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Extract from:
The Police Dog: History, Breeds and Service
Copyright James R. Engel August, 2013

Chapter 4

Canine Protection Training

An effective police or military
protection dog is the creation of
mankind through generations of
breeding selection, emerging from the
tending style herding lines of northern
Europe, culminating in the creation of
our police breeds at the advent of the
twentieth century. Performance based
breeding selection is a never ending
process in order to maintain an ongoing
supply of young working candidates, for
one cannot teach or train effective
aggression based service skills, they
must be there, must be incipient in the
heart of the dog. Protection training,
especially in the initial stages, is primarily a process of encouraging the inbred
instincts to mature and assert themselves, overcoming social, man created,
inhibitions so that the natural propensities can evolve into overt behavior patterns.
Good dogs selected from proven working lines, properly raised in an environment
promoting drive building and a minimum of heavy-handed discipline in general
readily respond to the opportunity to engage the human adversary. In such
instances the training quickly becomes a matter of control, procedure and technique,
that is, teaching the dog to desist from responding to provocative actions at handler
direction, to guard rather than engage as necessary and to release on command. It
is a fine edge, for the dog must be capable of vigorously responding to direct
aggression without handler action so as to defend the interests of the team when the
handler is disabled or distracted.
Although the structure of this book is intended to make each chapter as much as
possible a self-contained, stand-alone entity, protection training has evolved a
convoluted terminology, involving references to concepts such as predatory drive
and the self-preservation protection instinct. Those familiar with these concepts and
terms are certainly welcome to proceed directly, but others, less familiar, would be
well advised to review Chapter 2, Age Old Skills, for an introduction to the underlying
concepts and terminology.

Historical and Social Perspective

Canine obedience training is universally regarded as a good thing; there is no
rational reason to object to well behaved dogs under firm handler control. Protection
training and the breeding of willing dogs, encouraging and enhancing the propensity
to bite human beings, is similar to civilian gun ownership and recreational drug or
alcohol use in that diverse elements of society have always had the inclination to
endorse vigorous legal and cultural restrictions on such activity. Although much of
this is rooted in the general population with no specific involvement in dog breeding
and training, elements of the canine communities have also been ambivalent or
antagonistic to the protection applications. In Belgium some of the early police
administrators were generally opposed to civilian activity and elements of the early
Belgian Shepherd establishment had a strong preference for herding, obedience and
tracking for civilian training and competition to the exclusion of participation in
protection work. These minority reservations did not prevail, but did in fact exist,
apparently for the usual reasons of appealing to the more gentile and pacifist
attitudes of the emerging canine show dog establishment. Historically entities such
as the AKC and the German Shepard Dog Club of America were actively hostile to
civilian protection activity and ambivalent toward police applications. Although this
opposition has somewhat abated as registration numbers collapsed, beginning in the
middle 1990s, the bureaucrats of the conformation establishment always stand ready
to throw the heritage under the bus for their own advantage. All of this was
exacerbated by the civil rights conflicts in the American South in the 1960s; snarling
German Shepherds along with fire hoses and aggressive response by club wielding
police officers was not generally regarded as good publicity.
But in spite of this squeamishness the police oriented breeds were from the
beginning enormously popular among civilian populations. Total German Shepherd
registrations in the homeland were closing in on 100,000 at the advent of WW I,
enormous growth in little more than a decade, and in the aftermath of the war the
Shepherd became overnight the top AKC breed in terms of annual registration
numbers. In later years similar popularity surges for the Doberman Pincher and
Rottweiler demonstrated the staying power of this propensity; a significant segment
of the American population has held an affinity for the police dog persona, and been
quite willing to switch breeds in order to own the latest and most fashionable
protection dog in spite of the fact that most of the puppies supplied to this market
have come from increasingly softer, more servile, less serious breeding lines.
Conformation oriented breeders, in Europe as well as America, benefited from
this and encouraged and abetted this virile image, for it provided an enormous outlet
at very good price for pups that for one reason or another were deemed as lacking in
show potential. In general this market for lowest common denominator dogs was
typically larger, easier to sell into and more lucrative than the production of actual
police or military potential dogs, the replicas soon becoming much more popular and
lucrative than the real thing.
This commercialization has been an ongoing problem for police and other
agencies in that, generally, viable candidates today come only from very specific
police level lines, maintained by the more serious and traditional trainers and
breeders. Thus not every dog from these breeds has the potential for successful
training and deployment; winnowing the wheat from the chaff in candidate selection
is an ongoing process for every prospering police or military canine program.
Thus society in general, especially in the English speaking world, has had a
complex and often conflicted attitude toward these breeds; there on the one hand
being significant support for the idea that biting dogs are a societal problem and that
such dogs should be strongly discouraged or at least bred and trained under tight
control for police service only. On the other hand, as mentioned above, such dogs
have become enormously popular exactly because of the police dog persona; many
of us are drawn by the reflected sense of personal vigor and masculinity such a dog
is perceived as providing. Thus there is an ongoing conflict between pacifist elements
which believe passionately that guns and aggressive dogs should not be in the hands
of the population as a whole and those who find fulfillment and personal liberty in
their possession and are equally passionate in defense of their rights as citizens to
unfettered access to any sort of gun or dog. This conflict is a profound political,
ethical and practical rift in western civilization today; emotional commitment and a
sense of impending loss of personal liberty or societal order, peace and tranquility
make compromise – common ground – very difficult to establish.
These conflicts and contradictions exist on several levels. The advent of the
canine establishment in the latter nineteenth century – featuring formal breeds,
registry books, dog shows and national kennel clubs – transformed the structure of
the canine world. Especially in the English speaking nations the ideals and formalities
of this emerging canine establishment were those of the proper upper classes, with
emphasis on their hunting and house or lap dogs, and with a sense of gentility
disparaging overt aggression. Aggressive dogs were generally perceived as vulgar,
working class outcasts in this elite social hierarchy, as witnessed by the long delay in
accepting the Belgian Shepherds into the formal Belgian registration system, which
evolved in emulation of the British Kennel Club. As a consequence, the emerging
protection breeds became in a sense the forbidden fruit for the upwardly mobile
civilian; for to endorse and flaunt the inherent aggression, the broad basis of the
popularity, was also to embrace lower class values, thus jeopardizing one's social
aspirations.
These dogs of the more refined social elements were conceived as the noble
friends and companions of mankind, especially the right sort of mankind, and
elimination of any residual potential for overt aggression was a fundamental
foundation of this new canine world order. Upwardly mobile urban middle class show
dog hobbyists very much wanted to become perceived as being of the right sort, to
feel included in this world of gentility and privilege. In such a world dogs which bit
people, especially those bred and trained to bite people, were perceived as grossly
inappropriate. Just as the people needed to labor in the fields and factories or
provide services were to be kept in their place, perhaps necessary but not the sort
for your children to play with or your daughters to marry, working dogs – like
working men – were to be segregated, to exist on the periphery and for the benefit
of elite society.
The resolute guard or protection dog has always had the aura of power and
masculinity and in the era before firearms hunting dogs commonly participated in the
kill as well as the chase or search. The upper classes in this era, and especially those
aspiring to higher social stature, might disparage overt aggression in dogs as well as
men, but on some level the powerful, confident, capable dog was always desired and
admired, covertly if not openly. Formal duels, bear baiting, the dog fighting pit and
other activities for manly men, and the women who admired and married them, may
have gone out of fashion and the realm of legal activity, but the desire to perceive
oneself as strong, capable and bold, and to have dogs with these qualities to
reinforce this aura, has always been an integral part of our fascination with such
dogs.
The advent of the police breeds thus created a problem in that many of these
better sorts of people sought such dogs out for fashionable breeding programs and
show ring competition, but were unable to reconcile the conflict of breeds whose
functionality was based in aggression in a world where canine aggression was
perceived as vulgar and low class. The solution was to evolve a mythology, an
unspoken agreement to pretend that real police dogs still lurked in the souls of these
pathetic, emasculated caricatures of the show ring. Of course it was and is an
enormous, obvious, blatant falsehood; but it has become the conventional wisdom,
the rationale of show line pseudo police dog breeding everywhere, even the
European homelands, even in Germany, even in the SV, the mother club of the
German Shepherd.
In America there was much less conflict in the early years since protection
applications of any sort were at the extreme fringe of the canine world, with virtually
 Schutzhund protection engagement. The padded sleeve is separate, has a bite bar,
comes in both left and right arm versions. The leather pants are for decoy protection, the
dog is to bite only the offered sleeve. Shoes generally have rubber cleats for good footing.
Stick is fiberglass, padded and then leather covered. Dog is the German Shepherd
Gass Moravia Artex or Chico, earning his Schutzhund III, owned and trained by Chris Hruby.

