I was watching the show weds night and I noticed when one of the dogs was tracking someone he kept spinning in circles. Is this excitement? anxiety? both? Wondering if this makes him lose focus on his track and should the handler correct this or let the dog go on doing his job.

I only watched that episode once so I'm not sure which K9 you're refferring to but I'm guessing it was K9 Ranger since I remember him spinning just before starting a search . Either way I don't know of any K9's on our unit that spin while tracking . If it is Ranger you are thinking of he spins quite regularly but not during a search , to my knowledge. IMO it's due to both anxiety and excitement but his searching is top notch and he finds lots of dirtbags .

If I were dealing with a problem like this I would back up on tracking doing shorter tracks so the dog finishes the track successfully before going into the spinning behavior , while also working on calming the k9 down while tracking . I would then slowly lengthen the tracks.

Not sure how you meant "correct" but if you meant verbally or physically correcting the K9 on the track , I would avoid that but will add I'm sure there are some rare K9's that you could do that with . IMO if the dog is corrected on the track it will cause even more anxiety in most dogs .

I saw this also. Dog was spinninig on the entire track. Very puzled as we watched.

I saw that as well. Btw, I don't mean to hijack the thread but are all the shows here in Saint Paul? Jim are you an officer there?

 Quote: jim nash

I only watched that episode once so I'm not sure which K9 you're refferring to but I'm guessing it was K9 Ranger since I remember him spinning just before starting a search . Either way I don't know of any K9's on our unit that spin while tracking . If it is Ranger you are thinking of he spins quite regularly but not during a search , to my knowledge. IMO it's due to both anxiety and excitement but his searching is top notch and he finds lots of dirtbags .

If I were dealing with a problem like this I would back up on tracking doing shorter tracks so the dog finishes the track successfully before going into the spinning behavior , while also working on calming the k9 down while tracking . I would then slowly lengthen the tracks.

Not sure how you meant "correct" but if you meant verbally or physically correcting the K9 on the track , I would avoid that but will add I'm sure there are some rare K9's that you could do that with . IMO if the dog is corrected on the track it will cause even more anxiety in most dogs .

Hi Jim, Thanks for the response and I love the show by the way.

I was wondering how you would correct the behaviour if its unwanted. If it would be done during the track to refocus or something you would go back in training and try to work out.

When you metioned try to calm him down what would you do, take breaks between the tracks till he calms and then reward with a track for calm behaviour?

This is a new one to me . I'm not aware of any of our K9s that spin while on an active track . It's got me curious so I'm going to ask around .

Having not seen it but knowing the K9s on the unit I'm going to guess that the K9 on the show was spinning not on an active track but spinning while trying to locate the track . All the K9s I've worked with when I was a trainer (there are a few new ones on the unit I haven't seen much) once they get on a real track focus on it and there isn't much that can take their focus away from it .

I'm guessing the spinning is out of frustration because they want to find the track . Some of the best tracking K9's I've worked with would usually start whining and their searching to locate the track would speed up the longer it took to locate the track . Never have seen the spinning though .

If that's the case with this K9 as long as it's still locating the tracks and it's not hurting the K9 in any way and they are still finding badguys , I wouldn't change anything .

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I was wondering how you would correct the behaviour if its unwanted. If it would be done during the track to refocus or something you would go back in training and try to work out.

I would correct it in training not on a real track . If the K9 while on the real track started spinning and lost the track because of it , I would stop and try to calm him down before restarting but I wouldn't mess with him while he's still on an active track .

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When you metioned try to calm him down what would you do, take breaks between the tracks till he calms and then reward with a track for calm behaviour?

I would try that . I might also try burning off some of the dogs energy before tracking . Long walk , fetch whatever . Depends on the dog though .

I am going to jump in here. Now spinning on a track is not something that would be encouraged but if it shows up in deployment I would ask the question "Is it interfering with the dogs function.

In the real world application of police dogs it is important not to confuse form with function. There are no "points" lost if a dog spins on occasion. This is not a huge issue because it is usually a result of being restrained.

I will speculate that the dog was positive of the track, excited to get moving forward and was being restrained somewhat by the handler (tactics, safety, obstacles, etc).

If this is the case then there is no "fix' necessary.

It was Ranger that was the spinner. It looked mostly that he was being held back by the handler while walking along an alley(maybe in odor?) and spinning a few times. When they got to the suspect Ranger did his bark, and spinning. It was while being restrained. It looks as though it is when he starts the track and, while it is hard to tell while on an active track as they don't show *a lot* of him activly tracking, but as though it is mostly when starting, or being held back by the handler.

I DVR'd it and had to go back and check it out.

Brandon , thanks for the info . Looks like Kevin guessed it right . Since that's the deal I'll stick with one of my ealier responses .

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If that's the case with this K9 as long as it's still locating the tracks and it's not hurting the K9 in any way and they are still finding badguys , I wouldn't change anything .