<img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> Phase one: Finding and “Prepping” or preparing a dog for tactical police work

Dog selection:

Some thoughts on dog selection for police work, I wrote 16 pages but did a cut and paste edit, its impossible to put the topic across with out generalising so if this post becomes as heated as the first I will be ready to back up statements with scientific study’s or case study’s.

The best thorough breads are not always the best working dogs, this works like a pendulum when breeding to enhance a certain trait in a dog, swinging from side to side, what you get as hyper strong scent capability in the dog on the one side maybe will have in the same dog an exact opposite as very weak nerves on the other side. This happens with heightened breeding characteristics, something has to be sacrificed to get the better-heightened attribute of a certain trait. Where with normal breads these characteristics have more or less levelled out, or come in to balance.

This brings me to which type drive dog is best soothed for police work, -I will only be addressing issues directly related to Patrol service dogs, choosing a very high driven or medium high driven dog- hot or medium temperament-, over a versatile balanced dog which will not necessarily be extremely driven; in fact extreme drive if not backed by excellent handling skills, which is only found with experienced handlers and a balanced training program will frequently work against the dog and his handler on the street. The reason why dogs with high drive is pushed by most trainers is because they train easier because it’s easier to reward them, stimulate them in pray for instance – with ball reward- it also requires a handler with a lot of animal behaviour background. - Fact

The fact that sport dog training techniques and breeding attitudes with regard to working lines are revolving around profitable markets that have the highest demand, have largely corrupted the training methods of modern police working dogs used today and has been largely responsible for the decline of effective breeding of working lines for handling and attributes essential to police K9’s, the traditional German Shepherd with slanted back, was a show ring breed standard, not a working requirement, it served no purpose, now after several years this characteristic is been bread out to go back to a flat top GSD.

The issue of finances and common sense, for small departments to buy small dogs and prep them, then have them trained is not a viable operational option, they would rather purchase a pre-trained dog and have a police officer trained to work the dog, or have him sent for training at some reputable institution so this is not as clear cut issue as all would like to believe, as any up and coming K9 Unit will be able to tell you. It takes infrastructure and huge budgets that are not readily available in police departments any where around the world, to have internal training and trainers, kennels, equipment, a resident vet, puppy prepping program and cleaners etc. So to merely presume that only kennel stock work the range is far from the truth, most of these dogs are mostly rescued, donated or yes even from the local pound. – Fact Only the big departments have the means to run proper k9 facilities and have the privilege of being able to assemble there own lines and pre-pair them for street work.

Training- “Prepping as foundation to tactical police K9 work”

Police Departments who utilize only one method of training, are heading for disaster, they are restricting themselves. Development and research should be on going and be a departing philosophy in training. All training should be out come based or future driven. Specific to Unit operational requirements. This brings me to “prepping programs for police dogs”

Some Former Soviet Bloc countries are utilizing this foundation training and then work with only praise and correction and positive reinforcement with dogs, (ancient training) but they have developed unique characteristics in police dogs that are hard to find, gentle by nature yet responsive to command.

In my opinion. -A Tactical K-9 must be able to operate at the same levels under stress and I emphasize stress as it would be doing at a dog display, the handler like wise must also be put under stress. All to often this is not the case with normal police dog programs; this is where you will find hesitation with application of a K9 in apprehension on the street if not trained under stress.

“Stress operant training” becomes a negative only when, ill-prepared dogs are thrown in and trained to handle a threat level greater than what they expected or have been trained at on the field and therefore not ready to perform in any given situation. But if we've taken the steps to build a dog to anticipate heightened threat to kill or be killed with sub –training or ‘prepping”, then when in these real life situations, we can actually turn up the volume of pressure and stress and let it benefit us as if working in a normal environment, the military did some test and found that soldiers trained aggressively had higher work rates and proficiency than soldiers trained in a controlled environment.

Preparing a dog for tactical police work is normally done by habitation, stimulation and socialization, should this be done before training, during or after, or continuous which heels the most success? I think as much as possible as soon as possible.

The dogs should be exposed to the police working environments from puppy hood, - velt, swamps, tunnels, and pipe’s etc.- to the time it gets formally trained. The focus of training is on new skills development more man than dog or dog and man related, these questions always surface with determining training priority’s- by example:

During prepping does the dogs development get more attention than the handlers, for instance with natural barriers, fire or water, when confronted with a natural barrier like - water do we make sure that handler and dog can swim equally well, or do we take this for granted, do we train active river crossings, do we send dog first or last or do we both get in and cross simultaneously. Is it important that the dog takes to water like a duck?

When the dog reaches the other end of a stream, do we assume that he will have the “Natural ability” to get out or do we scenario train extractions under various conditions, for instance if your dog falls into a swimming pool, do we assume he will get out, do we give it any thought, or do we blindly train one aspect of police dogs only- Apprehension - and ‘outs” until it is perfected.

Or do we only see the value of prepping when we are stuck in a river waist deep chasing several criminals, if the training teaches a dog to down on a “out”, how will he “out” when in water, are these factors taken into account or not, or do we apply the “ sink or swim” approach.