no civilian involvement. American breeders resolutely emasculated their lines,

practical protection training activity was virtually nonexistent and police programs
were small, sparse, short lived and entirely out of the mainstream. There were no
American military programs prior to WW II and in the aftermath military canine
activity was on a vanishingly small scale prior to the Vietnam conflict.
Thus while the police dog was becoming enormously popular in America, nobody
quite knew quite what to do with them in terms of practical application of their
working potential. As a result they evolved primarily as nonfunctional replicas for
dilatants, becoming increasingly soft and fragile show dogs whose popularity was in
reality based on mythology and pretend masculinity and vitality.
In the 1950s and into the sixties working dogs in America were at a low ebb, all
police department programs had gone extinct and training involving any sort of
aggression was on the extreme fringe of the canine world, a small number of guard
dog trainers with their old fashioned pillow suits and junk yard dogs. Schutzhund or
any sort of amateur sport training was years in the future. None of the breed books
of the era ever really said anything about Schutzhund or protection applications
beyond vague references to war service and police work; somehow biting dogs were
analogous to your parents having sex: they must have because you were there but
nobody really wanted to think about it.
 The reemergence of police canine programs in the 1970s, driven to an extent by
our national war on drug distribution, the spectacular success of canine scout and
search dogs in Vietnam and a little later the emerging popularity of Schutzhund
created a surge in serious protection dog training in America, ongoing even today.
Civilian applications of canine aggression are generally defensive in nature, as in
personal, business or residence protection; there are very few circumstances where
it is legal or appropriate for the ordinary citizen to send a dog for an engagement at
a distance. Deterrence is usually the preferred mode of operation, an alert, barking
dog can often send a potential problem down the road or alert the homeowner or
pedestrian to the potential threat, often sufficient to avert criminal or violent
interaction. The defensive fight or flight instinct is generally sufficient and
appropriate; the posturing of aggression associated with this behavior often works as
nature intended, causing a potential advisory to stand down thus averting an actual
engagement. A successful bluff is usually the best outcome, without risk of injury or
the potential legal ramifications of the dog actually biting an assailant, who always
has the potential to prevail in court at great cost to the dog owner.
But the police dog must bring more, must have a strong offensive game to
complement the defense, the ability to engage enthusiastically at a distance, as in
pursuit and engagement deployments or area and building searches. For the patrol
dog the bluff is not enough, many adversaries will persist and fight back and the dog
must prevail until the handler or others can gain control and affect an apprehension.
In the early years defense of the officer walking a beat, particularly at night in an era
prior to street lighting, and intimidation on the street was the primary police canine
role. But today the purpose of the dog is to extend the reach of the officer, to
employ canine speed, agility and potential for intimidation and aggression to
apprehend a suspect, offset his potential for violence or, most desirably, produce an
apprehension without a physical engagement. Because of this need for overt
aggression at a distance the defensive instinct, while necessary and fundamental, is
in and of itself insufficient. To go beyond the simple close in protection the dog must
have sufficient fighting drive to carry the action to a distant adversary and prevail.
Today a fundamental issue in canine protection training, and particularly in
evaluation, is the relationship between sport performance and police patrol service.
In the ideal, the highest scoring and most successful sport dogs would on the whole
also be the best police candidates, that is, the trial should test and verify those
attributes and capabilities fundamental to effective service. Just as the nature of
police service evolves over time, driven by technical advancements such as the
routine use of patrol vehicles and ubiquitous radio communication, and societal
expectations in terms of evenhanded justice, the parameters of police canine service,
and thus breeding, of necessity evolve.
In general there has been an increasing emphasis on discipline and control,
partially driven by the fact that civilian video recording, aided and abetted by
technical innovation and increasingly protected by court rulings, is possible in even
the most remote and isolated circumstances. The days of "what happens on the
street stays on the street" are over; street justice is increasingly subject to formal
judicial review as citizens of the lower social strata are increasingly aware of their
rights and civilian video recording and increasingly vehicle based departmental video,
makes all police action potentially viewable in court. These evolving dynamics extend
to canine service, and today there are instances of police canine handlers winding up
in prison because of unwarranted aggression and inappropriate bites. On the whole,
these are good things.
An ongoing problem, to be explored more completely in subsequent chapters, is
that increasingly sport competition has become stylized and come to favor the
compliant dog in a rote display of a routine series of exercises. Today these conflicts
are so far advanced that we are seeing an evolving division of these breeds into
show, sport and police lines rather than the historical division between show and
work. This is, or should be, of great concern to all involved.
Since most of my background and experience has been in Schutzhund, the
tendency here is to speak in terms of sleeve presentation and other references to
specific aspects of this style of training. In general suit training is according to the
same foundation principles with adaptions for equipment, and variations in technique
or training approach are discussed as appropriate. For instance the modern
Schutzhund helper will often slip or release the sleeve to end an engagement,
allowing the dog to carry it off; a maneuver not directly possible with a full body
style suit. Ring trainers will typically use tugs and other preliminary play devices and
have leg paddings which can be released for the dog to carry and various other
adaptations to allow reinforcement and reward of the predatory drive. As another
example of variation in training philosophy and practice, emphasis on the full grip
upon engagement is strong in Schutzhund, important in Belgian ring and KNPV and
less so in French ring. This needs to be understood both from the point of view of
trial points and the consequences for subsequent field deployment.

Expectations
The job description of the police or military dog has variations according to the
requirements of the working and deployment environment and the policies, culture
and preferences of the particular agency. General functional requirements calling
upon the aggressive potential include:
 Apprehension of a fleeing subject.
 Searching for and detaining or engaging persons hidden in a building or
other area.
 Response to any attack on the handler or others.
 Guarding a stationary suspect, that is, prevent him from fleeing.
 Guarding a person under escort.

Guard of an object, such as a bicycle or jacket, was also often an historical

requirement, and these exercises are still included in trial systems such as KNPV or
the ring sports. Such things are less prevalent in actual service because routine foot
patrol is unusual, because the dog on his own is more vulnerable in that his
adversary is more likely to be armed, and because of liability in the event the dog
engages an incidental civilian with no specific criminal intent. Tactical radio systems,
vehicle based patrol and more sophisticated and better armed criminals have driven
evolution in the tactics of and requirements on police officers and their dogs.
Crowd control was historically an important canine function, even the primary
reason for the dogs in some situations, but has to a major extent disappeared from
public view in more recent years, especially in the United States. In the current era
large-scale public demonstrations are often planned and scripted by quasi-
professional political activists rather than the spontaneous eruptions of ordinary
citizens. A primary objective is to provoke police response which can be taken to the
courts for redress or for publicity and propaganda purposes; the video camera and
manipulation of the press have become primary tools. In the 1960s snarling police
dogs and fire hoses became all too common on the evening news, and police
agencies have become much more sophisticated in training and deployment. In
America particularly the use of dogs has been greatly curtailed, and if present at all
they are in the background, deployed in a way unlikely to result in a featured role on
the evening news.
 Many patrol dogs today have a primary substance detection role, typically drugs
for police dogs and explosives for military service dogs, in addition to the protection
and aggression roles. Although single purpose detection dogs of various breeds are
in common use, the aggressive potential of the police bred dog is often desirable
because of the natural intensity, the resilience in difficult environments and the
immediate visual identification as a police or service dog. The protection function of
such dogs may be primarily the defense of the dog and handler as they perform their
detection services, with less emphasis on wider area search or pursuit capabilities or
other more specialized or advanced functions. In such applications deterrence is an
important benefit, the dog can intimidate without harming people encountered at a
crime scene or in a military engagement, especially in urban areas, as in our recent
Middle East engagements, where the adversaries are difficult to distinguish from the
indigenous civilian population. Other applications require dogs more exclusively
focused on the protection functions.
A primary justification of the police canine is the use of less than deadly force.
Converting this to practical reality is one of the most fundamental and challenging
aspects of training and deployment, for a person of interest may be entirely
innocent, and the deployed dog may encounter innocent people other than the
intended subject of the action. A factory or warehouse may for instance contain an
unsuspecting watchman or guard, perhaps asleep in some remote corner, or a child,
as well as a possible thief. Or the dog may redirect toward some other person in his
field of view when sent after a fleeing subject, sometimes another police officer.
Other police personnel present in an engagement are sometimes bitten by a
police dog out of confusion, poor situational management or just old-fashioned bad
luck; and even with the best selection, training and deployment practices this is
always a possibility. Sometimes the inappropriate aggression is against the handler
rather than another police officer; and shooting the dog to resolve a conflict is a rare
but unfortunately not unknown result of such incidents. Overt aggressive potential
without the commitment to stability and reliable handler control and discipline is a
serious threat to the agency personnel and the general public and in the long term
the credibility and thus the viability of the canine program.
An effective police canine service with good public relations is founded in a solid
selection and training program, with emphasis on practices and tactics where safety
and control are built in with the foundation rather than afterthoughts. Training for
the call off and the bark and hold in a search situation are often endorsed as tactics
contributing to these ends, and incorporated in practical qualification tests such as
the KNPV trial. The call off is a command, usually verbal but sometimes a whistle or
other device, to cause the dog to break off the pursuit of a subject and return to the
handler or to go to the down position. The bark and guard on a search procedure is
the trained response to halt in front of a found subject and bark intensely rather than
biting, intended to intimidate the subject and let the handler and others know of a
find if out of sight.
But to an extent these can be public relations ploys which prove to be less than
effective and reliable in the field: calling off the dog requires that it be in view of the
handler, but a fleeing suspect, potentially an innocent person reacting in fear and
panic, may go out of sight around a corner or disappear from view in a wooded area.
Bark and hold is dependent on a subject locking up into a motionless posture,
possible for the trial decoy with extensive experience and the protection of the body
suit, but often not a reasonable expectation of an unprotected, inexperienced
civilian, criminal or otherwise. The dog in the bark and hold posture is also
vulnerable to a subject with a gun. The work of a police dog and his handler are by
their nature often extremely hazardous; good strategy and training can minimize but
never eliminate these hazards.
 Good public relations are fundamental for successful canine programs, which
means that control and neutrality in the presence of non-threatening people, animals
such as other dogs and unexpected circumstances are a fundamental part of
selection and training, equally as important as the characteristics of courage,
hardness and aggression so admired and necessary in the police dog persona. The
foundation of the aggression potential comes from breeding, and as a consequence
much of the training, both initial and especially maintenance of the in service dog, is
focused on proofing the dog against possible distractions, such as other dogs or
people engaged in innocent activity.
Just as the bravest man will know fear and insecurity but overcome it in the
course of his duty, each dog is potentially subject to insecurity and fear of things
such as gunshots or threats from the stick or bat of an adversary. Fear is natural and
necessary to elicit an appropriate response, but a significant aspect of training is
preparing the dog to persist in the face of aggressive action from the subject, such
as striking with a bat, stick or other object. Stick hits, pushing or driving a dog on
the sleeve and verbal intimidation during an engagement are thus generally part of
the training regimen and trial or evaluation process. Teaching the muzzled dog to
fight is also a time honored practice, although more prevalent in police rather than
sport training. Other examples of testing and training include long distance pursuits
and engagements, for going out away from the security and support of the handler
can bring out the latent fear and insecurity in the marginal dog.

