| Subject: US POLICE CANINE ASSOCIATION ARTICLE/CROSS FROM LONGWOODS |
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Date Posted: 05:46:05 11/23/08 Sun
US Police Canine Assoc. Article
Posted on November 22, 2008 at 04:37:45 by Tracey
The Right Dog for You!
Well we made it past the first hurdle. We've convinced our administration that we need a Canine Program.
We already know that the picking of handlers is an important aspect and is probably as important as the choosing of the dog itself. We must try, at all costs, to match personalities between dog and handler. To match wrong is asking for possible problems that may not be easy to correct at a later date. The best dogs must be matched with the best Officers of the same personality.
This combined with top notch training and consistent upkeep training, will produce a Canine Team tat the department had envisioned when they approved the program. Any variation from this standard may result in law suits directed at the department, with results that may not be favorable.
Since this article is on the choosing of a dog, we will attempt to explain some of the criteria that we use, the types of dogs and a brief explanation of the reasons. Some of the things may not apply to all departments, but we know that the standard measure of dog performance, as in pretests, is the same for most locales.
The dog of choice for years has been the German Shepherd Dog. In the last few years we have seen the Dutch and Belgian Malinois, and the Dutch Shepherd. There are other breeds that we see from time to time that are very good in police service but are not seen as often, for example the Rottweiler, the Doberman Pinscher, etc.
The Dutch Malinois and Dutch Shepherd are the choice of our department as of late with 14 or our 30 dogs being these two breeds, with five more on the way. We have found that they are basically free of some of the problems we have seen in the German Shepherd Dog in the last few years. It is interesting to note that the winner of the German Police Dog Championship this year was a Malinois.
Since the type of training decides what type of dog can be used, it would not be fair to fail to mention other breeds. Specifically the sporting breeds. We have used Golden Retrievers, Labs, etc. for narcotics, bomb, cadaver and accelerant work and they should not be overlooked for that type of specialty.
We must make the choice of the dog with only the highest possible quality in mind. To accept an animal of subpar quality puts the program on uneven ground to start. The dog can come from private citizen donations or purchased domestically, or it can be acquired from overseas. There are quite a few dogs that are now coming from Europe that provide a good, high quality dog at a reasonable price, depending who the dog is purchased from.
The age of the dog is important in that either too young or too old is a problem that has to be addressed. We do not like to take a dog that is younger than 10 months old. Even at this age the dog should be of exceptional qualities and score high on our pretest. Even at this age the lack of concentration shown by the dog at times, must be handled by the handler and trainer with a great degree of patience. Also the physical end of the training, the jumping and certain portions of the bite work must, be done tailored to compensate of the age of the dog.
By the same token, we do not like to take a dog that is too old. We normally wouldn't take a dog that is older than 2 ½ years. The exception to this being a dog that has had prior training, or in our opinion is truly exceptional. Again this hinges on the amount of training and the type. We look at the fact that we always give the team at least a year on the street before they become efficient as a unit. If the dog is too old, a prime year of street time or more is spent on the break in period and the training.
There are different degrees of training that each dog may have when he is purchased or donated to a specific program. We will try to examine the reasons, both good and bad, for the green dog and the pretrained dog. In this vein we must also touch on the training that will take place.
In days past, it was common practice to take a majority of donated dogs, that most of the time, came from private citizens. This enabled the department to secure decent dogs without any cash outlay. This was good for many years, and produced some good quality products for many departments. As time went on the type of dog that was needed for police work became harder and harder to find.
Part of the reason may have been that the increased number of departments that were starting and enlarging canine units. One of the other reasons is that a small number of dogs were being imported and were finding their way into police work. This combined with better pretests showed many departments that it was better to go with quality dogs that were guaranteed.
The donated green dog is still a very important way to obtain dogs for many departments. These green dogs also offer a tremendous opportunity for trainers and handlers to train a dog from scratch. It shows the different drives, and enables the handlers to be involved in the training form the start, and to see the different traits, of not only their own dogs, but also the other dogs in classes. This becomes important if any problems begin to develop at a later date. Because of the involvement in the entire training process, problems become easier to spot and correct.
