Hi,

A question to the servicedog trainers, when you are teaching PSDs to bite, do you learn them to take a hard bite on the suspect and they are supposed to hang on, regardless what the criminal do, example a dog which has a legbite, should he stay on the leg even if the suspect beat the dog with his hand? Or do you learn the dog to swicth bite in such a situation to avoid injury, and what are the dog supposed to do if you are surrounded by a group of people, not so effective if the dog maintains it´s hold on such a situation.
I talked to a PSD trainer here in sweden, he said that he personnaly thought that a dog should switch bite, but that the police also should do no more harm that is necessary, thats why many train to just hold the bite. Is this the way it´s normally trained in U.S or elsewhwere in europe?

To me it seems uneffective if you learn the dog to hold on whatéver pressure. I was told by a K9 officer here that he once was sorunded by 10 hooligans, they were very violent and started to beat both the dog and the policeman, including thrashing a chair over the dog, but this dog only was more and more angry, bited everyone it could reached, and eventually took some guys down, and made the others to realize that this dog was dangerous and it was better to stop fighting. This dog probably saved the life of this policeman, so it seems to me that this kind of dog is better in such a situation.

Originally posted by Stig Andersson:
Hi,

A question to the servicedog trainers, when you are teaching PSDs to bite, do you learn them to take a hard bite on the suspect and they are supposed to hang on, regardless what the criminal do, example a dog which has a legbite, should he stay on the leg even if the suspect beat the dog with his hand? Or do you learn the dog to swicth bite in such a situation to avoid injury, and what are the dog supposed to do if you are surrounded by a group of people, not so effective if the dog maintains it´s hold on such a situation.
I talked to a PSD trainer here in sweden, he said that he personnaly thought that a dog should switch bite, but that the police also should do no more harm that is necessary, thats why many train to just hold the bite. Is this the way it´s normally trained in U.S or elsewhwere in europe?

To me it seems uneffective if you learn the dog to hold on whatéver pressure. I was told by a K9 officer here that he once was sorunded by 10 hooligans, they were very violent and started to beat both the dog and the policeman, including thrashing a chair over the dog, but this dog only was more and more angry, bited everyone it could reached, and eventually took some guys down, and made the others to realize that this dog was dangerous and it was better to stop fighting. This dog probably saved the life of this policeman, so it seems to me that this kind of dog is better in such a situation. The situation you present is one in which the handler is using his dog for crowd control. Here in the U.S. we frown on the use of dogs for this purpose due to some misuse during the civil rights movement here in the 1960's. If they are used in such circumstances theya re used in an organized fashion to extract a single individual from the crowd that has been identified and needs to be arrested for a violent crimes/s they are or have committed. This would be done in coordination with crowd control or tactical teams.

The dogs are trained to bite hard and full, increasing the pain compliance without excesive damage to the suspect. This can be complicated if the suspect is combative and the dog looses grip, his grip is comprimised by the combative suspect, or the suspect has such a high pain tolerance due to being emotionally disturbed, under the influence of alcohol or drugs, or simply of a emotional state that the pain of a dog bite and fighting against it isn't a deterent. Then multiple bites can and do happen.
In the U.S. dogs are mostly used for the search and apprehension of violent subjects who have fled. Although an important and even primary role can be handler protection training traveling on the grip is frowned upon. If the only concern were such circumstances you discribe, and it were allowed to use the dog in such crowd control conditions, then it might be a more effective means of keeping a crowd from injuring a handler. As it stands this would be way down on the priorty list and give us problems in other situations. If presented with that circumstance and the dog was needed to save the handler from battery from a mob bent on hurting or killing a loan officer then the well trained dog could be called from each engagement and redirected by the handler.

I operate under the theory that a police service dog bites someone for two reasons; to control him or as a distraction.

If the dog is biting, releasing and then rebiting; he’s not controlling that person. He will be inflicting lots of damage in the form of puncture wounds but that doesn’t control anyone; particularly if they’re resistant to pain because they’re drunk, drugged, determined or angry. If a suspect is able to pull out of the dog's bite, the dog is trained to rebite. Only by biting and then holding on can a dog control someone.

I like for the dog to hold on unless he’s getting severe pain or is being twisted so he’s no longer effective. Then he’s allowed to drop off and rebite. The dog knows when it’s time to drop off and rebite.

As Kevin says a properly trained dog can be recalled and redirected if there is more than one opponent.