The Bad Old Days

In its most primitive form protection training is based on raw defense, often
implemented by isolating the young dog from human contact – negative socialization
in a sense – to foster fear toward all unknown humans. As the training commences
the dog is restrained to preclude escape, by chaining to a fence for instance, and
applying pressure by a show of threat and aggression on the part of the decoy and
striking or beating the dog as necessary. The lesson for the dog is that all human
beings are a threat best dealt with by a preemptive show of extreme aggression.
This was never pretty, and of only limited real utility; even a cornered rat will fight.
But in a quick, dirty and very crude sense this is sometimes superficially effective.
In earlier years American canine protection applications involved a certain
amount of "agitation" to bring out the aggression of an often reluctant or marginal
dog, such things as flanking, that is, grabbing and pulling the web of skin between
the hind leg and body, striking the dog or cornering and pressuring the dog until he
snaps and bites out of fear. Most of this was driven by simple stupidity and
ignorance, the attempt to turn random dogs into supposed protection dogs. Crude
methods were used because more sophisticated breeding, candidate selection and
training approaches evolving in Europe were not yet widely understood in America.
Much of the historical repugnance toward protection training on the part of the public
in general and the canine community, particularly in America, was based on the
observation or reports of this sort of crude and inhumane training of dogs. The fact
that the dogs were often inadequate or marginal to start with, because those doing
the training did not really understand the requisite character, tended to exacerbate
the situation.
This old-fashioned approach to training was primarily built on fear and defense,
cornering or threatening a dog to elicit a fighting response because the possibility of
flight had been precluded by physical restraint. Although some vestiges of this have
limited applications even today, modern methods emphasize escalating response to
the predatory drive in combination with lower emphasis on defensive reaction;
basically evolving as increasingly serious games. The defensive instinct is a
fundamental aspect of the canine nature, and must be sufficient and drawn out
carefully in training, but initial training should as much as possible be based on the
predatory instinct. A primary reason for this is that true defense involves enormous
psychological and psychological stress on the dog, the serious fear and the release of
adrenaline into the system for a desperate fight of flight response. This is difficult to
invoke on a routine basis and unnecessary, the dog responding from the predatory
and fighting instincts rather than fear knows joy in his work and gains confidence
that he will prevail regardless of what his adversary might do. Sometimes a little bit
of defensive pressure, followed by the decoy cowering and retreating at the first sign
of aggression, is used to bring out a reluctant young dog. This needs to be the work
of an experienced helper, and should perhaps be taken as a sign that the young dog
is not quite ready.
This junkyard dog style was typical of much or most of American training into the
1960s and 70s, and was largely responsible for the poor public perception of
protection work. The inherent problem is that this tends to produce a dog essentially
fighting from a foundation of fear, and the response to fear is unpredictable and
context dependent, which means the dog is likely to be indiscriminate and difficult to
control. When the dog is weak or genetically insecure it might look impressive right
up to the moment he runs and thus allows the adversary to win and succeed in his
robbery, rape or home invasion. To train a capable dog in this way, to create and
build on insecurity, to focus on fear driven aggression, is a waste and puts a
potentially dangerous dog in the world at large. Good dogs improperly trained in this
way can become dangerous dogs, and very good dogs can become very dangerous.
To force an insecure or inadequate dog to take on primarily fear based
aggression is morally wrong, is dog abuse and is fraud when the dog is sold for
service or bred based on the deceptive perception. Eliciting response from the
defensive instinct is a legitimate and important aspect of all canine aggression
training, even today. But this needs to be in the context of a balanced program with
emphasis on the predatory and fighting instincts. Eliciting a defensive response by
pushing the dog to respond at an extreme fight or flight point is wrong and
ineffective, but eliciting the earlier and lower level stages of the defensive response
and channeling this into a prey or fighting response where the dog succeeds and
defeats the helper builds confidence and allows inborn courage to emerge. An
escalating pattern of such engagements can play an important role in preparing the
dog for fearful and stress inducing incidents in order to succeed in field deployment.
Balance is the key to success, training the dog at the other extreme, entirely
based on the prey response where the helper never sufficiently challenges the dog
by overt physical aggression and body posture, where the dog becomes confident
because the engagement is a script with his win preordained, can produce success in
the trial. But a more demanding helper or adversary encountered in real service may
go beyond sport scenarios, break the script and sometimes thus break the dog. This
is never a good thing, and failure in the field is an especially bad way to make the
discovery.
Although modern training has become enormously more sophisticated and
effective, even today remnants of the old-fashioned defense based methods persist,
cornering the dog by tying to a fence or a tight hold by the handler, with the helper
approaching with verbal threats, ominous body language and a threatening stick or
whip and then suddenly creating a bite opportunity is a standard approach to
training, and done with skill can build confidence and aggression in the dog. But dogs
which respond only to such an approach are of very limited potential and should not
be used in service or breeding.
Americans are fond of gadgets and mechanical contraptions, and this extends to
dog training. Innovations in bite sleeve construction, promising rapid training
progress and automatic full grips, are continually offered by competing firms and
vendors, and new features in bite suits and protective pants are continually
introduced. Much of this is profit driven; a pile of discarded sleeves replaced by the
latest and greatest model represents pure profit for the vendors.
Table training, going back to hunting dog practice, has become fashionable in
the past twenty years or so. Such training generally employs a round table, perhaps
six feet across, with a post or ring in the center to which the dog is restrained, often
on a harness. This brings the dog face to face with the helper and can bring a higher
level of threat and conflict. The dog is restrained so when great fear is induced the
option of flight is precluded, and ultimately the dog must fight, the idea is to teach
the dog that the only safe place is on the sleeve. Sometimes dogs are under such
stress that they lose control of their bowels and bladder. Dogs fighting desperately
for survival can be enormously intense and aggressive, but only the novice is taken
in, those with experience recognize, and are dismayed by, what they are seeing.
While table training has been controversial and often rightfully condemned, the
table itself is just another training device, morally neutral. An enormous amount of
bad training has been done based on the table, but there are trainers using a table,
often smaller and square rather than round, in the process of perfectly good training.
If something bad is going on in table training, it is not the table itself but the
training. More recently, the training "box" has come into use, based on the same
general principles. Here the dog is in something akin to a small open front horse
stall, on a platform perhaps two feet above floor level, restrained often on a harness
with a wall on either side. Regardless of the mechanical contraptions involved, good
training is good training and bad training is bad training. And training based primarily
on fear, the raw invocation of the fight or flight instincts, is always bad training.
In my mind the old-fashioned fear based training is morally repugnant, is animal
abuse when the dog is weak and fights back only from primitive survival instincts.
When push comes to shove in a real world engagement or under pressure in the trial
the dog may very well rediscover the option of flight at the worst possible moment.
Eliciting the defensive response, done with skill and restraint and built on a
foundation of confidence established through primary reliance on the predatory
instincts is useful in preparing the dog for pressure he may see in the field or in the
trial. But fear should not be the primary mechanism of dog training, and when fear is
the only way to bring out a response the dog is inadequate and training should
cease, a better dog is needed.
The Schutzhund movement in the 1970s and 1980s and more sophisticated
police program administration brought a generally much better approach to training
to America, one based on balance in selection and training foundation. In this
approach the young dog is brought along by playing with a jute tug or an ordinary
towel, the biting is part of the game and the dog wins in the end. As the dog
becomes stronger and more mature the play is a little more intense and evolves to
bring forward the defensive or fighting instincts. Over time the dog must become
more assertive and aggressive in order to win.

