Something that has been burning at me for awhile is what for most of us in this industry is a no-brainer, while escaping the cognitive processes of others.  I'm talking about initial, basic K9 training for new K9 teams.

I have recently been made aware (with what appears to be of increasing frequency) of agencies that choose to either go with the absolute cheapest (and usually shortest) basic training school, or worse, skip a formalized basic school altogether.  After which the handler, despite his best efforts finds himself and his dog essentially "treading water" while trying to explain to his admin why the K9 team is experiencing performance-related issues.  For most of us, a one word answer comes to mind..."duh?"

It seems that many agencies decide they want to implement a K9 program and develop policies, go through a handler assessment and selection process (hopefully), purchase a vehicle insert, then obtain a donated dog and cut costs on the training.  Then the decision-makers wonder why the team comes up short on the performance scale.

This is not Chinese arithmetic.  This is basic, common-sense resource allocation and management.  If we are to develop and implement a successful K9 unit, then we need to commit to it in terms of time and money.  It's not unlike building a house.  The structure will only be a sturdy as the foundation, which in this case is the selection and training of the two components of the K9 team...the handler and the dog.

There are far too many self-proclaimed trainers who either have little or no experience working a dog on the street and offer police K9 training at attractive prices as well as equally attractive (aka "short") time frames.  Effective K9 trainers are typically those who are  a) experienced handlers who regularly serve in the capacity of training new teams (and oftentimes are contracted to also train for other area departments,  b) hold an accreditation for a nationally-recognized K9 organization, or  c) both.  It is unlikely that any of us would take skydiving lessons from someone who has a limited number or no jumps themselves.  Why then, would an administrator opt to go with someone with similar credentials to train their K9 teams?

Equally elusive to me is the reasoning behind some agencies' decision to forgo any formalized training class completely.  Instead opting for another handler with several years experience to mentor the new team in what amounts to "on the job training."  The credibility and reliability for such a team is, at best questionable.  Far too much rides on what we do to allow such a practice to become acceptable.  Yet for some reason, it continues to proliferate.

The bottom line is this...in K9 you get what you pay for in terms of the animal, the handler and perhaps most importantly the training.  Proper selection of the dog, the handler, the trainer as well as the training are all critical decisions that need to be thoroughly researched, informatively decided and financially supported.

Stay safe,

Ron

Like others on this board, I am new to blogging so I'm going to ask all to bear with me.  I'm open to suggestions to make this part of the website as good as we can make it.

I am looking forward to sharing training ideas and experiences, both positive as well as negative in an effort to learn from one another.  As an active duty handler and trainer, I still feel I have a lot to learn and it doesn't matter to me who I learn it from.  My opinion is that we are ALL tasked with helping one another do the job we love to do in a manner that sees us getting home safely at the end of our shift.

I will preface things by saying that there are times that we can all agree to disagree from time to time, but I would discourage anyone from immediately discarding an idea or technique as being useless.  Instead, I would suggest keeping it in your "bag of tricks" as you never know when it may come in handy. 

I look forward to working with everyone on this new, enhanced aspect of K9 training.

Stay safe!

Ron