Kevin also mentions the state of the use of K-9’s in this country. But it varies from region to region. In this area many departments regularly use the K-9’s in crowd control.

Kevin also mentions the state of the use of K-9’s in this country. But it varies from region to region. In this area many departments regularly use the K-9’s in crowd control.

I can bet that their use in crowd control still is to control a specific subject (where in Europe when the holligans go on the rampage at football games they use patrol dogs to bite and drive the crowd). They are essentially extracting a subject for the arrest team to take control of for specific crimes that that individual has committed. This once again takes a solid grip on the subject and not a bite and rebite behavior. That just gets cops bit.

It depends on the crowd. If they’re passive, just refusing to move, then the dogs are placed on the front lines and are used to drive the crowd. If someone refuses to move, the line is stopped and an arrest team takes that person into custody. The dogs can be used to bite that person if his resistance gets to be too much, or to keep other crowd members back from the arrest team.

If the crowd is aggressive and actively throwing rocks and bottles, the line of dogs will charge them, forcing them to break and run. If they don’t, they get bit.

Here is another angle to your question, I believe and from experience have seen that a dog bites in training primarily on the arm, when it is tendered, on the suit it will learn to bite – target, mainly going for those parts it is trained to bite, - during training.

But out on the road -The bite differs, from dog to dog, from dog to suspect, there is no sure way of answering and being right on the subject, In my opinion the norm would be:

Dogs like athletes learn from experience in the field, a young dog will do what its trained to do run, jump up and bite the arm.

The older dogs will run, jump and push the assailant down, or trip him and bite high, on the shoulder, and lattes or chest, it depends on the terrain and the position the assailants in.

I had a dog that extracted a person by his head from a storm water pipe; the smaller dogs bite legs, arms and hands. Some dogs will go in and stay on the original bite, if it looses grip it will re bite non of this is trained.

My point is this, depending on the Footing, the experience, the target, the angel or position of engagement, the dog will choose how and where to bite, in my opinion dogs counter the threat level encountered, and react accordingly

If it is a long fight, and the assailant does not go down the dogs tend to go for the gentiles or upper leg area, this behavior is not taught, but its imprinted in the dogs primitive mind, if you observe wolfs, lions and other hunters the attack pattern becomes apparent very similar

If the culprit is a fighter, the dog will mostly “size him up” and look for a better bite, say if the dog gets beaten over the head or kicked, it could, will release and attack, either from the side or back, depending on what type of dog, breed you are working, You may think I am having you on. But yes different strokes for different breeds- rottie are like tanks, they seldom release, and will go at a good bite, shaking and working their teeth even deeper, Gsd are more surgical in their approach, thinking then doing, getting a suspect down and dragging him, Although I have only seen a few Mallies, I would say they are a combination of both, very fast, very hard – judging from the pitch of the scream.

Observation: Please this is not the Alpha or Omega, nor a statement, purely an observations from a different perspective, just now I get another comment from those nice guys who train professionally, I am only some one that - HAVE MADE WORKING MILLITARY AND POLICE DOGS MY HUMBLE CARREER – so don’t take my word for it.

It´s quite common that PSDs are used for crowdcontroll in my country at demonstrations or at footballgames. Many violent people seems to calm down whendogs are being used, so they also serve as a deterént factor. At one fotball match fights started at the arena between different groups, about 20 cops and some security guards tried to controll the crowd and stop people to enter the arena, but they weren´t successfull. But when they released a PSD at the arena, everyone left and stop fighting.
They also learn the dogs to bite and if necessary release at command to attack a second person. But it´s impossible to give commands to the dogs, if you are fighting for your life against several persons, or you hyave been knocked down. Then the dog should think for himself and bite as many as possible, his role is to protect his handler.
And yes, there could be serious damages in such circumstances, in fact not long ago there was a mentaly disturbed criminal that suprprised the handler during a search, knocked him down, so he was able to command his dog. This criminal also seemed to feel no pain, he took several bite without reacting. After fighting for quite a longtime with the dog he eventually was to tired, because of the bloodloss. He had bites all over his body, and later his damages was infected, so his condition was real serious, but he eventually get better.

I don´t know if they train the dogs for such occassions, or if this is a natural behaviour for a dog that is really pissed off, just like wild predataros when they fight, they use multiple bites as quickly as possible to do as much damage as possible.

Judging by the pitch of the scream...I will be laughing about that for DAYS. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> I think that's as good a gauge as any in measuring the effectiveness of a bite!