to contrast other previous statements you've made on this board regarding breeding for working dogs.


Here's what you posted last time when we were talking about breeding working bloodlines. This is taken from a thread about selecting PPDs.


Reinier wrote: "Bloodlines, and PPD, are like oil and water, they don’t mix. With selection of a dog, now if you are serious about dog training for PPD then the selection of bloodlines is a complete myth: “a Dog is not a dog without papers” thinking. Well here is a short little personal experience to totally throw this little myth over board. We have 79 dogs doing Police work, and not one of them has papers.

This is what they – the bloodline Guru’s don’t tell you – about breeding with lines...The best thorough breeds are not always the best working dogs, this works like a pendulum when breeding to enhance a certain trait in a dog; we start swinging traits from side to side, from strong to weak... What you get as hyper strong scent capability through breeding, in the dog with lines, that are strong scent driven, on the one side for instance. Will have in the same dog an exact opposite trait developing such as very weak nerves, due to enhance breeding, or line breeding, this is good for a blood hound program, for example, but bad for a PPD program, the material is tarnished to begin with..

This happens when breeders mix bloodlines, it heightens one characteristic, but something has to give way, or be sacrificed in turn, to get the better-heightened attribute of a certain desired trait. Where with normal breeds these characteristics have more or less leveled out, or come in to balance. We require balance - the lights must be on."




Can you explain what you mean? You're saying that breeding from proven working stock will get 80%-90% dogs that will certify for police work. . .but previously you seemed to say that breeding dogs from proven bloodlines could only improve one trait. It seemed, from what you wrote, that you were saying it's pointless to breed dogs like Thoroughbreds.


Maybe I'm not the brightest crayon in the box, or maybe it's a language issue, but I have trouble understanding you and your ideas.


I don't know that I agree, or disagree, with them???

80%-90% certification rate for a breeding program isn't realistic, that I do disagree with.

There's a difference between dogs with fashionable "bloodlines" and pedigrees, that come from working dogs that are bona fide sport dogs, AND dogs from litters that are the result of a few generations of breedings between working dogs (mostly unpapered and with uncertain bloodlines) that are hard and stable STREET dogs. A couple of generations down...from proven STREET dogs may yield good results. I can't support this in a statistically significant manner, but it seems to be true.

The other issue of the 80% to 90% success rate does not - in my mind - imply that the dogs, by themselves, will be good STREET dogs. It implies that if the dog is paired with its handler from its very beginning, and that if the dog/handler team train towards overcoming each pup and handler's shortcomings - as they are observed - this customized training can become the basis for a VERY high success rate.

Finally, there is a huge difference in dog/handler teams' tactical outcomes when there is a large burden of stress placed ON THE HANDLER as well (specially fatigue and pain). This is pretty much an undisputed fact.

I saw a bit of all of the above when we were in conflict here.

Reinier Stated;

 Quote:

The points are:

1) Does any Police department still train Tactical dogs and handlers – on a tactical dog team course - in one course from start to finish with their own dogs. With foundation dogs – dogs that they breed and work, from puppy hood, specifically for this purpose.
2) Do they train in true CQC (close quarter combat) tradition, or is it outsourced to a service supplier. That treat the handlers like customers, no stress operant training, the same philosophy you guys follow in sport – the dog has to do all the work.
3) Does any one agency still have the expertise and capacity to do this type of training, or has it become an extinct tradition.
4) My suspicion is that they are far and in-between, but who are they and what do they do to promote this tradition, to help future generations pass it on.
5) Lastly, my opinion is that we don’t have many serious dogs left in the police, that can fight like a lion and yet be fully controllable with kids for instance.
6) Police dogs have become hands off – due to the new training philosophies.

I've never seen a program like that in the United States at a city , county or state level . I've heard about breeding programs in other countries but not with the 80-90% success rate you state .

I've read in this forum that our military now has a breeding program but I think it's more for general purpose (patrol and detection)K9's .

If a program like you describe (special ops , SWAT , Anti-Terrorist K9's) were ever to come to reality I can only see it being at the federal or military levels . Way too much money and time needed and from a breeding stand point I don't think you would be seeing good results for several years and no where near the percentages you stated . Just my opinion .

Just for an idea how things operate in my area . I'm a trainer for a major training center in the Minnesota , Wisconsin , Iowa , North and South Dakota area . I'm a Police Officer , SWAT member with my K9 . I don't get paid extra to train K9's . I don't consider them customers I consider them peers who I'm trying to turn into a team that catches badguys and keeps each other safe . We teach a 12-14 week course geared towards training the handler to train their K9 . We selection test the dogs as adults around 2 years old . With the demand for K9's now I see we are forced to take dogs around 1 1/2 years old now and we have changed some of our training with these dogs just coming into their mental maturity . The first half training starts out foundation training in prey then the training gets more serious/realistic with the teams working on their defence and fight drives. Everything is done to build the dogs confidence . Control is always a big factor in the training and we are careful to balance that with the manwork . Most of our dogs are very social when not working .

In my Department we have 4 K9 teams assigned to our SWAT team (CIRT) . They were specially selected out of our 21 K9 unit . I'm 1 of them . We train CQB along with slow searches , takedowns , high risk area searches and tracking , explosive entries , etc..

I have been asked by other departments my opinion on their K9 for possible use in their SWAT teams . I have always been honest and most of the time I recommend for them not to use these dogs in the team or a very limited use like perimeter guarding on a location . Some have potential but usually lack something like the high level of control needed or noise discipline . I then give them training plans to get there .

Reinier ,

 Quote:

5) Lastly, my opinion is that we don’t have many serious dogs left in the police, that can fight like a lion and yet be fully controllable with kids for instance.

I see plenty of dogs like this , I've seen plenty of stinkers also but that's always been the case . I've handled 2 "lions" both that were tested for real over and over again and performed very well everytime . 1 is right next to me as I type . The problem I see in PSD work today in my area are health issues in the GSD's and the lack of numbers in getting enough mentally mature K9's to work with .

The Sports influence I see as a curse and a blessing . I have learned alot from sports trainers in the area of motivational training for foundation work in the first parts of the K9's training . But to complete the dog then it's back to what we've learned through years of experiance in building the dogs confidence to confront and engage a man .

It's hard for me to generalize the current state of Police or Military K9's in general (be it SWAT or General PSD work ) because from my experiances from training in different parts of the United States is that the main problem issues with these dogs changes from region to region . In some selection is the main problem , in another area it's good selection but bad training to get proper control of these dogs . Some it's lack of balanced training too much obediance not enough confidence building or the other way around . In yet other areas it's dogs that have too much sport training , they will hit equipment beautifully and show lots of control but they haven't balanced that training with more realistic defencive or fight driven work . In others it's just too hard to tell if it's just the rotten training they are getting or if the dogs were poorly choosen also . Probably both is my guess .There are also areas with a high percentage of very good PSD's overall with good balanced training and selection work .

Training in this country varies from several weeks of training to just a couple of weeks where the handler never has a chance to learn how their K9 works and often times because of their lack of knowledge fails to realize they don't have the proper K9 to begin with .

There will alway be new training philosophies some good some bad .