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Police K9 Training & Operations with Jerry Bradshaw

Ed. Note:  If you have a dominant or aggressive K9 and need some ideas on how to properly handle him, feel free to contact Jerry – his email address is below – and discuss your situation before 'losing your cool.' 

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Girard William “Jerry” Bradshaw is the CEO and Training Director for Tarheel Canine Training, Inc. of Sanford, North Carolina. To order Jerry’s latest book, Controlled Aggression in Theory & Practice, you can contact Jerry directly via email by clicking here.

Something I have been thinking about lately is washing dogs out of a police dog training program. Often times, my company, Tarheel Canine Training, Inc. has green dogs returned to us for various reasons. On some occasions, the dog is actually too much for the handler, and while the dog may be very strong for the street, the dog is also too dominant for the handler. I can't tell you how many times I am asked for a super tough dog and invariably that is the one that is coming back. Bear in mind, I worked, trained and titled a dog from Holland named Ricardo v. Natuurzicht PH1 PSA 3. Before he came to me at four-years-old (and after competing in the 1999 Dutch Nationals) he put three handlers in the hospital, and one on permanent disability. I handled him for the next eight years, showing mainly in PSA, and earning a PSA 3 title as well as the 2003 PSA 3 National Championship.

He was a tough dog. The bottom line is this: if you ask me for a tough dog, you’re going to get a tough dog. He was tough and dominant. One thing I’ve noticed about strong dogs (those that are mature – very important to note that I say mature) is that the vast majority of them have a measure of dominance. It’s like arrogance in a star athlete. Most star athletes own their sport, and when your dog owns his work, he is a little self centered (dominant, if you will allow the analogy).

The problem with this is that the training methodology for dealing with dominant dogs in the Police world is to fight dominance with dominance. You will hear a lot of things like, "that dog needs to be shown who is boss." The problem with this approach is that once you go there with the intent to establish rank on the dog, if the dog doesn't back off immediately, you are likely to be in for a sometimes serious physical altercation that you better be ready to take to the end and WIN.

Too many times, when this all blows up, the handler is not prepared to carry through with showing the dog who is boss, and it is the person who “punks” first, not the dog. Fighting with a determined and mature dog who himself has won a lot of fights is no joke. Personally, I prefer not to go toe-to-toe with a dog if I don't have to. I prefer to deal with dominance issues differently. I prefer to out-think the dominance rather than out-muscle it. I’ve given a conference presentation on this topic (at the 2007 Law Dog Conference in Las Vegas) but I think this topic deserves its own article, so I will address these ideas in another column. In the nine or so years I owned Ricardo (100lbs working weight) we never had a physical fight (thank God) – so I know a little something about working a hard, dominant and tough dog – whereas his previous handlers didn’t seem to be able to keep out of them.

My current dog, Freddy, was sold to a police agency. He was trained through a 16-week explosives school and certified with high praise from the school’s instructors. Then, when they took him through patrol school, he reacted negatively to the compulsive approach and started resisting by coming up the leash. After a few weeks, a call off was attempted where he ran out and hit the end of the line (old school training) and yes, he came back, but lit up the handler. This was the first certified dog I had returned to me. Since I got him back, he came up the line on me a few times, but now we have a relationship where I can do anything to him, without resistance. I never “put him in his place,” or “showed him who is boss” by physically punishing his dominance. I did, however, put him in his place with behavioral sleight-of-hand.

