My attention was drawn to the headline Police:Dog bites off part of childs ear, my initial reaction being that of horror, saddness for the child and then the thought of all of the bad publicity that would follow with the 'anti police' brigade jumping on the bandwagon.

When I read the entire story, although very sad , it had nothing to do with a police dog - My fault as I failed to notice the : in the headline between the word Police & Dog. then I thought, I wonder how many other people have done the same thing and just reacted to what they thought they had read, that a police dog had bitten of part of a childs ear.

Is this a deliberate 'Headline' ploy by the news feed to grab the attention of the readers? Well it certainly got my attention, more so than had it simply read 'dog bites of part of childs ear. Am I just an old sceptic - probably - but the policedog world can do without rumours circulating that a police dog commited such a terrible act on a child because the public (and I am a member of the public these days) have failed to notice the subtle use of a : in the headline.

My rant for the day.

A US jury has awarded someone bitten by a police dog $200,000 and decided that 'the police' faked charges against the man to justify the dog bite.

However, neither the police or the dog are in the wrong.

If it was a righteous bite as the police believe it was - then the 'victim' doesn't deserve compensation.

If the police have lied and the bite was unjustified, then the police should be held responsible and some form of discipline handed out.

But I can't for the life of me see how a jury can decide the bite wasn't justified and yet absolve the police of any wrongdoing during the arrest.

Talk about sitting on the fence.

Full story here:

http://www.dailyherald.com/story/?id=368399

Here in the UK the policing setup is so vastly different from the US that unless you are a police officer or a retired police officer it is extremely unlikely that you will ever become a police dog trainer. I know of one case in the entire country where a civilian has been taken on as a member of the police dog training staff.

My thoughts are prompted by a recent blog I read where someone in the US wants to become a trainer of police dogs but doesn't want to become a law enforcement officer. Some of the responses were clearly from civilians who had experience in dog sport and were very negative about the police, their dogs & trainers, as an example:

Quote "The police dog field is UNFORTUNATELY closed off to outsiders because the agencies "think" they know so much more then the civilian trainers out there that have accomplished so much more in their dog training careers. The dogs they buy are not top of the line because of budget issues, they often get "raped" on the prices they pay for dogs, an agency here just got a "green dog" and payed 15K for it, the training BLOWS, that same agency is trained to "choke" a dog off a bite, not "out" it and the horrors go on and on and on...." Unquote

I want to leave you with this to see what response I get. I have my own views, and I will continue this blog once you have had the opportunity to have your say - so come on...... make this interesting for me and add some comments

Remember - There is only one fast way to train a dog....... And that's slowly.

                                 

Someone once said to me 'we (K9 officers) are the last true manhunters left', and in a sense they are right. We track down and capture other human beings in a way that no other person (or cop) does. Yes, other police departments search for and find suspects, but with the aid of our dogs, we don't just stumble across them, we actively track them down, the difference being that because of the way we are able to read our dogs behaviour, we know we are following the scent of our prey, we know we are closing in on them and we know that they are close by. This makes our job so much more exciting than that of other cops who happen to find someone hiding more by luck than judgement.

Now, I know you're wondering, what's this old fool ranting on about now. We know all that so why's he pointing out the obvious. Well, it's simply to get you thinking about the thrill of the chase, how it feels to track down and capture another human being - how predatory that very action is and how exhilarating it is to use your dog to capture a bad guy that would almost certainly have got away but for the ability of you and your dog.

And the reason why I want you to think about the excitement of the chase is because I now want you to think of what follows. The bad guy is in custody, safely locked up and you now have to go and put pen to paper and write up your evidence, you have to write a statement or a report on what happened.

I think I can speak for most of us when I say that this bit of the job is the less exciting aspect of being a cop. Generally what we want to do is get it over with as quickly as possible and get back out there so we can use our dog on another job. Now that's a very laudable attitude, after all that is just where a cop should be - out working the streets, supporting their fellow officers but it can and often does lead to problems a little later down the line.

Quite often in our haste to get back on the streets we don't put as much thought into the way we write up our evidence as we should. The use of a particular word or phrase may have far reaching consequences, all because we didn't give as much thought to how we wrote up our evidence as we should have.

In order to explain myself a bit better I'm going to use a recent case that appeared at court. the basics are that a burglary took place in the early hours of the morning, the suspect was disturbed by the householder and ran out of the front door into the street. Police were called and in turn, called for the assistance of a K9 unit.

On arriving at the scene the K9 officer did everything right. They put their dog into a harness and cast the dog around to locate a scent. The dog took off in a particular direction, the officer, wanting to make sure, cast the dog again and the dog took off a second time in the same direction. Almost immediately they encountered a person who was walking towards them from the opposite direction of the crime scene. They questioned him & eliminated him from their enquiries. The K9 officer re-cast the dog and the dog set off following a scent which eventually lead them to a point where they located a person who they believed was the burglary suspect.

We can all imagine the thrill that the officer was experiencing as he followed along behind the dog in the dead of the night, sure that their dog was on the trail of the suspect, and the even bigger thrill when they found someone at the end of the track that fitted the description of the burglar. Got you.

Now imagine that the suspect pleads not guilty. No problem, you have the evidence to convict. The dog's behaviour doesn't lie. You check your written statement, and yes, it's all there in black & white, concluding with the words 'I am certain that my dog tracked from the scene of the crime to the point where the suspect was located by the dog'.

You stand tall in the witness box and you give your evidence. The defence council than points out that at the beginning of your statement you say "my dog took me across the road in the direction of the bridge, I re-cast my dog and he again took me in the same direction" He then points out that after stopping the innocent man, you wrote "I cast my dog and he began to track" Council then points out to the judge the difference between 'my dog took me' and 'my dog began to track'.

Because Council has the benefit of an expert, he knows that a dog may 'take you' in a direction for a number of reasons, it may be picking up air scent - possibly of the innocent person you located or it may simply be pulling you haphazardly in that direction.

When cross examined on this point you state that when you said 'took me' you meant 'tracked' - you have no option but to say so because remember, you concluded and have given in evidence under oath that 'you are certain that your dog tracked from the scene of the crime to the point where the suspect was located'.

The judge picks up on this discrepancy and further examines you on your meaning of 'took me' and the judge comes to the conclusion that if you had meant that your dog tracked, then you would have said that in your statement, he then cautions you about changing your story to fit the scenario.

The judge decides that there is no evidence that the dog tracked from the scene of the crime and that the evidence suggests that it only began to track from the point where the innocent person was stopped, the point where you say in your statement "the dog began to track". As you have stated in evidence that you are certain that the dog tracked from the scene to the suspect, on the basis that it didn't, he deems your evidence as inadmissible - case dismissed.

And all because of a word.

What I would like is for every K9 officer to put as much effort into completing their written  report as they do training & handling their dog. Take care over what you write - read & re-read the report. Read it with the eyes and mind of a defence lawyer, get other dog handlers to go over it with a critical expert eye, don't lose a good job because a word or phrase made a difference.

End of blog 4