Selection and Preliminary Training

Procuring, training and deploying police, military or security dogs must be done
in a business like way so as to produce a profit or run a governmental operation
within a reasonable budget. Expending time and money before eventually discarding
the marginal dog greatly adds to program cost; it is essential to start with the best
possible candidates and to initially focus on testing as well as training so as to
identify and discard inadequate dogs as quickly as possible.
Capable, cost effective protection dogs are most reliably – and thus most
economically – drawn from among strong working lines. Not every pup, even from
the best lines, is born with the inherent potential to become an adequate police dog,
and it can take a great deal of time and effort to bring the actual potential into focus.
For the casual amateur trainer this can become a matter of eventually seeking
another dog or being satisfied with the marginal dog, perhaps capable of a home
field title on a good day but not something for breeding or to take in harm's way. But
for police or military training, where the time of both the handler and the trainers is
a substantial ongoing expense, expending inordinate time attempting to train a dog
which will ultimately be discarded becomes a serious financial drain.
Modern police and military dogs often serve in the presence of innocent people,
including the taxpayers supporting the various programs. Extreme, overt aggression
with marginal control was at one time sufficient or desired for some military
perimeter security or old style police crowd intimidation applications, but today the
vast majority must be reasonably social, neutral in non-threatening environments, in
order to be acceptable. Effective socialization of the puppy and a foundation of
confident social neutrality and obedience are today prerequisites for most service
environments. For these reasons, and the need to test the aggressive potential early
in the full time training cycle, professional programs often purchase older dogs, or
dogs with some training, where experienced personnel can evaluate the dogs and
thus greatly increase the expectation of success. As an example, the United States
military training operation, at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas, breeds some of its
own Malinois, which are placed in foster homes as pups to mature in a supportive
environment providing good imprinting and social foundations. (This emulates a
practice which has been ongoing for seeing eye dog programs for many years.)
This is also why police and military programs today are reluctant to accept
donated dogs, for the cost of processing, training and then all too often discarding
such dogs becomes prohibitive. Misguided efforts to train inadequate or marginal
dogs, even from the police breeds, is inherently wasteful and likely to produce
disappointment in service even if such dogs are moved through a training program
without being pushed hard enough to demonstrate a realistic expectation of street
success.
The strong emotional bond between handler and dog is the foundation of
effective service, and in the ideal the pup comes into the long-term handler's care
when it leaves the whelping box. But this is not generally practical in a world where a
large portion of candidates, even from the best of lines, are found wanting and
moved on. For economic and logistical reasons, patrol dogs are often brought to
maturity in other environments to begin training as a more mature dog, where the
inadequate can be quickly – and thus more cost effectively – identified and
discarded. The typical police officer may have only one or two partners in a career.
Military tours of duty are normally not much more than a year; when dogs are in
short supply, as they have been in the Middle East conflicts for the past ten years,
the military dogs remain in service, that is are generally placed with a new handler
when the current handler's deployment comes to an end.
Although there have historically been instances of programs where a single dog
was partnered with several concurrent handlers, and very unusual circumstances
where this is current practice, the most effective and normal situation is an ongoing
team of a single dog and handler where the dog resides with the handler. Thus the
police canine usually resides with the officer in his home, and the military service
dog and handler are together more or less around the clock when deployed.
Dogs are typically trained by full time specialist personnel and then introduced to
the handler in a relatively brief transitional training program. The foundation training
may be done either by commercial operations for eventual sale to the deploying
agency or trained by full time in house personnel. For these reasons, training the
individual handler is thus focused on establishing a viable working relationship with
his specific dog, already trained by specialists, and establishing the necessary
emotional bond, discipline and control rather than training the handler to become a
ground up dog trainer. Just as the military truck driver does not need to know how to
design or repair diesel engines, canine handler training is specific to the skills and
knowledge needed to deploy an existing trained dog. (Such handlers may and often
do have or develop more advanced skills, sometimes moving up a step to join the
ranks of the training staff.) Military dogs often have relatively long service careers
and thus routinely transfer to a new handler, sometimes several times.
Today most established trainers work with their dogs to build confidence and
drive at a young age, balancing light obedience and impartiality in the presence of
neutral people and dogs with early aggression encouragement. The older dog which
has been subjected to heavy-handed obedience – or admonished or punished for
exuberance and enthusiasm – may require a period of encouragement and patience
to understand that aggression is permissible and praise worthy in specific
circumstances. In general a good dog who has been well socialized and exhibits
acceptable manners will respond well; ruining dogs by being too nice to them or
insisting on obedience and deportment is unlikely. On the other hand, lack of
socialization and building fear in the young dog is likely to have long-term negative
consequences, in the extreme rendering the dog dangerous or spooky and thus
useless.
The importance of bringing out and encouraging the young dog is sometimes
illustrated by an older dog of good potential, but through a lack of encouragement
and a figurative tight leash in his early years does not immediately comprehend that
aggression is acceptable, and may exhibit symptoms of avoidance. If the basic
quality is there, a patient handler and helper can sometimes bring such a dog
around, but this can be time consuming, a little frustrating and sometimes less than
fully successful.
On the other hand, delaying training until a year or so old, as was the
conventional wisdom many years ago, at least in some circles, can have its own set
of problems. I recall like it was yesterday taking my old Gambit dog to training at
about a year old, some thirty years ago. The introduction was to be a puppy or
young dog circle, where a group of dogs, each on a line with a harness or leather
collar, were to be introduced to beginning aggressive response, the idea being that
the vocalization and response of the group would bring out the initially unsure dogs,
sort of a group excitement thing. The helper would go around the circle, shaking a
rag or tug at the dogs, seeking to elicit a response, eventually allowing one to get
the object. One way or another the puppy sleeve came within reach and Gambit took
it, and the problem was not getting him to bite, and not building a firm or secure
bite, but how to get him to release. There was some sincere verbalization from the
helper to get the dog off, for puppy sleeves are compressible, and the man was in
real pain.
Based on thirty years of more perspective, this dog should have been started at a
much younger age, and the release should have been built in from the beginning. In
that way the inherent aggression could have been shaped and directed as it matured
rather than emerging all at once, fully ready to go. Things have changed enormously
over the years, we were a couple of years into Schutzhund training before seeing a
German trainer with a Bouvier actually let the dog carry the sleeve off the field. I
was astonished to see such a thing, which indicates where we were at the time. We
had so much to learn.
Formal Foundations
Effective protection training requires simulating an engagement in a way that is
realistic for the dog, that is emulates as nearly as possible the situations likely to be
experienced in service or the trial, and is safe for the human adversary, variously
referred to as the helper, agitator or decoy. Although early stages of training may
involve biting and pulling on an object such as a rolled burlap bag or tug, as the dog
advances to actually bite the helper injury is prevented or minimized by the use of
protective equipment, that is padded arms in Schutzhund style training and a wide
variety of padded protection training suits. Such suits can be very elaborate and
expensive, that is often more than $1000 US dollars, sometimes much more, not an
insignificant sum for sports equipment.
Protection training is largely a matter of finding the right dog and getting out of
the way, letting the dog out to become mature in confidence and strength by winning
at each stage, first by making the helper flee and then by controlling the helper with
his bite. When extensive and elaborate effort is necessary to bring forth the
aggression and the willingness to engage and bite, generally it is a matter of the
wrong dog or a dog where the natural behavior propensities have been suppressed
through heavy-handed discipline, an overly dominating handler or home situation.
Even when such dogs can be induced to bite in defense through pressure, the
aggressive capability may be only on the surface, likely to evaporate in a street
encounter.
Usually informal training of the pup or very young dog is a matter of increasingly
intense play with the handler, involving the grip of a rolled up burlap sack or
commercially produced tug toy. In the transition to formal training with the helper,
he will often also play with the young dog in a similar way, perhaps with the same
objects employed in the preliminary training.
In the beginning stages of formal training especially, the helper is the dog trainer
while the handler plays a secondary, supporting role. The helper is in the best
position to gauge the response of the dog, by the firmness and calmness of the grip
as well as what he observes, to know when it is necessary to reduce pressure and
momentarily revert into a more overtly prey oriented presentation and when
pressure can be increased to build drive and confidence through one small success at
a time. As the dog matures the helper begins to bring more pressure through the
intensity of presentation, by fighting after the grip and later by the stick in order to
bring the defense into balance and build the confidence to respond to the
unexpected. The protection engagements are driven by the prey and defensive or
fighting instincts, and the most effective training program continually adapts to bring
these drives into balance, to produce persistence, reliability and vigor in the dog's
performance. This is primarily the function of the training helper, and while physical
attributes such as quickness and strength are important elements of this work the
most important helper skill is the ability to perceive moment by moment what is in
the dog's mind, to see into his soul and know his fears and the depth of his
aggression, and instinctively react to build confidence and drive. Immediate,
instinctive response is the key element, one must become able to perceive the
emerging problem in the early stages and react; a few moments to consider a
response will often mean that the opportunity to build confidence or allay fear is lost.
This is why experience and practice as well as abstract knowledge are of such
fundamental importance in this work.
When I became involved in Schutzhund in the early 1980s young dog training
was generally more defense oriented than it has become today. Typically it would
begin with the helper quietly, menacingly approaching the young dog, staring
directly at him, a practice referred to as making eye contact. A good helper can have
enormous presence – demand the dog's attention, intimidate the dog – with very
little overt motion through demeanor, presentation and posture. (This is very similar
to the famous "eye" employed by Border Collie style herding dogs.) The dog may
hesitate, and then give a tentative bark, in response to which the helper immediately
retreats, often going out of sight in a blind. This experience builds confidence, shows
the dog that he is in control, can make the adversary flee. Notice that this exercise
begins by bringing out a defensive response but immediately flips over into a prey
driven reaction. In this era it was not the usual practice to have the dog carry the
sleeve but rather focus back on the helper when it was released, sometimes by
helper threat after the sleeve release to draw the attention back. Teaching the out,
the release of the sleeve or body suit, was generally deferred to a later phase of the
training, which meant that it was often difficult and required vigorous enforcement
corrections. (This was an important reason for the transition to the more overtly prey
oriented introduction typical today, where the teaching of the release is integrated
from the beginning and thus generally less demanding of force and more reliable in
the long term.)
In more recent years there has been a trend to bring out the young dog more in
prey, for instance attaching a line to a tug or the sleeve itself and throwing it to one
side and then retrieving it, inducing the pup to chase it in prey, similar to playing
with a kitten with a mouse or object on a string. The follow up is often a series of
helper run by maneuvers, with the sleeve just out of reach, resulting in a strong grip
when it finally is presented. The usual conclusion of the exercise today is slipping the
sleeve for the dog to carry.
In my view a measure of defense and the potential for resolute fighting drive is
also essential, and it is normal to gently probe for defense in the beginning, and if
adequate potential seems to be present to leave it alone and progress primarily
through prey, where the dog is driven by the excitement of the engagement. This
also sets the stage for control, and when the young dog is taught from relatively
early in the progression that the release is sure to be rewarded by another bite, and
carries the sleeve off the field after the last bite, the extreme pressure sometimes
needed to enforce the out on a strong adult dog is minimized or entirely eliminated.
This shift in emphasis toward early reliance on the prey response has been an
evolutionary trend, a matter of focus and emphasis in the balance point, for these
are not diametrically opposite methodologies, but rather end points of a continuum.
Good programs will continually adjust the balance between prey and defense
according to the short-term response of the dog. Generally I find slightly challenging
the dog early on useful for gauging his intrinsic nature as a down the road reference
point. A moderate awakening of the defensive instinct with transition to prey can
build confidence and enthusiasm. I have always been a little more comfortable with
the concept of fighting the helper rather than playing with the equipment, but
perhaps I am just an old dog having trouble with new tricks. In the broader
perspective these are secondary issues, for if the power and aggression are present
in the heart of the dog emphasis on preliminary prey training is not going to diminish
the ultimate intensity and drive. The key element is always the ability of the helper
to perceive weakness or insecurity and immediately adapt on the fly to produce the
win for the dog, regardless of underlying philosophical training issues. This is not a
matter of right or wrong so much as observing the reactions and at the first
indication of insecurity immediately adapting the exercise to conclude with a win,
thus building confidence.
Training based on foundations in prey and play have proven to be effective in
many circumstances, and when real aggression and response through fighting drive
and escalating helper aggression, and confident response to unexpected threats
outside the trial script, is incorporated in later training this is a perfectly rational and
reasonable approach. But when dogs are only tested to the script, and when trials
are adapted to remove the stress of standing up to real, unscripted decoy
aggression, as in the instances of the removal of the attack on the handler and the
old fashioned turn on the dog courage test in Schutzhund, we are entering the realm
of pretend and fantasy protection training. This will not be viable in the longer term,
for serious police and military trainers will be forced to look for real dogs from other
sources, exacerbating the ongoing separation between real service and traditional
sport training and national breed clubs.
This general trend to a more purely prey oriented introduction to protection
training is perhaps a reaction, even an overreaction, to the historically abusive
methods of earlier American training. Particularly in sport venues there is a tendency
to regard the whole thing as some sort of a game, to be uncomfortable with real
anger and aggression in the dog. Many French Ring proponents are this way, but it is
a general trend among a large component of civilian sport oriented trainers.
In the early stages the bite, first of separate objects such as the tug and
progressing through soft puppy sleeves, usually introduced as separate objects
rather than on the arm, the helper pulls away, inducing the dog to bite more firmly
and persistently in order to maintain possession of the object. Once the bite is
engaged, helper aggression evaporates as he pulls away, showing passivity and
avoiding eye contact or other aggressive gestures and postures.
Since the dog is firmly restrained by an agitation harness or wide leather collar,
which the line handler must absolutely control, the helper can come closer and closer
before fleeing. In early bites the helper tends to run by the dog or the dog is allowed
to move forward, restrained by the line, to get the grip on an essentially fleeing
opponent. The sequence is from gripping an object, to gripping the object held by
the helper, to biting a padded arm on a passive or retreating helper to, eventually,
the point where the dog in his mind is engaging the man rather than the object.
As the process progresses the helper will more and more step forward into the
dog with a presented sleeve and allow a bite, to which he typically turns and pulls
away, maintaining the horizontal sleeve position so as not to twist the sleeve in the
mouth. This turning the head and body away, and shunning eye contact, is a
submissive posture intended to give the dog the sense of winning, that is, building
confidence. If the dog releases his grip the helper escapes, ending the fun and the
game. This builds the strong, firm, persistent grips desired in the trial and service.
Today the engagement will usually end with the helper slipping his arm out of the
sleeve, allowing the dog to carry the prey object home in triumph.
As the training advances the helper is more persistent and aggressive, in time
responding to the bite by stepping forward into the dog, with the opposite hand up
with a stick or in a threatening posture. This evolves into a process, called driving
the dog, of continually stepping into the dog with an increasingly aggressive
demeanor and increasingly threatening with, and eventually striking with the stick.
Every dog is different and presents a new set of training challenges; there is no
recipe to turn out good protection dogs automatically like apple pies. Thus there
must be variation and ongoing adaption in the process of bringing out and enhancing
the willingness and ability of a young dog to engage, to go to the sleeve or suit and
take the desired firm, confident grip and fight the man even when he is aggressive
and uses the stick to test confidence and courage.
In most protection training programs the desired bite is the full grip, in which the
initial bite is firm and persistent, taking in and holding as much of the offered sleeve
or suit fabric and padding as possible. Thus the full grip is the fundamental objective
from the beginning of training, because it is the safest for the dog and the helper,
because it is the most desirable in most deployment circumstances and because it
measures and builds confidence in the dog. One important consideration is safety,
for with the full, secure grip the weight of the dog is not brought to bear on the
fangs, which function primarily to keep the sleeve or suit from slipping rather than
bearing the weight of the dog and the forces arising from the aggressive motions of
the helper. Since the teeth are simply keeping the sleeve from slipping rather than
bearing the weight of the dog, broken teeth are much less likely.

