Police Officer Preparation & Law Enforcement Resource - Archive

Question. If you are a "professional" trainer with the working dogs (ie police dept) and you come out to test a dog (ie for patrol) what test would you do to make sure that it was suited for the work?

Question. If you are a "professional" trainer with the working dogs (ie police dept) and you come out to test a dog (ie for patrol) what test would you do to make sure that it was suited for the work?

Most K-9 officers and dogs go to regular (sometimes once a month) training session. I've never heard of someone coming out to test them.
They would just give the dogs tests and practice on the specific job they were trained to do. It only takes a few weeks for the dogs to be trained. Not that I'm an expert, but if you had a bomb dog, I'd expect them to hide an explosive device in a building or car and have the dog sniff it out; alternatively, they could have the dog get some carnage.

Of course, I'm not a cop, but I was trained by a K-9 officer and learned some of this stuff. When you have a teen police academy drill instructor that was a marine, state trooper, and now a k-9 officer, you remember every word he says.

Question. If you are a "professional" trainer with the working dogs (ie police dept) and you come out to test a dog (ie for patrol) what test would you do to make sure that it was suited for the work?

They would test the dog in everything the dog is supposedly trained to do.

I'm not sure and I'm not a K-9 officer let alone a LEO, but is the op asking how you determine which dogs will be suited for K-9 work?

I know that some trainers will use shelter dogs for search & rescue and would come to our shelter to test dogs to see if they were suited for that type of work. I was not usually around when they came in, so I have no idea what type of testing they did.

I'd assume that the breeders/kennel that the K-9 dogs come from assess the dogs as they work with them and determine if they have the right temperment.

The biggest thing to test for at first is drive, drive and drive.

Most departments have regularly scheduled training for their canines. The rule of thumb is a minimum of 16 hours per month. It's kind of the industry standard as suggested by most certification organizations. When training, over a period of time, a trainer will ensure all tasks the dog is trained to perform are covered. All the training is documented. A trainer can review the documentation and concentrate training time on those areas that appear to need the most work. Generally a dog team is given a practical evaluation, that would encompass all required tasks, annually.


DFrost

I may have misread the question, if you are looking for a dog to be trained as a working dog, that is a different ball game. Then it would depend on what you are going to use the dog for. The short answer is like K 911 stated, drive, drive, drive. Tests are behavior specific, for a certain task.

DFrost

The reason I am asking is due to I sold a pup (11 month) to a "Professional" trainer (35 yrs) that was looking for a patrol dog to sell to a police officer. Now this was all new to me. I am not a professional breeder or trainer. The dog was mostly green had some obedience and would bite the sleeve. When he came out he asked to see the dog bite. So the pup took two bites nothing more was done. He asked if he had obedience I said simple. I told him that he was worked on a post a few times. He asked about ball drive and I told him again (once on the phone) that he does not have have it. He will run after it but not in to it. He has prey drive but not ball. We talked about some dogs getting later in age. He took a phone picture of the dog and sent it to to whom ever and came back with we will take him. We then moved on to another pup.

After a friend pointing out it made me think something was wrong. Thus this is why I am posting

When we procure dogs, we test for drive which was already stated. We take dogs into buildings with slick floors and see if they freak out with not having sure footing. Believe it or not, some awesome dogs crap the bed on that simple test. We take a ball or towel and throw it under a vehicle that is turned on to see if there will be a retrieval effort. If the dog shys away from a vehicle that is running, it may be an indicator that she or he is too timid to do consistent field work.

We crack whips by the dogs to see if they cringe, aggress, or ignore the sound. For us, obeidence is not the intitial requirement at all, we can teach that later in the dog. We have to have that untrained drive to begin anything first and foremost.

K-9Maly I have a friend that got their retired dog that way. I was very surprised that he would not cross over slick floors.

I learned long time ago Socialization is key to so many things. Many people think socialization is just people but it is so much more. We have our pups on all different surfaces (for the reason stated above), around different sounds from chain saws, to firecrackers (had a friend lose a dog over the fourth of July night, the dog was never the same) to smells from smoke and diferent sprays, Hieghts, traffic and stairs there is more but will not go on.

Socializing is a huge part of the dogs and it is up to the breeders/new owners to do thier part when the puppy is young.