I was not a eye witness ...

sorry

I think a dog could be trained away from this behavior but it would be better if the situation could never happen by having the dog already at your side.

Kevin said: “The only reason that a dog should come out of a vehicle is to come to you. If you use the dog as a personal safety device w/ a remote door opener, then it should be trained to come to you. It should be trained to come to you, find you if you're out of sight, but at all costs come to you. The motivation should not be to make prey, defend, or fight, to come out of the vehicle.”

I agree with this but I also know many officers leave their dogs in the vehicle during a traffic stop in many parts of rural America. They don’t have always have another patrol unit close. If they try to make an arrest and the dog is not available then this would be a problem. A trained K9 not being keyed on the suspect and activity would be an odd thing for most patrol dogs so when and if he is deployed in a situation he knows to be “work” he will be looking for a bite regardless of prior training to only find the officer I would think.

Kevin’s method as he explained it should work and not effect the effectiveness of the dog coming from the vehicle to apprehend. Though I question whether it prevents wrong bites in some situations especially dogs that have exited (with the handler and have a few street-bite behind them.

I am not questioning if it is a better way to train because I believe it is I am just shooting out some thoughts on it. In my opinion, I think the best place for the dog is beside the handler who has control over the dog.

We know we can do pat downs and other things with the dog in the ready but down position but there is always the chance for the dog to break and be “dirty.”

What is the best solution overall…especially considering many dogs are trained in many different ways…I am not certain.

Kevin, can you offer more and reasons for your answer? I very interested in any varied ideas about this and how would you approach the problems that will come from retraining the dog that is already working. I would think it would be a huge problem for people who may have bought dogs that practice “alternative” vehicle defence/deplyment.

Don’t get me wrong I am all for what you said, I am just looking for new ideas for currently working dogs I do and may again run into that were not trained as you described.

The idea a dog won't bite when called from a vehicle becuase he has not been trained to may als be considered simplistic.

I agree completely with what you are saying Kevin. Keeping it simple an appling the dog correctly.My line of thought was lets make sure the dog obeys his basic commad regardless of what it is seeing.I think that is keeping it simple. The dog should be able to go down if Im 30 yards away, right beside the dog, or someone is standing on my chest. Im not talking about training the dog to make proper judgement calls but to perform basic commands in any giving enviroment. Would you consider that being overkill or are you saying that if the handler is not in control of the enviroment the dog should not be introduced because there are to many variables to train for?

For what it's worth. We normally train a compass drill or a clock drill depending on who's calling it what. We teach the dogs (regardless of door pop or open window) to come out of the car on command or pop and go to the handler. The handler moves around the car(at different distances) and the dog learns to find or come to the handler. The dog is then taught to go back to the car on command from wherever the handler is standing. It goes along with Kevin's idea (of which I support) of the dog exiting the car and not automatically thinking it's a bite drill. The dogs will engage someone should the handler call for them or pop the door if need be. It is almost an obedience drill and not a bite drill.

It is also important to send them back in the car on command or have a VERY solid stay command should you have an open window dog. Many times intoxicated persons will fall, stumble or grab an officer not in an aggressive manner, but just because they are drunk. The dogs can EASILY mis-read this and think it's an assault. Should they bail (open window) the handler must be able to send the dog back or stay the dog right away. If the dog thinks "bite" every time they bail, you will have a problem.

OBEDIENCE OBEDIENCE OBEDIENCE!!!!..."if you don't have control, you don't have tactics" Donn Yarnall

I agree with David and Josh and this is the whole reason for good guy/bad guy training.

Very very good obedience.

Some may not know what that good guy/bad guy training is: Basically, it means the dog is to hold position no matter how stupid the bad guy acts. We even have the agitator touch the dog with a stick, toss folding chairs, kick empty milk jugs, fall on the ground and so on.

Getting away from the “exiting the car” discussion and back to the “is this fight drive” discussion . . . The decoy is the one who determines what drive the dog is in by his actions, eye contact and body language.

To see it, I’d suggest that you go to someone who believes in the existence of fight drive and have him work a dog that has fight drive. He’ll be able to show you prey, defense and fight drive one after the other, as he puts the dog into each drive.

Often the difference is very subtle and you have to be very close, close enough to see the dog’s eyes, to read the drives. Video tape the show so you can learn to read the drives.

In a real fight with a real crook, when it gets really serious; the dog will revert to whatever combat drive is his primary one.

Hmmm, so the Police dogs bit their handlers who were in the submissive/losing position 12 out of 12 times.

That really doesn't make much sense to me, I'm no expert trainer or anything, but from what I have seen from my own dogs, and the discovery channel for that matter, most canine's will protect their own regardless of whether they are winning or not.

Can someone explain?

John Stowe

12 out of 12 huh?

What happened after the inicial bite? Did the dogs continue on the handler or what?

We have done some groundfighting with my protection dog, and also mock fights. Including scenarios where we were on the ground, and the dog didn't make a mistake.

Not exactly the same thing, but I've never been bit.

Yeah all the dogs initially bit the guy on the bottom. Ground fighting where the dog does not come upon the situation from a distance is different.

The all the dogs were muzzled; all but two have at least 1 year of working with their owner. The dog hit the guy on the bottom each time. We did not do the same dog twice so we did not measure if he would repeat it. We were not training away from this behavior but studying it.

As far as the dog protecting the owner and having a higher understanding about it that transcends his own considerations…well this is questionable. Like I said the dog works under his own motivations and other motivators will ultimately be secondary including handler protection. He may very well “key” on situations and circumstances that look like he is totally protecting his owner but deeper into the mind of that dog and you might find room to think he had other reasons too. It is an enduring question of mine and defiantly not studied well enough for a case either way.

If you have doubts do it your self. Place the dog in a muzzle and do a mock fight with a helper outside a barrier the dog cannot reach 20-30 feet away. Have some one release the dog when the handler is on the bottom of the pile and wait to see the outcome.

Like, I said more the a few prides were hurt that day so fair warning…
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I think in the few situations we've done where the handler was on the bottom and the dog was deployed (muzzled) only one hit the handler. You could also se almost instantly the dog redirect and go after the "badguy" once the dog realized who he hit.

During other drill I've had handler on the ground and a "badguy" standing above them or even had a handler down and a "badguy" flee (yes I know it's prey that draws the dog away from the handler in this case) but none of the dogs hit the handlers. One dog mouthed his handler once on his first training of the situation, but again the light switch in his brain flipped on and he realized who was who. I can't see how if the dog was looking to hit the weaker "prey"(person who was down) why they would bypass it and go engage a dominant non-prey person(still standing or on top)unless they do realized who their handler is.

I'm not saying what happened to you and your dogs didn't happen. But I personally have not found it with dogs we have trained here. I'm sure the 12 dogs you mentioned did exactly what they were trained to do, go for the guy on the bottom of the pile. It may have more to do with initial foundation training and not actual behavior of the dogs. I'm guessing if the 12 dogs were together at a training day, they all train together on a somewhat regular basis or within the same training groups. Perhaps this is why they all reacted this way. Perhaps if the foundation or drills they had done had been different you would have seen different reactions from the dogs.