Discipline
Much of the operational justification for the police dog is limited and recallable
force, that is, a non-deadly option to the gun in deployment engagements. The
concept of innocent until proven guilty, although not perfectly observed, is the
foundation of the modern judicial system and the deployment of canine force must
be justified in these terms. For these reasons the ideal modern police dog should be
recallable, engage with minimum practical force and release a bite and go into the
guard mode upon handler command, or when the adversary ceases resistance. This
is of course all fine in theory, but in reality adversaries flee or fight back in
unpredictable ways and people, too often innocent people, get bitten; but training
and deployment decisions need to strive for the ideal in a much less than perfect
world. The adaptability of the tending style herding breeds to this mode of operation
is a primary reason for their evolution into our police breeds of today.
Uncontrolled aggression, where the off lead dog is beyond effective handler
control, has little practical utility in the modern urban environment. On their own
dogs revert to primitive, instinctive reactions according to territory and social
associations where unknown people are often by default adversaries; it is the
responsibility of the handler to maintain control and to the extent possible direct
limited aggression to the intended adversary rather than incidental people present,
including other law enforcement personnel.
In the trial there is always an out or release command after a bite when the
helper becomes stationary or locks up, to which the dog must respond by releasing
and going into a strong guarding posture. In the early years of my Schutzhund
experience the general tendency was to introduce the out or release relatively late in
the training cycle, when the dog was showing strong aggression, often in the days or
weeks leading up to a first trial. The conventional wisdom behind this was concern
that the coercion necessary to compel the release would intimidate and confuse the
dog and thus diminish the intensity and drive. The consequence was often a crisis in
training because a great deal of pressure and compulsion was necessary to affect a
release, and the dog would have the tendency to bite again immediately.
Furthermore the out was a result of handler intimidation, which meant that the dog
would be less likely to comply the further away he was. In the trial the handler is
relatively far from the dog, and the dogs would often perceive that the trial situation
was different, further reducing the incentive for compliance.
Training is reward and punishment, and in the old-fashioned mode of training the
release was almost completely coercion, there was nothing in the dog's mind that
was or could be construed as a reward in releasing the bite and giving up the
engagement. In obedience a reward in the form of food or the expectation of a ball
for a straight sit or quick recall was a practical ancillary approach, but balls and
treats mean little to a serious dog engaged with the helper. These dogs were bred
and selected for aggression, tenacity and fighting drive, and to give up the fight and
release is contrary to this basic nature.
Contemporary practice is to introduce the out as much as possible based on
reward rather than physical compulsion. The problem is that a ball or a treat are not
practical or sufficient, mean nothing to the dog in the aggression mode. The solution
was found in giving the young dog another bite as a reward for a clean release, with
the dog carrying the sleeve off the field after the last bite so that every release is
quickly followed by the reward of another so that the association is firmly
established. Properly executed, this training process usually results in a quick, clean
out and an intense guard because of the expectation of an immediate repeat bite.
Rather than delaying the release to late stages in the training cycle, often under the
pressure of an approaching first trial, the release is incorporated from the very
beginning, sometimes even in playing with the puppy tug or burlap sack before the
introduction of the helper. Some correction and coercion is often necessary, but it is
secondary and transitory, reinforcing the basic reward based training process.
Tom Rose used to teach a sit stabilization method where the dog was on a long
line and a harness and a second person, often the dog's handler, was behind the
helper with a separate line and a pinch collar. The advantage of this is that the
correction is into the helper, which avoids a tug of war scenario. When the correction
is from behind the dog, strong dogs will often become extremely stubborn and
difficult, persist and become even more determined in response to the compulsion.
In the Schutzhund trial the decoy always comes to a complete halt, becomes
locked in a fixed position, before the release command, and the dog is always
expected to go into an intense guard mode. In ring sport the out is in some
situations required before the complete cessation of decoy motion, and the dog is in
some exercises recalled rather than expected to guard.
When the dog outs or releases, he must stay focused on the helper. With proper
training the dog believes that he has won, and is challenging his adversary to
continue the fight. This is, of course, the picture that makes the judge tend to give
full points. And, even more importantly, it is the picture in the police patrol dog that
makes the suspect just want it all to come to an immediate end, puts him in the
frame of mind to accept apprehension without further resistance.
While the release and guard is the most difficult and important aspect of
discipline, the dog must also learn to guard a subject under escort and to reliably
stay in the heal position as the handler moves about the trial field, even though the
helper is present and sometimes in plain sight. The protection or guard dog is made
in breeding selection rather than on the training field, and the fundamental task of
protection training is to build reliable discipline and control, and teach correct biting
technique, that is proper grips, while minimizing inhibitions on aggression.

Ongoing Training
The normal training sequence is motivation, teaching, repetition, distraction
proofing and testing or evaluation. This is not a linear process progressing
sequentially one phase at a time but rather a continuum with emphasis on
motivation and teaching in the early stages gradually evolving to build reliability and
confidence through success in scenarios with escalating complexity, pressure and
unexpected challenges. Helper presentation increases in presence, persistence and
unpredictability. It is important to subject the dog to new and unexpected challenges
beyond the trial, such as sudden direct attacks from unexpected places and long
distance pursuits on a new field with a new helper. Distractions can also include the
introduction of a second helper, barrels or buckets suddenly bouncing to the side or
behind the engaged dog or the throwing large, soft objects such as a plastic
swimming pool or light folding chair at or to the side of the dog as he engages.
Unexpected attacks away from the training field, on the street or in the dark, are
also a common practice. (Belgian Ring incorporates this sort of unexpected
occurrence into the actual trial.)
Distractions, unexpected occurrences during training and at other times, serve
two purposes, that is, they build and maintain excitement, anticipation and
enthusiasm in the dog and they create confidence that will carry on through the
inevitable unscripted adversary responses typical of actual on the street service.
Surprise events are also part of the evaluation process, for the dog who falters in a
new situation, even if he regains composure through acclimation, must be
questioned as an actual patrol candidate. It is true that this is less of a consideration
in trial preparation, where in the popular systems there is little or no variation; but
this is a serious and difficult to overcome limitation of the working trial and the
reason why the trial or resulting title should not be the ultimate deciding factor in the
suitability of a dog for service or breeding.
In general, while most of protection training is confidence building, acclimation to
increasing threats and overt helper aggression and establishment of discipline in
increasingly demanding circumstances, it is necessary from time to time to test the
dog, to create novel, unexpected threats to gauge the progress. When the dog does
well training is on track, and if the dog should show insecurity the competent helper
will immediately convert a testing situation into a confidence building exercise, show
enough weakness to give the dog a win. This can often be done by fleeing and
allowing the dog to catch up and take the sleeve or by going back to line agitation.
In commercial or agency environments, testing and evaluation are usually
incorporated early in the training because elimination of inadequate prospects is a
primary requirement, and must be done as soon as possible consistent with sound
and humane training because the process is expensive; military or police dog
programs cannot routinely put six or eight weeks of training in a dog only to wash
him out. (Although inevitably on occasion a dog will be on the edge and thus be
taken further in order to make a good ultimate decision.)
Testing is both informal and ongoing and formal in the trial. The working trial is a
known and predictable sequence of exercises with consistency in trial helper behavior
as a fundamental feature. The consistency of the exercise sequence is the strength
of the system in that it is the foundation of repeatable testing; helps insure that each
dog receiving a title has met similar challenges. But it is also the weakness of the
system in that it does not emulate the enormous variety in adversary response –
that is evasive and retaliatory action that the dog would encounter in actual police
service. Good trainers and clever handlers are often able to conceal flaws and put
titles on dogs, often with impressive scores, and this will always be true.
Because of these inherent limitations in the formal trial, it is necessary for the
serious working dog breeder and trainer to take personal responsibility, to strive for
deeper understanding than the trial can provide. Failure in a trial coming as a
surprise is an indication of a failure in the testing aspect of training and the intrinsic
competence of the trainer. It is true that there can be a bad day, the baseball batting
champion sometimes strikes out, and professional football players sometimes throw
interceptions rather than touchdown passes; but these are the exceptions.
Protection work can be like magic in that a skilled practitioner can deceive the
eye by directing attention away from the action and by feigning pressure. The attack
on the handler, where the helper suddenly appears and intensively approaches the
dog in an intimidating way, demanding response to a serious threat, can actually
consist of a quick show of threat and then subtly stepping back to draw the dog in; it
happens so quickly that the inexperienced will usually be deceived. This show of
threat and then weakness to let the dog win easily is the foundation of protection
training, but is not a valid test to verify the dog. Such deceptions are created for a
variety of reasons, including convincing a customer that his beloved pet has been
transformed into Fang the wonder dog, selling a marginal or inadequate dog and
passing a trial or certification. This is the inherent weakness of the Schutzhund trial,
for a dog can be and often is certified working on a familiar helper who knows from
experience the strengths and weaknesses of the dog and how to elicit the most
impressive responses, where he can show pressure and where he must subtly ease
off. This is why experienced people will very often ask to test a dog on a new and
neutral helper of their own selection before purchasing a dog.
In canine protection work, as in so much of life, what you think you see is not
always what is actually transpiring. Some exercises, such as a dog being agitated in
his own vehicle, may be full of sound and fury but signify essentially nothing; even a
cornered rat will fight. Knowing what you are seeing is a matter of understanding
what the dog must overcome. A strong, confident man facing a dog directly, wielding
a stick, or stepping into the dog to accept the bite is a true challenge; the man
running by the dog is much less challenging and weak or fearful dogs will often bite a
man turning away. Distance is also a challenge to the weak or marginal dog, every
step away from the handler is into the unknown, and away from security. The KNPV
trial features extremely long runs, often with a call off, in order to test the dog. The
old style Schutzhund courage test lured the dog to a significant distance by a fleeing
helper, who suddenly turned and charged the dog. The level of challenge and stress
is demonstrated by the fact that this exercise was eliminated from Schutzhund by
the conformation show politicians for the same reason they eliminated the attack on
the handler, these were the heart of the old Schutzhund trial, and too many of the
show line German Shepherds were proving to be inadequate.
In evaluating a dog it is necessary to know and understand what is truly
challenging, reveals inherent flaws, and what is being set up to impress the less than
sophisticated audience. Holding a dog in on a short leash while a familiar helper
makes a big show of arm waving and intimidation is fine for beginning dog training,
but not a demonstration of strong character, is a bit like the little guy in a bar whose
friends are holding him back from the fight, scared to death that they might actually
let him loose. In a similar way, leaving a dog in a vehicle with open or partially open
windows and having a helper approach in an aggressive way is likely to result in a lot
of barking and showing of teeth from even a relatively weak dog, yet many people
are impressed with such things. Inexperienced people in the market for a candidate
or trained older dog are often well advised to seek out, and pay for if necessary,
assistance from a competent trainer in testing and evaluating the dog. A seller
unwilling to have the dog tested on a neutral field by a new helper should be taken
as an indication that extreme caution is appropriate.

