John,
Your concerns about competition, are they founded in any real event? Are you aware of a situation in which this has occured?

The shroud of secrecy that some K-9 programs have seems to me to be far worse than competition.
I might have some reservations about NOT competing. If you look at the numbers of awards and accomplishments that can be thrown in the faces of plaintiffs' attorneys it is nothing but positive. Having been on the receiving end of suits I can tell you that failure to train and negligent training haven't made it an inch.

With the departments I instruct our aproach is this.The dog is correct on the day it is certified. With that being said nobody should believe that the dog is always 100 percent correct in training.But if there is a problem or mistake in training it should be documented the steps that were taking to correct this problem.

I've read and talked to many trainers that claim there dog's never miss anything and are always 100%. I've been around long enough to know better. Certification, is a "one-time" snap shot of the dog's performance. A well maintained and fully documented training and utilization record gives a complete picture of the dog, it's training, how it is used and how successful it is. That is important for 2 specific reasons. One it establishes our claims of the dog's response being probable cause. Something we depend upon heavily. Secondly, from a training aspect, it allows the trainer and the handler to identify those area that the dog shows minimum required proficiency, as well as those areas that the dog is less than proficient. By being able to identify the weaker areas, objective training scenarios can be stuctured to work on a specific problem, thereby getting the most out of our valuable and too often rare, training time. I agree with Kevin, I'm not afraid to compete, but I refuse to be embarrassed in court.

DFrost

Certainly dogs are not 100%. I wish they were, could you imagine the demand????
But, there is a simple training standard....we will not leave the training field until the dog is correct. They make mistakes, it is up to us to right those mistakes through proper training the corner stone of which is to be diligent in acheiving a correct performance.
This is the path to acheiving that individual teams highest possible performance.
Of course documentation is important. But, we see a lot of different approaches to that documentation. What I haven't seen is any standard documentation being pressed upon us by the courts other than some pretty broad statements.
Like a narc dog without records isn't any better than hearsay (from a case right here in my jurisdiction....but not my agency).
I hope we don't et to the point where we're told what to keep track of. I can see needing to spend more time on paperwork than dog training and deployments if that becomes a fact.
We have seen a particular Judge here asking for some statement of reliability of the dog used when we fill out a afidavit for a search warrant. Several things have been used to demonstrate that. % of successes, % during last certification, etc.

 Quote:

Originally posted by Kevin Sheldahl:
John,
Your concerns about competition, are they founded in any real event? Are you aware of a situation in which this has occured?

The shroud of secrecy that some K-9 programs have seems to me to be far worse than competition.
I might have some reservations about NOT competing. If you look at the numbers of awards and accomplishments that can be thrown in the faces of plaintiffs' attorneys it is nothing but positive. Having been on the receiving end of suits I can tell you that failure to train and negligent training haven't made it an inch.

********************
Kevin,
No, I do not have any direct case law dealing with the issue of competition. I only said that it is just another tool to give the defense. So why give them anything? Your right, one could come into court and expound on the numerous trophies, medals, etc... that they have gotten over the years. As long as they have them. Could be good, could be bad. But is that what police K9 is all about? I can tell you that I have seen a few dogs that work great for "competition", because thats what they train for. They continiously do well at USPCA, etc... Then I've seen them on the street and its obvious they are competition dogs.
I'm not familiar with the "shroud of secrecy" you talked about. What is this?
John

Our state also had evidence supressed because the records available on a specific dog (not one of mine) indicated a success rate of less than 30% during actual searches. They based this on the number of times a dog was used to conduct a sniff on a vehicle, the number of times the dog responded on the vehicle and the number of time based on that response drugs were found. The judge, and in my mind rightfully so, said less than 30% was certainly a less standard than was required for probable cause. Now, most of the "competent" defense lawyers are asking for the success rate of any dog during suppression hearings. The way we keep our training and utilization records that information is easily obtained. That one case however, caused by a less than diligent program, has just added another hoop that one must jump through. One would hope that the less amount of information that is provided in a training and utilization record would be best, however it is not always the case. Sometimes, by not providing information, it creates the appearance of someone trying to hide something. Whether or not that is true is not important, it the perception that is created that can be the problem. I will always contend that a good training record is nothing more than a road map. It tells you where you are, and provides the information needed to get where you need to be. Certifications come and go. It is the documentation on the training AND utilization that meets the requirements of the real world.

DFrost

>>>I'm not familiar with the "shroud of secrecy" you talked about. What is this?<<

Much more common plaintiff's attack is that there is no real information about your training. You created the records without anything more than a simple cert by a sypathetic observer of the team work. That you train in secret where anything goes.
Defense....demonstrations, competitions, public involvement.

 Quote:

Originally posted by Kevin Sheldahl:
>>>I'm not familiar with the "shroud of secrecy" you talked about. What is this?<<

Much more common plaintiff's attack is that there is no real information about your training. You created the records without anything more than a simple cert by a sypathetic observer of the team work. That you train in secret where anything goes.
Defense....demonstrations, competitions, public involvement.

****************
Dont know about the guys in your area, but we dont train in "secret". Matter of fact, we invite most anyone to come and observe and or participate. We have some private SAR handlers that will come from time to time and other "dog owners" have come to learn some obediencence training. We have nothing to hide. We certify to our states standards (as required by our state law) and most in our group also certify to at least one other organization (usually NAPWDA). Its just my opinion (and thats not worth much), but I just feel that competitions are for private dogs. Nothing wrong with them at all.
John

Training records tell the true tale of your dog over time. Certification says that on a specific day and time your dog could do A,B, and C correctly. It doesn't mean that your dog could do it again the next day or could do it the day prior.

I don't think that K9 competition is an ego thing any more than a bowling tournament is. SWAT teams compete, police marksmen compete, healthy competition exists throughout LE.

K9 is a great public relations tool. Nearly everyone loves dogs and they love to see well trained dogs work. The more publicity we give our dogs the better. I don't think that I've ever been to a K9 trial where there wasn't some news coverage. That benefits all of us.

As far as giving attorney's something to use against us?? Oh my. If my dog is good and he makes a public mistake and a defense lawyer tries to spotlight that mistake, when my attorney gets her turn she will destroy opposing counsel by spending the next couple of hours going over my dog's resume!

Still . . .it is my view that the benefits of competition are:

They provide motivation for a handler to train beyond the level that he otherwise would have.

They provide another objective evaluation of the dog's competency (objectively competent dogs get consistently high scores).

They require a handler to show how good they are instead of talking about how good they are.

They are an opportunity for handlers to exchange ideas and to see how other K9 handlers operate.

They are sometimes an opportunity for a road trip!

That being said, highly competitive dogs that aren't street worthy are simply sport dogs in my book (nothing wrong with sport dogs, they just shouldn't compete with bona fide service dogs).