My point, a dog can get a handler killed, even him self if he makes what we perceive to be “stupid” mistakes, should we anticipate beforehand situations from prior experiences and devise methods in training to circumvent such “stupid” mistakes from happening again and again. Still my view is this we train the dogs to attack, to retrieve, search and do other required field exercises under controlled circumstances, “as safe as possible as easy as possible, with the least chance to screw up the dog”, when deployed the dog and handler gets left to learn being street smart, not at all safe or easy- by trail and error, there will never be a fresh dog stepping up to the plate after he has just done a 30 minute chase, so it’s NOT about the moments in training but the time spent to perfect it under stress, What is the general rule here? Or do we still adapt the ring sport boys approach as quoted. , “as safe as possible as easy as possible, with the least chance to screw up the dog”

To give this topic more flesh, I am stating with the water scenario again;

With my first Psd, because I have landed in “deep” water myself, and I am sure many handlers can identify with this, where my dog was piggy backing, because I never swam with him - we were tracking an assailant, who chose to take to the river which was in medium flood, nothing serious the river became a stream and was only three meters wide about 10 feet. At the spot where the assailant made his crossing with varying banks about a foot high, it looked shallow, with adrenalin pumping I put the dog on lead, thinking this would help if he lost his footing, we climbed in slowly, at that instant the assailant, gave bail, he was recuperating from the shock that I was about to get, the dog jumped into the “stream’ and pulled me in with him head first, it was not a shallow thing, it was very cold and running at a incredible speed, it felt like a side wash when one gets in to the sea, about 1 meter deep at that junction, (because of similar happenings we now train water behavior and where and how water would start speeding up by putting the boys on rafts etc., as well as doing river crossing), so my dog decided to get on my back, I am a farm boy and a strong swimmer, but this incident scared the day lights out of me.

We made it, we even caught the suspect, but things could have been much much different.

So today all my members get to swim a lot, I have also come to realize that not all handlers are as good at swimming with bulletproofs, R5 rifle and tracking line, with dogs, It puts swimming in a all new category, We do a lot of exercise in the municipal pool. With bush phase we get the dogs to ride in a boat, a chopper – to de-bust from a chopper in mid air over water and so on.

So In prepping the puppies they get to swim a lot, they look like ducks in a pond

A lot of balancing and agility work gets done and we go walking on dam walls to get the dogs use to heights, night work plays another very –very important role because we try to develop natural instincts and traits, dogs are nocturnal and are very alive at night, having a dog loose at night on a tackle is an mind blowing experience. We put the assailant in the bush and send the dog to go through thick under growth with no lights on etc.

You will always have fresh dogs if they are fit, so to a friend from the previous post- the one with the big feet, start jogging a bit more – “All these dogs attached to handlers adds up to some dogs getting fresh work done to them and others not so fresh.” Maybe if you are a couch potato- K9 police men have the highest fitness grading in the department, so if the handler is fit, so are there dogs. – Did you know a dog can run for two miles and still perform at optimum levels, studies have shown that wild dogs can run for miles before they come to rest, they are designed to run, Police dogs get to police riotous crowds for hours sometimes days with out end with out a bite, So the term I read so much about” frustration bites”, and fresh hold well work through them- so what was the point again. All sales gimmicks, sales men talking through there..,,, “A total lack of practical knowledge and understanding of street behaviour”.

I am flagging problems with BS. I had to work through years ago as a young trainer, listening to commercial trainers philosophy, my view is this if you have something to offer give it for free, my focus with this post is clearly to show differences in training philosophy and methodology and operational concerns between police training programs and sport and the need for a good foundation training program for police K9’s.

What are the trends and thoughts on “prepping dogs” in other countries?

One of the advantages of making the handler become a trainer is they turn out to be actually good at their jobs (assuming their instruction hold up) and can problem solve better. Like you said work though it, not spin in circles making quasi treatments and call it training. If they don’t have the basic knowledge of how the dog obtained the skills they will waste more time on "sharpening the dog" but forgetting the sword has 2 edges.

One of the sad realities for a great many small departments is the lack of a good helper let alone the ability to do tactical training.

The certifying organizations from time to time try to get together but they often end up being a short example of some other guy’s dog and how good it is rather than a learning experience with technical information on how that skill was achieved mostly because of time restraints. In a country where the states are as large as many countries, it would be nice to have more consistent training recourses available with trainers who are organized and professional in every state without regard to trainer or certification affiliation so tactical training and problems solving can be addressed for the sake saving a lives if not lower the mishaps of poor deployment and refocused on the 10 PM news.

Ego often rules the field though. Oddly as it may seem, some handlers would rather NOT know their dog needs work or might be complete garbage by the time the dog is evaluated by a straight shooter.

In places like Iowa and many other parts of America, the communities are tighter then most people can imagine, you are often evaluating the local legend. Sometimes it is the communities first dog and so much BS has been build up on the dog before he even makes a find or brings down a bad guy telling them they need to back up and retrain the dog is the last thing a "budget" wants to hear or the Ego can handle. It has cost lives and will continue to but no easy solution is in sight. America is HUGE as you know but to place it in context: My state alone has very few people (under 3 million) compared to others yet we have 99 counties and several hundreds departments. Getting them to play together without shooting would be a task let alone finding the budget for such extra tactical training needed or not.

So your point is well taken the dogs need to be ready and the handlers trained well long before they hit the street. A few weeks on a schutzhund 3 turned Officer Kilo, often will not cut the fine line of looking the part and actually delivering on the promise to save the life of his handler. In house training centers are often no better though. I know of one large training center that is state ran and funded that is just now getting the clue about starting with quality animals not some guys former pet who needed a good home and has the “genetics” to be called a GSD.

Reinier,
What is this swimming stuff? Where I'm at we just jog accross the the Rio Grande! Maybe get some sand in our boots.
I do condition the dogs to sprinker systems though, never know when a bad guy will take refuge in someones landscaping<vbg>
In all seriousness though. Your idea that the dogs and handlers need to be conditioned (and that the dog must be genetically capapble of the work) to work through the environments they deploy in is well founded. It is one of the ways service dog work is so very different than sport training.