The Helper
The training decoy or helper1, the man who puts on the suit or sleeve to
impersonate the human adversary, is the foundation of the training process. This
work is quite demanding, both in terms of the requisite knowledge and skill and the
physical strength and quickness to engage the dogs, many of which are big and
powerful or quick and energetic, hitting and biting very hard. Working the novice
dogs, trying to bring forth the latent aggression, often involves a great deal of skill
and physical exertion. Although accidents in the sense of a bite on unprotected flesh
are unusual, most helpers end their day with aches and pains from the physical
impact. It is said, only partially in jest, that there are two kinds of helpers: those
with back problems and those whose back problems have yet to surface.
Selecting a protection helper to work with is the prerogative of the owner or
trainer, but once this commitment is made it becomes the training helper's function
to provide direction, to devise and adapt his procedures according the characteristics
of the dog and where it is at in the training process. It is generally desirable for the
young dog to work consistently with a primary helper for the sake of continuity, so
as to adapt to the progress and propensities of the dog, and to give the dog
confidence through familiarity. In this way the dog sees the same picture from

1
The terms decoy, helper and agitator are used more or less interchangeably.
session to session, without disconcerting differences in technique and presentation.
Also by noting reactions and trends over time the astute helper is often able to
perceive and resolve small problems as they emerge with minor corrections and
adaptions rather than having to deal with a significant problem. As the dog
progresses and gains confidence it is the normal practice to introduce gradually other
helpers in order present diverse presentations and styles. The handler of the titled or
trial ready dog will often seek out diverse helpers in order to prepare the dog for
whatever might happen in the next trial.
Although size, strength and quickness do matter in the decoy, ultimately such
things are less important than intuitive knowledge of the nature of the canine, honed
through experience for instinctively presenting the picture and challenge the dog
needs to progress. While good communication between helper and handler is
essential, one simply cannot expect to micro manage on the training field. The
handler or person working the line on the harness or collar must respond to helper
direction; although there is typically a brief discussion prior to the session only the
helper can effectively make the moment-by-moment decisions.
In many ways the training helper is similar to your personal physician; it is your
prerogative to choose but once committed you need to accept guidance, follow the
program and procedures in a cooperative way. Those finding themselves in
disagreement consistently are working with the wrong person and need to adjust
either their attitude or seek a more compatible helper to work with.
While the blatantly insecure dog is obvious, even to the owner if he is willing to
see it, only the helper facing the dog, looking into his eyes, observing the subtleties
of demeanor and feeling the strength, confidence and firmness of the grips, has the
complete picture. It is a quick, intense, intuitive process and the handler must pay
close attention and react quickly to direction, often nonverbal as in a nod of the head
or a quick glance at the handler to indicate increased or lessened line tension or an
out command. It is the skill of the helper which is ultimately responsible for
channeling aggression, bite building and confidence establishment, and he must
make the intuitive moment-by-moment hands on decisions. As the training
progresses the helper will increasingly apply pressure in subtle ways involving eye
contact, demeanor and sleeve presentation, observing reactions and adapting
accordingly. As the training advances and the focus changes to discipline and control,
these roles begin to reverse: the handler gradually begins to make more of the
ongoing decisions, trains and corrects the dog and more and more directs the helper.
In the refinement and polishing of the nearly ready dog, the handler normally directs
the helper so as to create temptations and distractions so that he can correct faulty
actions by the dog, such as nipping the sleeve during a guard exercise, which would
result in trial point loss.
Excellence in the protection dog flows from his internal confidence and fighting
drive, and to build and maintain such dogs the training exercises must be
increasingly intense and focused, with the helper increasingly in the role of
adversary. Conflicts or misunderstandings between handler and helper, particularly
on the field, interrupt the flow of training and are seriously detrimental to the
progress of the dog. For the helper to slip out of character to engage in a running
commentary or direct the handler verbally confuses the dog enormously, with the
worst possible scenario being to stop and discuss things during a session, with the
dog just standing there. When the helper suddenly flips roles from adversary to
neutral person it immediately confuses and sucks the drive out of the dog; and when
this occurs often in training it is extremely detrimental to the long-term progress and
potential of the dog. The proper thing to do when there is serious confusion is to give
the dog a good strong bite, a brief fight and then put him away. In this way the
differences can be worked out in detail and a new session begun to resume the
training.
 Virtually all initial and drive building level training takes place on a line, attached
to a harness or the wide leather collar, because there is minimal obedience in the
beginning and because much of drive building is a process of overcoming inhibition,
either innate social inhibitions or created in previous training. Handling the line
demands a great deal of knowledge, skill and understanding of the process, which
the novice trainer is, by definition, lacking. Often a third person will handle the line,
in order to avoid dealing with two novices at one time, the dog and inexperienced
owner.
Third party line handling has significant advantages even when the handler is
experienced. The young dog is often uncertain and insecure, and can be overly
sensitive to the presence of the handler, yet quickly accept a third person as just
part of the equipment on training day. Typically in this situation, the line handler's
role is to provide correct restraint on the line and perhaps coach the inexperienced
handler, but direct interactions with the dog such as commands and corrections
come from the actual handler. The third person can sometimes make verbal or other
suggestions or directions which would be extremely distracting to the dog were the
helper to take on this additional role. Sometimes there is pinch or chain correction
collar in addition the control line. Corrections in many circumstances, especially in
enforcing the out command, are much more effective when the line on the pinch or
chain collar is such that a correction is toward rather than away from the helper. This
is because a correction that pulls the dog away often only reinforces the
determination to hold on.
Protection dog training is very serious business and an accident can produce a
bite to exposed flesh and a serious injury, other injuries such as muscle pulls or
strains or injury to the dog such as broken canine teeth. The handler or line handler
plays a key role in safety by preventing the dog from reaching the helper at the
wrong time or in the wrong manner or by restraining the dog when a potentially
dangerous situation evolves. On occasion the helper will go down, either trip or be
caught off balance by the dog. If on the line it is the responsibility of the line handler
to protect the helper, which is only one of several reasons why virtually all of the
early training is on a line. Older and more experienced dogs will generally hold the
bite on the sleeve or suit if possible or refrain from biting or harassing the down
helper. This is entirely appropriate for the in service police dog, guarding but not
engaging the downed suspect gives the police handler and other officers the
opportunity to deal with the situation. At the risk of excessive anthropomorphism,
my perception is that most dogs have or develop a sense of fair play and are not
generally looking for the cheap shot. When two dogs face off, if one goes into the
down submissive posture usually the other dog will stand over him but not otherwise
bite or harass, and similar response to the down human adversary is reasonably
explained as a natural extension of this instinctive behavior.
Helpers or decoys serve two distinct functions or roles; that of training helper as
discussed to this point and that of trial decoy, where the purpose is to test the dog
and reveal correct or improper response and verify the courage and control in the
dog. The trial helper must be physically capable, honest and consistent, but reading
and evaluating the dog, the core of the training helper's task, is much less
important, for his responsibility is to test the dog so as to allow the judge to assign
the appropriate points. Although many helpers easily step into either role, the best
trial helpers are not necessarily great training helpers and many men who may be
less physically gifted, or older, excel at training because of their intuitive grasp of
canine reaction, honed through experience, and ability read the dog and devise an
effective approach. The key trial helper skills and attributes are more physical than
mental in that he must be strong, quick, reliable and honest, but not necessarily
especially skilled in observing and reacting to the particular propensities of the dog
before him. Quite the opposite in fact, his function is to work all of the dogs in a
uniform way, setting aside his personal observations of the nature of the dog and
leaving evaluation and commentary to the judge.

Suits and Sleeves

Canine protection training requires equipment and protocols that allow the dog to
bite or grip with minimal risk of serious injury to the helper. Although the agitation
muzzle can provide this protection in some situations, most training today relies
primarily on protective equipment worn by the helper to take the brunt of the bite.
The helper's protection comes in two basic forms: the full body suit where the dog in
principal may bite wherever he can or a separate, padded arm sleeve where the dog
normally bites only the presented forearm. Even with the best equipment safe
training requires skill, knowledge and commitment on the part of the helper, the
handler and third parties handling a line. An inadvertent dog bite is only one
potential injury, as the high impact of the bite and the extreme athletic maneuvers,
such as the dog pursuing from behind and leaping to grip the sleeve, can lead to all
of the common injuries of serious contact sports, especially to the back and knees.
Although I am not aware of any statistical data, my general impression is that
serious and disabling injuries to the helper are much more often the result of a twist
or strain, producing knee, shoulder or back damage for instance, rather than an
actual bite. Safety for the dog is also dependent on good equipment and skillful
work, for he is without protective equipment and dependent on both the helper and
often the line handler to insure a minimal impact and secure grip. The full, firm,
secure grip is very important to the safety of the dog, for in this situation the grip on
the sleeve or suit is through the power of the jaws, with the teeth merely keeping
the grip from slipping. The faulty grip can put the weight of the dog on the canine
teeth, which can often lead to a broken tooth.
The historical configuration and construction of protective equipment has been
according to the nation and sport, that is, the removable, padded sleeve and forearm
only bite was characteristic of Schutzhund and thus associated with Germany and
the German Shepherd. The rest of the European police dog world – the Dutch,
Belgians and French – have from the beginning primarily relied on variations of the
full body suit allowing the dog wide latitude in bite placement and style. The suit
consists of pants that strap over the shoulders and a fully padded jacket, both
intended to withstand bites. In the bite jacket especially protection from contusion
and actual puncture is dependent on the skill of the helper in making a presentation
that results in the bite to the fabric of the jacket itself, the arm being positioned
within the jacket sleeve to avoid a direct bite. This is generally not entirely effective
and minor injury to the helper is not the least bit uncommon. Helpers will often use
an elastic bandage wrap (Ace being a popular brand name) commonly used for
ankles and other applications in vigorous sports on the arms or legs where extra
protection is desirable. Suit construction at the top level is complex and continually
evolving, with many suits made to special order according to the measurements and
preferences of the helper. The French Ringers and their suit makers tend to favor
bright colors and elaborate decorative fashions, which resonates with the general
tendency of the ring helper to be a performer, a part of the spectacle, rather than in
the background to the dog.
These differences in equipment configuration and construction necessitate
inherently distinct biting and training styles in that the forearm presentation of the
bite sleeve allows the helper to aggressively run at the dog and accept the bite in a
catch maneuver designed to dissipate safely the momentum of the dog, which is
difficult to do with a body suit. The inherent problem is that this teaches the dog that
his adversary is cooperative, will always present a forearm in a highly stylized
 French Ring Suit. Top and bottom separate, bottom generally supported by
suspenders over shoulder. Dog may bite legs, body or arms. In other exercisers
the helper will use a split bamboo stick.
Beauceron: Avatar des Ombres Valeureux, owner Tim Welch, helper Waleed Maalouf