The other category of Police K9 class washouts is when we have dogs returned because the dog is too handler-soft for the training method. A young GSD that is very “drivey” and has good environmental nerve might also be a little handler-soft. This is often a corollary of age. Remember that we are accepting dogs into training earlier and earlier because of the worldwide demand for dogs. Dogs can be precocious in drive and nerve, but socially (pack order wise) they will be a little underdeveloped to deal with a strong personality like that of a cop. This dog needs to be built up in social dominance. Instead, however, what normally happens is that the training method is one that is compulsive in nature, centered around a lot of correction, and the pressure is too much for the more handler-soft dog. Handler-soft dogs want to be in line, and when we apply punishment indiscriminately in the teaching of new concepts, the softer dog just wants to be correct and avoid conflict with the handler – so he may seek safety or just shut down. This is often interpreted as the dog being weak, but that isn't always the case. The trainer who just repeats what he was taught 20 years ago will never see that this dog needs more motivation to get him through his adolescence and less compulsion, and he will probably be as tough as the 18-month-old dog next to him in class. Where do you think that 18 month old came from? He was once a less confident adolescent. But if we ignore the behavioral realities, we throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Trainers in general need to expand their understanding of working younger dogs – the future is in younger dogs. Successful trainers will be the ones who not only can test and reject 40 dogs at the vendor's kennel because they are looking for perfection, but those that have the talent to recognize how to mold something remarkable out of the raw material found in younger adolescent dogs. This is what happens in Europe before the 18-month-old comes over. But the days of every dog going into class being titled or a minimum of 18-months-old are past. Demand draws out more and more 10-month-old dogs who are high drive, and environmentally comfortable. Trainers can never forget that these dogs are not adults, and how they react to their handlers is more or less the way a puppy will react. You may be able to pressure them in bite work like crazy, but their handler can hurt their feelings easily.

During the early weeks of a K9 school, the dog will likely react in the extreme of his present social state (dominant or relatively submissive) as you work obedience and try to gain control of his behaviors. What I mean by this is that if the dog tends dominant, compulsive obedience will draw out more of that behavior as the dog reacts to the force. Conversely, in a softer dog, the dog will tend to seek safety and show extreme deference as he is punished.

Most schools I know of start with obedience in their classes to establish “pack order” and to establish behavioral control over the green dogs. The method is generally compulsive and so the relationship with the handler is defined by the handler trying to impose his will (dominance) on the dog. At Tarheel Canine, I suggest that if you do drive work first in the weeks when you are bonding because I believe that you and the dog will have a better relationship. Leave obedience for later when you have a defined relationship with the dog. Let him associate you with expressing his drives. This will help build the softer dogs, as their activities lead to more and more wins (and thus confidence and independence), and it will help you relate better and establish a bond with the stronger more dominant dog without getting into a battle of wills.

Girard William “Jerry” Bradshaw is the CEO and Training Director for Tarheel Canine Training, Inc. of Sanford, North Carolina. Jerry is a professional consultant to various Police agencies and private corporations for K9 training & deployment. Jerry is often featured speaker at Police K9 conferences and has been invited to instruct at workshops and seminars around the country. Jerry has written articles for Dog Sport Magazine and Police K9 Magazine, and is the author of the forthcoming book Controlled Aggression in Theory & Practice. Jerry is a co-founder, Judge, and East Coast Director of one of the fastest growing protection dog sports in America, widely recognized as the single most difficult protection sport there is, PSA . Jerry is also a co-founding director of the National Tactical Police Dog Association which applies many of the same successful scenario-based principles found in PSA to the certification of police dogs. Jerry has competed in National Championship trials in both Schutzhund and PSA, winning the PSA national championships in 2003 with his dog Ricardo V.D. Naaturzicht. Jerry is the only competitor to train 2 dogs to the PSA 3 level, and has achieved the SchH 3 level numerous times, with “V” scores. Tarheel Canine Training is a nationally renowned training facility for police service dogs, and has placed trained police dogs at various federal, state, and local agencies nationally and internationally since 1994. For more information on Tarheel Canine Training, or Jerry Bradshaw, please click here. Jerry’s latest book, Controlled Aggression in Theory & Practice, was written for police K9 professionals and covers basic foundation training such as testing green K9 prospects for patrol suitability, training drive development, drive channeling, working in the bite suit, human orientation (combating equipment orientation). The book further features key skills training including training guarding behavior, out on command, redirected bites and the out and return, and the best way to train a call off with little to no pressure on the dog. If you have trouble with the recall (call-off) exercise being reliable, the information alone on training the call off in a new and different way is worth the price of the book hands down. Order your copy by clicking hereclicking here.