There are plenty of K9 deployment situations which include a "bad guy" who maybe is armed, means to do harm, but is not overtly aggressive, with other entirely innocent people in the area. Are there any dog training techniques which allow the canine officer to focus the dog on one person before deploying, in order to minimize danger to innocents? What are they? (I can think of one or two possible ways to do it, but... better ask those who NEED to do it.)

I am looking for techniques which the PPD trainer might be able to adapt. Many thanks for any help.

I like to start with multiple decoys... start with 2 then increase over time to as many as you wish. The decoys should be very reliable because they will have to address any confusion in the dog over the targeting quickly.

I like to direct the dog's attention towards the decoy I want him to engage with. At the moment the dog focuses or looks at the decoy, the decoy will agitate the dog and take the bite.

As the dog progresses and starts to learn that dad knows which decoy will be the one to fight back and which one won't, I will delay the decoy's movement longer and longer untill the dog is taking the passive bite on direction.

So far it has worked well for us in training. I'm sure there are a few other ways to do this as well.

In ASR,, we have an exercise with two decoys ( one hidden ), and the dog must engage the decoy that threatens the handler ( it's a two stage attack, one decoy attacks the handler, dog engages that decoy. Handler then steps away and is attacked by a new decoy from hiding - dog must cease his attack on the first handler and go to protect handler by engaging the new decoy )

Most departments recognize that a dog in pursuit may engage anyone that comes into his line of pursuit, ie, another officer or a civilian. It's a liability nightmare and to my knowledge, no one has come up with a 100% fool proof method of preventing an accidental bite in this situation ( besides the call-off, in which case you likely lost the perp then, and call off's aren't always 100% - Nitro comes to mind <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" /> ). I'd also be interested if any current K-9 handlers/trainers have a different experience than mine regarding the reliability of the dog in said situation.

There is another exercise in ASR that I think demonstrates what is being discussed here.

Muzzled dog. 2 decoys, 1 suited, 1 unsuited/civil.

The suited decoy is seated and non-threatening, but within line of site and reach of the dog. The dog must engage the civil, threatening decoy from about 40 feet.

The exercise is designed to test the dog's willingness to engage a threat vs. a suit, and the handler's ability to focus the dogs attention in the proper area.

Matthew said:

I like to direct the dog's attention towards the decoy I want him to engage with. Restricting the dog's focus to one person is the problem. That's commonly done or attempted at the moment of sending the dog, with hand signals, and other body language from handler. There's the source of the ambiguity; the handler is making the focus on the person a part of the sendaway command, pointing at one person among others, and the dog is not looking at the handler when the handler sends the dog, in fact will likely be a few feet in front of him, looking at the crowd. Is there a way to remove that ambiguity by doing something else? One possibility might be getting the dog to focus on one person before launching. (For instance, at night the officer might use a focused flashlight... not saying this is a good idea; I don't know.)

What about at the moment of sendaway and the moments after? Do any police or ring trainers train a dog to focus on one person and then have others run across the dog's line of sight to that person to increase focus on the specified target rather than allowing distractions?

I appreciate your opinions. Thank you!

Wayne
Will hit the nail on the head. As soon as I read this question I knew what the answer was. In real life on the street nothing is predictable or sterile as it is on the training/competition field. There are just too many negative variables which could cause the dog to misdirect (patrol oficers are the worst offenders).
Ive never, nor will I ever send my dog into a situation hoping he has targeted the real bad guy. You just never know what is going to happen. Its bad enough when you send him and a frightened citizen does something stupid or an officer gets in the way etc., Thats when the recall training comes in handy. If this is for your PPD I wouldnt even consider doing this. There is no reason to.

Whilst accidents will always happen at some time when a ppd is deployed,sensible deployment is the name of the game,if you cant be sure of the target hold back the dog until you are sure.
Sensible deployment gets the police dog a good name,mistakes dont.
Paul

I just posted an article about teaching the out and the redirect with four decoys set up in a circle. Training for this is just an extension of that, only instead of outing and the redirecting the dog you're going to stop him before the bite and then redirect him. You can read that article at

http://www.leerburg.com/cgi-bin/UBB/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=8&t=000139&p=1#000000

This conversation is about tactics; a combination of a call off and a resend, redirecting the dog after he's been sent on a crook or after he's started going after the wrong person.

I've always said that if you don't have control you don't have tactics. If you do have control, this isn't really much of an issue.

When you see the dog going after the wrong person, either an innocent or the wrong crook, perhaps he's chasing the passenger from a G–ride, rather than the driver, you give a call off command. As he stops you give a bite command. If he goes after the wrong crook again, repeat the call off and the redirect. It may take a couple of reps for him to realize that you want him to bite someone but not "THIS" guy.

Doing this in training several times will make it easier in the street. I'd suggest that you have several decoys, four is a nice number, and it will keep the dog from loading up on one of them. Working this on leash or with an Ecollar (you knew that was coming didn't you?) so you can control the dog if it doesn't work exactly right the first couple of times. Have them lined up about 30' away and send the dog on #1 (numbered left to right for the sake of this explanation). At the instant that you give the command have #1 agitate for just long enough to focus the dog on him. The others remain completely passive.

As the dog heads for #1 give a call off command and as soon as he starts to obey, give a bite command. At that instant decoy #2 agitates while all the others go passive. This will focus the dog's attention on him. If he tries to go after #1 use the leash or a stim to restrain him from doing so. Decoy #2 keeps up the agitation if it's necessary to draw the dog to him. Give him a bite on #2, but keep the fight very short.

Repeat on down the line. This will get the dog used to being redirected

Lou,
Last month I tried this out with my PSD. You are right, it doesnt take long for him to figure out the game or what is required of him. The only problem is, The four or five times I have had to call the dog back on the street, only once did he have enough time to react to the real bad guy...and in that situation the perp was able to get over a fence with the dog about 20 feet behind him. The other times the bad guys were in parts unknown by the time the dog could be redirected, obviously I couldnt re-send him. This one dog was not big on jumping anything so the guy got away. My current partner is a kangaroo and we do alot of apprehension work where he has to jump over different obstacles to get the bite. I guess if I were in a more rural area the re-direct would work well, unfortunately the bad guys I chase around here are able to squirt into a residence like cockroaches in just a few seconds, giving little/no time to redirect.

There's always something isn't there Howard? LOL. I'm not a fan of having a dog jump over something to make an apprehension unless I know what's on the other side of that fence. I once chased a GTA suspect down an alley and sent my dog. The crook jumped over a fence and I was about to give the dog a command to follow when something made me stop. Turns out that on the other side of that fence was a 25' drop to an underground parking lot.

A fall from that height probably would have injured the dog. Of course the crook hit the ground running but an officer who was paralleling the chase caught him.

Glad to hear that the out training worked for you though.