This way of acquiring dogs has problems as does any other. One of the problems we ran into was the number of dogs we had to look at for example, to find 5 for a class. The time spent looking at the dogs and pretesting them was quite lengthy. After the dogs were accepted they then had to be transported to Michigan State University for hips, elbows, shoulders and chest cavity x-rays. This trip also included the usual eye test, blood workup and normal physical. The procedure becomes long in man hours and expensive if you look at 50 dogs, test 20 at the university, and have only 5 of the total pass.
This may not be the norm, but it has happened on more than one occasion in the last 24 years. What has to be remembered is that the pretest is hard, as is the physical, so that only the best dogs make it through. It is even more important today that we have high quality dogs to work with, due to the microscopic look taken by people, on not only canine units, but all police work in general.
The other type of dog that is seen frequently is the dog that is imported from overseas. This has merit for a number of reasons. We now save time by not having to drive all over who knows where, looking for dogs and wasting precious man ours. We have cut cost off of the vet bill due to the small number of dogs that have to be tested.
We know that the dog is normally coming with a medical guarantee on at least the hips and elbows. If the dog doesn't come with this guarantee, "DON'T BUY IT"If the dog comes with x-rays, take the dog and have a whole new set of pictures taken along with the shoulders. The nature of the dogs work, physically, makes it imperative that he have no medical problems, especially structurally.
The green dog that comes from Europe, in all likely hood, has had a little work in some areas. He/She may already pick up small objects and may even take a burlap agitation rag.
The degree and type of training depends on where you purchase the dog, and the amount that you want to spend. There are a lot of dogs that are pretrained, the ones that we see most often being the ones with Schutzhund or KNPV degrees. These dogs have had training and except for the KNPV dog (who has not been taught to track) will do obedience, tracking and protection work (apprehension) to some degree.
Most of the dogs we see that are purchased by other departments are Schutzhund dogs. (Sch I, Sch II or Sch III). All pretrained dogs have good and bad points about them as does anything. I can only touch on a few from our experiences with them over the years.
We must always remember that the Schutzhund dog is a sport dog. This does not mean that it will automatically be a good police dog. The degree shows that it can be trained to do certain things that are the foundation for a good police dog. We have seen dogs that come from Europe that cannot adapt to the rigors and stress of police work.
Because a lot of European dogs are kenneled they rarely see the inside of many buildings. This has been shown by the number of dogs who cannot adapt to the different types of floors here. We think a lot of the problem is a combination of eyesight or depth perception problems, combined with the shadows and lack of familiarity on the different floor surfaces. This is especially true on slick floors that change colors from light to dark abruptly.
Some dogs can never overcome this problem. Each officer should be aware of it and test for it. Schutzhund tracking is country tracking. If you are from an urban setting be aware that you will have to train the dog for your environment. The obedience and apprehension work is similar except for handler protection.
The KNPV dog is also a sport dog. The Dutch Police, after the purchase of one of these dogs, then put it through their own training course. The KNPV is a test to show the different degrees of drives, etc. that the dog possess in a competition forum. In the purchase of a fully trained KNPV dog you must understand that the dog does leg and body bites. This must be put in perspective in relation to the guidelines set forth by each individual department.
Some training to retarget the dog can be successful but will be influenced by each individual dogs characteristics. This dog must be taught to track it that is required, but he/she has already had some training in the other phases required for police work.
There are other degrees that we could discuss but it would be a rehash of basically the same thing. The German and Dutch police dogs are used in different settings and perform functions not entirely relevant to those used by us her in the states. This makes their dogs and ours alike in that we both desire the same basic qualities to start with. When obtaining a dog from a reputable dealer these qualities should be present. Make sure that you " PRETEST THESE DOGS THE SAME AS YOU WOULD A DONATION." There are a lot of things to test for that may avoid grief later.
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