manner, an unrealistic preparation for a real world where adversaries are real
enemies with a natural desire to evade or strike back at the dog.
These contrasting protection trial procedures and practices are driven more by
historical differences in equipment configuration than deep-seated philosophical
considerations, which seem to have evolved more to justify existing practice rather
than on their own internal, intrinsic merits. Equipment style selection and design is
always a compromise. The use of the sleeve means that the dog learns only one
style of bite, making variations in presentation and engagement scenarios more
difficult to implement. The suit generally renders impractical running hard at the dog
and demanding a full engagement as the criteria of success, one of the
fundamentally most demanding and intimidating maneuvers. This philosophical
division along national lines – the parties to which engaged in two gut wrenching
twentieth century military confrontations – has engendered the irrational, deep-
seated distrust and hostility normally reserved for religions differences.
Although Schutzhund style training involves the dog only biting the presented
arm, and some dogs are occasionally worked without any other protection, dogs will
at unpredictable times bite whatever they can get at. This can come from frustration,
inexperience or plain nastiness in the dog; or an illicit bite may be the response to an
inappropriate or poorly timed sleeve presentation. Thus when using the sleeve the
helper is also generally protected from inadvertent body or leg bites by a pair of
padded pants, usually with straps over the shoulders to support the weight while still
giving maximum mobility. A sleeveless jacket is sometimes also used. In recent
years the trend has been toward much lighter pants, referred to as scratch pants,
which prevent damage from the claws and minimize but do not entirely eliminate the
pain and damage from a bite. This trend has in general been a consequence of more
resilient materials increasingly available and reasonable in price. In initial training
the ability of the dog to bite, the reach, is usually restricted by a line attached to an
agitation harness or wide protection collar, usually leather. In this situation the
safety of the helper is directly related to the skill and alertness of the line handler
and effective communication between the two.
The dog goes to the sleeve because of the manner of presentation and training,
that is, he is restrained by the line, and the sleeve is presented in such a way that it
is the natural and effectively only way to get a grip. In training the helper often
releases the sleeve so that the dog can carry it, making it in a way the object of the
exercise rather than the man. Many object that equipment orientation brings into
question the commitment of the dog to persist in an actual encounter with an
aggressive and unpredictable man. These are valid concerns, but proper training will
also test the dog in more realistic, unpredictable situations and correct any revealed
vulnerabilities.
Hidden sleeves are commonly employed to test the willingness to engage what
appears to be a person without distinctive equipment. Such sleeves tend to be
harder and more compact, and are worn under an article of normal clothing to
conceal their presence. The elastic bandage can be wrapped over the arm under the
hidden sleeve to provide more protection. The external surface which the dog bites is
often leather rather than jute like fabric, but the diameter can be only slightly larger
than the man's arm, allowing the larger dogs to gain a secure grip encompassing
most of the sleeve. Purely sport trainers seldom employ hidden sleeves, or other
ancillary training methods countering equipment reliance, because these are
perceived as a distraction to the fixed scenario nature of the trial.
Dogs persistently failing to make a strong transition from equipment to the man
are generally unsuitable for actual service, and the fact that some dogs relying on
equipment for motivation do quite well in the trial is one reason that trial results are
not definitive indications of suitability. Those making breeding selections or acquiring
dogs for police service need to be aware of these issues and sufficiently test each
dog to their satisfaction; the trial or title can never be the ultimate determination of
quality or real value. This is especially true of the export market. Locally if a dog
slides through a trial on a lucky day or with a soft judge, prospective purchasers
generally have or can locate contacts with firsthand knowledge, but those purchasing
an import, especially through a broker, are unlikely to have similar access.
Sometimes in training the helper will work with only the sleeve or with a leather
apron for scratch protection, usually when the dog is securely restrained by a line.
For obvious reasons, the experienced helper tends to work this way only when
confident in the ability of the handler to maintain control over the reach of the dog
by good line handling and proper equipment. This is often done with young dogs
because it provides more mobility and thus animation in the presentation and
because it is less tiring in warmer weather or when many dogs are to be worked.
French ring trainers often use a separate, detachable leg pad in young dog training
for similar reasons of convenience and allowing the dog the encouragement of
actually taking possession of the padded object.
Although the Belgian, Dutch and French systems all incorporate a full body suit,
which the dog will bite in the way natural to him and according to his training, there
are substantial differences in the construction of the suit itself and the style of
presentation and training. The Dutch police or KNPV suits are still relatively stiff and
heavy and as a consequence there is a lack of mobility in training and trial
maneuvers, while the French Ring trainers have evolved much lighter suits and much
more active and agile helper behavior. Typically leg, thigh, arm and body bites are
permitted or encouraged. In general in KNPV, bites are to the upper part of the body
or upper arm rather than the leg or a presented forearm. An exception is that most
KNPV participants train their dogs to go to the leg in the bicycle exercise, in which
the dog pursues a person fleeing on a bicycle, in the interest of safety, although dogs
going airborne and making a spectacular grab of an arm or shoulder have also been
popular, especially for the audience. The French ringers generally prefer the leg bite
because of the style of the decoy work and the scoring of the judges. The Ring
helper is expected to evade the bite by shifting his body and by deceptive
maneuvers. In most other systems the function of the decoy is to present a
consistent picture to each dog in the interests of safety and fairness.
In Schutzhund the dogs come in fast and hit hard on the long bite or courage
test; the function of the helper is to safely catch the dog and then drive him, that is,
push into and threaten him with the stick in an attempt to intimidate and cause a
release, which results in failure if the dog does not immediately come back hard. On
the long bite the helper runs toward the dog, slowing as the dog begins to engage,
so as to minimize the speed of impact, which is the combined forward speed of the
dog and the helper, while still maintaining the threat to the dog. The point of
physical engagement is referred to as the catch, which is exactly what should occur:
the dog will grip the sleeve and carry it forward while his momentum dissipates
because the helper allows the arm and sleeve to flex. A hard impact where the
helper holds his arm rigid relative to his body is faulty and very dangerous; this is
sometimes referred to as jamming the dog. The helper must position the sleeve
correctly and maintain relative position once the dog leaves the ground, for at this
point the dog has little control over his trajectory, although he can to some extent
twist his body in the air to adjust position slightly for the bite. The helper will
typically allow the dog to swing to the side, dissipating momentum, and as the dog
gathers his feet under him on the ground begin the drive of the dog. In addition to
correctly executing the catch and drive, the helper is expected to wind up driving the
dog in a direction providing an unobstructed view for the judge. The consistent
execution is fair to all dogs and allows the judge to place himself for the desired
point of view to score the dog. All of this requires an enormous amount of skill and
practice on the part of the helper, which is why really good helpers are so greatly
respected and valued.
The suit style decoys do not run at the dog but rather hold their ground and
threaten the dog with the stick, which is split bamboo in Ring and a freshly cut three
quarter inch sapling in KNPV. The KNPV decoy does not evade, but will strike the dog
a sharp blow with the sapling before the dog actually engages. This can be very
intimidating, and if a dog is going to fail this is likely to be the moment.
The French ring helper on the other hand is, by culture and tradition, expected to
evade the dog, that is, make last moment maneuvers to the left or right and
otherwise deceive the dog. This results in the dog slowing slightly and looking for the
helper to commit. Most French Ring dogs are rigorously trained to go to the thigh or
leg because going higher gives the decoy more opportunity for evasive maneuver
and the consequent loss of points.
My view is that the suit sports would in general be enhanced by an exercise
where the helper aggressively runs directly at the dog in the most intimidating
manner possible; but the mechanics and dynamics of the suit render a safe and yet
intimidating final engagement in such a scenario very difficult. The ring dog, at one
level or another, comes to understand that there is an invisible plane in front of the
helper which will not be crossed, that safety and security are always just a step
back. This implicit plane of safety is an inherent negative aspect of the suit training,
but credible and workable alternatives are difficult to conceive. Nevertheless the fact
remains that aggressively running hard directly at the dog with threatening gestures
and verbalization is enormously intimidating and in the ideal would be incorporated
into every serious test.
On the other hand there is a credible argument that Schutzhund helpers making
a predictable presentation and uniform catch on all occasions acclimates dogs
inappropriately and thus reduces the intimidation of the test, does not adequately
emulate the pressure of real world encounters. Real criminals after all are not often
capable of or willing to behave in this way. Introducing systematic variation in the
final approach would require that the dog hesitate, gather himself and react
according to the action of the decoy, providing the opportunity of a more realistic
and truly demanding evaluation of the dog's courage, judgment and discipline. Such
an approach would also lessen impact and thus the danger of injury, without any
lessening of effective real world engagement potential. But evasive action by a
Schutzhund helper would be likely to result in dogs going to the exposed body parts
rather than the sleeve, contrary to the spirit, traditions and rules of the program.
These are difficult problems to remedy.
The dramatic high-speed catch is deeply ingrained in the Schutzhund culture,
perhaps to the detriment of more effective and safer dogs. Recognition that long
standing sport and trial traditions and procedures are becoming obsolete or having
unintended consequences is not unique to the dog sports, for American style football
is struggling with severe long term brain injuries as a consequence of the
glorification of extreme physical impact, and thoroughbred horse breeding creates
such extreme lightness in bone in the feet and legs that every day horses routinely
collapse and are put down because the power of their muscles and ligamentation
simply snap bones bred at the edge of fragility for lightness and speed.
In the early days the decoy’s suit tended to be heavy, stiff and awkward which
limited mobility, rendering the helper less agile and more awkward. This was an
impediment to realistic training scenarios and drained the energy of the helper.
These awkward suits were primarily a consequence of the available materials,
usually leather, coarse jute and padding. The old-fashioned American pillow suit,
looking very much like the Michelin man of automobile tire fame, was a good
example. Photos of the earlier European suits, while still quite restrictive, give the
appearance of being more mobile and thus more realistic.
These material and design limitations of early bite suits were perhaps a factor for
the German preference for the bite sleeve. By putting the primary bite padding into
the sleeve and making the rest of the suit relatively light to protect only against an
inadvertent bite they were able to make the helper more mobile and minimized
energy expenditure.
As mentioned, over the years, especially in the 1960s and 1970s, modern
materials such as ballistic nylon or Kevlar began to supplement and replace the
heavy leather, fiber and jute padding of traditional suits, making them much lighter
and much more flexible. KNPV and to a lesser extent the Belgian Ring program have
been conservative and largely retained original materials, designs and training
procedures. But these material and technical developments revolutionized French
ring almost overnight, changing it into a virtually new sport and replacing the
predominance of the German Shepherd at the competitive levels with the lighter,
quicker, much more mobile Belgian Malinois, and putting the focus of the sport on
the skill and mobility of the decoy. As with any fundamental change there are
positive and negative consequences, French Ring has become much more of a game
for the agile dog and an arena for the initiative and showmanship of the helper
rather than a test for the powerful, aggressive dog.
The sleeve sports, Schutzhund and IPO, have also benefited from modern
materials through lighter and more flexible equipment, which has enhanced
durability and made the work physically less tiring for the helper. The effect of this
on the actual training process has been marginal, has not had the profound effect on
the nature of the training and trial as has occurred in French ring sport.
As we have seen, in Schutzhund the dog is trained and expected to go to the
arm, which is presented according to rules, custom and style to allow a safe bite
even when the dog engages at high speed and with much power. Although in the
trial the Schutzhund helper usually wears a vest like padded jacket to protect the
body in the event of an errant bite, the sleeve itself is a separate piece of equipment.
While soft puppy or young dog sleeves can usually be used on either arm, the trial
sleeve is left or right handed and incorporates a built up section on the forearm
known as the bite bar. Although not used in formal trials, police and protection style
trainers sometimes use more compact sleeves or arm protection, known as hidden
sleeves, which are worn under a shirt or jacket to determine to what extent the dog
is reacting to the equipment rather than the actions and demeanor of the helper.
The helper's equipment is always a compromise: the lighter, less bulky and
thinner the gear the more quick and mobile, and thus realistic, his performance can
be. Thus the willingness to risk contusion, abrasion or an actual puncture by one or
more canine teeth determines the potential for quickness and mobility. In addition to
freedom in working the dog, lighter equipment is less tiring and thus enables one to
work more dogs and for longer periods.
The agitation muzzle is a mask or cage like device worn over the dog's muzzle to
prevent a bite but still allow unrestricted or minimally restricted breathing. Such
muzzles are relatively massive and heavy, since they must allow the dog to engage
and butt the helper with the muzzle, minimizing the possibility of injury to either
party. It is typically heavy leather held together with sturdy rivets and strapped
securely behind the ears to prevent an actual bite but allowing the dog to head butt
or otherwise engage and fight the helper. Careful design and construction is
necessary to prevent the muzzle coming off because of material failure or the dog
slipping out of it, which has obvious implications for unpleasant consequences.
Not all muzzles are suitable for agitation work; some are intended to merely
restrict the dog, that is prevent a bite in inappropriate situations as for example
when he must be in close proximity to people or other animals. Examples include a
police dog in a crowd or when providing veterinary aid to an injured or aggressive
dog. Such muzzles are typically of fabric or plastic construction rather than the more
expensive leather agitation muzzles.
The agitation muzzle historically played an important supporting role, especially
in the early years when suits and protective gear was primitive, that is, heavy, bulky,
stiff and hot. When the dog is muzzled, the helper is able to work without a suit or
other protection, thus becoming much more mobile and agile.
Use of the agitation muzzle in sport work, where the bite occurs in a very stylized
and restricted scenario, is unusual. In my experience of some thirty years in
Schutzhund I cannot recall an instance of the use of the muzzle in protection
training. It is also absent in the KNPV trial, although it may be part of some training
programs. The French ring people use a muzzle during part of the obedience
exercise, but not in the actual protection work. There is some muzzle work in the
Belgian ring.
American police trainers use the agitation muzzle more extensively. A primary
reason is that it acclimates a dog to aggression against a man without any specific
equipment, which is of course what he will see in service. The person emulating the
suspect in training the building search or an outdoor search can more conveniently
hide or be concealed and much more realistically represents actual service. Dogs do
to some extent become equipment oriented, that is, associate the suit or the sleeve
with the occasion for aggression, sometimes becoming confused or tentative in the
absence of the equipment. This is fine for the sport situation, but unacceptable in the
actual service dog; a solid foundation in aggression in as many scenarios and
circumstances as possible, with the decoy as closely as possible emulating field
situations, is fundamental.
I have never done any serious decoy work with a muzzled dog, but the people
that have tell me it is hard, demanding and exhausting work when done well; an
enthusiastic muzzled dog is very punishing. Bites or lacerations may rarely occur
when a muzzle slips off, but a lot of soreness and bruising is routine. As mentioned
above, the hidden sleeve is another effective tool for bring realism to the protection
training.
The case could perhaps be made that the evolution of the modern suit, so much
lighter and more flexible, has negated the original rationale for the use of the bite
bar style sleeve, that the fundamental reason for the Schutzhund style of training
has been eliminated by modern technology. The counter argument is that no matter
how light and flexible the suit, it is still not adaptable to aggressively running at and
engaging the dog, and thus in a serious way limited. In the Schutzhund long bite the
points go to the dog that launches himself without hesitation to make a spectacular
bite, relying on the skill and honesty of the helper to make a proper catch. But in a
realistic police encounter the actions of the man are going to be unpredictable with
no formal arm presentation to facilitate a good bite. Seen in this light, the value of
the courage test is in what it demonstrates about the character of the dog rather
than practical on the street engagements.
Each style of equipment, that is the suit or the sleeve, is a compromise that in its
own way limits the freedom of the helper to maneuver and engage, and thus
restricts his ultimate potential, both in training and testing. My view is that we need
ongoing reevaluation of much of this in light of modern equipment, training
methodologies and breeding; that trial procedures should be periodically reevaluated
in terms of current police deployment realities. Both French Ring and particularly
Schutzhund have been diminished by sport and politically motivated compromises;
become much too stylized, put too much emphasis on features that do not relate to
real world service. The removal of the attack on the handler and the old style turn
and attack courage test in IPO were serious degradations, inappropriate concessions
to show line breeding and political correctness. The KNPV program has been very
conservative and tended not to take advantage of modern materials; new thinking
could perhaps bring more mobility and quickness to the work of the KNPV helper. We
need to refocus on these trials as gauges of suitability for actual police service,
incorporating modern materials, knowledge and technique – and accounting for
evolution and change in police deployment practices.
Trial or training scenarios can only emulate and approximate a minute sample of
the enormous range of unpredictable events that could potentially occur in the
ongoing police engagement. Even for the most experienced canine team, the next
encounter may produce entirely unforeseen, threatening challenges. No dog or man
is ever perfectly prepared; this is the nature of life. In the end the determining factor
is not the equipment or abstract philosophical foundations of the training, but rather
the intensity, dedication and vigor of the decoy and the determination of the trainer
and decoy to challenge the dog in training as fully as possible rather than merely
preparing for a rote trial performance. Ultimately it is the courage, instincts and
trained responses of the man and his dog that are decisive, rather than the training
equipment or underlying philosophy.

Man's Best Friend

In the police dog world the hard biting, aggressive dog is greatly admired, and
the man with one tends to have a little more swagger in his step. But in a broader
social context unwarranted dog aggression is an enormous social burden worldwide,
resulting in death, disfigurement and a lifetime of disability – physical and emotional
– for thousands of men, woman and especially children. Dog bites and aggression
contribute significantly to the national cost of medical care, as reflected in insurance
rates and increasing limitations by insurance carriers. Roughly a thousand Americans
are daily bitten severely enough to seek hospital emergency treatment, resulting in
thousands of hospitalizations often generating enormous bills, a significant ongoing
social burden. All sorts of dogs are potentially dangerous and become involved, but
those bred for size, power and aggression are for the obvious reasons the most
physically capable of contributing to the carnage. Small dogs may be pugnacious or
even nasty, but when they bite it is without the power of the larger dogs, and adults
and older children can much more effectively fend them off.
Dogs are so useful because of their inherent genetic pliability; through breeding
selection we are able to create diverse types or breeds vastly different in size,
physique, behavior propensities and aggressive potential. Thus the potential for
damage from the individual dog is according to his breeding, both in terms of
physical capability and social propensities. But ultimately all dogs descend from
wolves, fierce predators driven by innate hunting, social aggression and defensive
instincts and drives, which are often not apparent in daily life, but never entirely
absent.
In creating the police breeds we have produced dogs which are larger, more
robust and much more aggressive than the norm, and taken on an enormous
responsibility to maintain control of individual dogs and to keep the wrong dogs out
of irresponsible hands. Demonstration of stability and control has been an
increasingly predominant factor in breeding selection and more prominent as a
prerequisite to on the street service. Although some handlers and units have
perpetrated or condoned on the street brutality involving savage canine bites on
passive, incapacited or handcuffed suspects – and sometimes wound up in jail –
generally our record is credible, demonstrates ongoing responsibility from the top
down, that is police and sport administration right on down through individual
breeders, trainers and handlers.
This pliability of the canine genetic potential is a double edged sword, providing
the baser elements of mankind the potential for enormous evil rather than good. The
blood sports – canine bull and bear baiting and dog fighting – have a long and sordid
history on the dark side of our canine heritage. The dog fighting community has been
condoned, excused and even justified. Apologists make reference to higher class
acceptance and participation by supposedly respectable people with clean hands
such as lawyers, bankers and politicians. But lawyers, bankers and politicians – as
well as main stream clergy – have condoned, profited from and participated in
slavery, prostitution and abuse of the working class as well as dog fighting; clean
hands, fancy clothing and social status has never in reality been correlated with
moral rectitude or social justice. The truth is that the breeding of dogs to fight for
the entertainment of perverts is and has always been closely linked with crime and
gambling, notwithstanding participation by those with social advantage. This is a
shameful chapter in the story of man and dog, an abomination.
Most canine attacks resulting in human fatality in America are a direct
consequence of this dog fighting heritage, perpetrated by animals bred over
generations for the fighting pit. In the years 2005 through 2012 canine attack
resulted in 251 deaths in America. Pit Bulls were responsible for 151 of these
fatalities or 60% of the total. Rottweilers, in second place in this grisly compilation,
killed 32 Americans in this time period. Fatalities are of course just the most
dramatic and press worthy incidents; thousands more are maimed, disabled and
traumatized with relatively little attention because such things are so routine and
commonplace.
Smooth talking apologists contend that the Pit Bull propensity for aggression and
savagery merely reflects irresponsible owners, that all breeds and lines are
inherently similar, that inappropriate aggression is primarily the result of
environment, upbringing and training rather than the genetic propensities present at
birth. This is an absurd canard. Pit Bulls were created by blending Molossers and
terriers to create fighting lines through breeding selection, eliminating or minimizing
the normal instincts for self preservation, the propensity to stand down from a
confrontation except where life is at stake, to remove through breeding selection all
inhibitions against senseless violence.
The word "game" was coined to venerate this perversion of the partnership
between man and dog, this glorification of the relentless, senseless propensity to
attack and kill for no reason except entertainment, to provide the thrill of blood and
gore for the perverts standing in and around the fighting pit. Even several
generations away from pit fighting selection these dogs, like unexploded bombs
rediscovered decades after a war, have the potential to revert to their pit fight legacy
and strike out to maim and kill. It is, after all, the losers, dogs defective even in this
bizarre world, which were discarded to become the foundation of urban street
breeding. This glorification of the game dog is the shared shame of this perverse
community. Michel Vick, famous American football star, personally torturing his dogs
onto death for the crime of losing in the pit, was not an aberration, but rather was
the quintessential personification of everything evil the pit dog fighting culture stands
for.
Although individual law enforcement personnel have from time to time condoned
or engaged in dog fighting, the fact that it is patently beyond any moral standard
and is illegal in civilized nations demands absolute separation from police canine
breeding, selection and deployment. Beyond these issues the fighting line dogs have
become the symbols and agents of the cruder and more brutal criminal elements,
owned, postured and paraded to bolster fragile egos and intimidate the most
vulnerable elements of society. Police deployment of such dogs would be rightly
perceived as symbols of brutality and oppression rather than service and protection.
European evaluation venues such as KNPV and the ring sports generally preclude
participation by fighting breeds or lines, and venues that do not strenuously exclude
dogs of the fighting heritage, and any association with those involved, are simply
pandering to the perverts; there is no other honest way to say it.

Copyright 2013 James R. Engel

Angel's Lair All Breed Angel's Lair Schutzhund Police Dog Book