HITS Can HelpYou Make

Sure He IS!

Youth vs.EXPERIENCE

From Brad Smith

Plus: Q&A With our HITS Instructors

IS YOUR DOG

STREET READY?

HITS 2016(Dallas)August 28-31Our 10th Year!

Jan-Feb 2016www.HITSK9.net

www.HITSK9.net

Sponsored By:

I can’t tell you enough how much information I learned at your conference! In twelve years of being a cop and ten years in being

in K-9, this has been by far the best training I have received at any conference. Keep up the good work!

HITS Attendee, Unit Trainer

It was great as usual. The quality of your seminar is matched by no one!

HITS Vendor

More Insturctors & Classes Than Any Other Police K-9 Seminar

3 FULL DAYS

Over 50 Vendors

Over 60 Vendors!

The HITS DifferenceWe know that there are many choices in K-9 Seminars now. All of us at HITS think this is a good thing. Why? Because HITS is owned and operated by three veteran Police K-9 Officers and a Prosecutor who has handled K-9 related drug cases. The combined experience of our team is over a hundred years. As experienced veterans of this industry, we know that in years past there was nothing similar to our HITS seminar. All of us feel that educating our fellow professionals benefits us all.

What makes us different? We started this model nine years ago and are flattered that our main competitor likes what we do so much that they copy literally each and every step we have taken. While imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, it sometimes causes confusion amongst handlers. This we find is not good, as we know your training dollars are precious and your ability to attend an event such as HITS can be difficult. So in order to make your decision of where to apply your resources we offer the following differences that our competitor simply cannot copy:

First, we are owned by working Police K-9 Handlers and a Prosecutor. None of us have backgrounds that would be unflattering to the public if found out. We encourage you to research of every vendor or instructor that you are spending tax dollars on. Collectively we have deployed police dogs thousands of times on real world searches. Individuals who cannot even qualify as a police officer cannot copy our experience.

Next, we are motived by a desire to help our fellow handlers more than the financial gain from HITS. Here is an example; we pay our instructors and insist that even if they have a product or service to sell that they do not simply do an infomercial in place of a legitimate class while at HITS. Our competitor feels it is better business to have instructors pay all expenses including airfare and even hotel. Instructors are recruited with the idea that with many handlers in front of them they can ply their goods or services in the classroom. We do not blame the instructors in that event, they paid their own way to be there, and so it is logical that they recoup their investment. We however want your time in the classroom to be education based.

Another big difference is we are Three Full Days. Again, it cost us more but we feel it is worth it. Our tuition is basically the same price but you get far more classes and hours at HITS.

Our style, our ads, our instructors and our classes can be copied, experience, motivation and character cannot.

That is the HITS difference; we look forward to seeing you in Dallas!

Stay Safe,

Your HITS Team,

Jeff BarrettTed DausJeff MeyerAndy Weiman

Each issue our HITS instructors will answer your questions. If you have a question you would like to see

addressed here, email it to: Jeff@HITSK9.net

Question 1)What is a good way to ensure the success of a new dog on the street as he transitions from training into a street dog? In our training group we have had several failures with new dogs. Specifically different dogs have run next to running suspects without engaging them.

From Jeff Barrett:Over the past 27 years of working a patrol dog, I’ve seen more engagement failures on running suspects than in any other situation. A failure to bite a running suspect with a commitment to hold him in a real life scenario can be the

result of many different factors and the list of issues must be identified, understood from a training perspective, and addressed individually and collectively when applicable. Identifying the issues which contribute to a dog’s failure to make a running apprehension can range from something as simple as a failure to acquire the suspect as a target quickly before he gets out of sight, to a dog that is not confident enough to engage a person who’s not wearing protective bite equipment. Before a trainer can fully understand all the elements that he is dealing

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awith, the trainer must spend some quality time with the team. It’s important for

the trainer to access both the handler and the dog individually, and as a team, then listen to the particular facts involved in the failed apprehension. By exploring the team’s history of training, the elements involved in the failure, and the unique qualities of both the dog and the handler, a well versed trainer can then begin to pull together the pieces of this puzzle and identify aspects which are out of place. Some of the common reasons that I’ve found for such failures are:

1. A dog that is not suited for patrol dog work. A dog with little nerve for the fight will not push the fight and will be comfortable with running behind or beside a suspect and feel satisfied with allowing him to escape without further conflict. More training will generally not produce positive results for a dog like this.

2. Sometimes a dog will look for the familiar sight, smell or feel of the bite suit or sleeve. They might initially bite and then suddenly realize that the equipment isn’t present. They might immediately disengage from the bite because

their “sight picture” is different than it is in training. In some cases, this disengagement or complete failure will end with a suspect getting over a fence, leaving the dog unable to continue the pursuit. The challenge in solving this failure can be simple or complex, depending on the dog. The simple fix can be nothing more than a fast running handler who helps the dog capture the suspect, and as a team, they’re able to capture the suspect. A more complex fix and most common is the equipment fixated dog. Remembering that the dog feels your emotional pulse, you must be positively encouraging and remain completely aware of how you project your feelings through both your voice and your actions. As you transition from equipment, be excited and positive for the dog in muzzle fights, in hidden sleeve work or any other transitional activities. Leg bites on extra-large pants filled with protective gear can be used. Agitation sessions and run offs where the dog doesn’t get to bite can help build frustrations and may even elevate the dog to where he needs

to be in aggression so that he will engage. With a clothes-covered body suit, try some targeting exercises that bring the dog into the center of the back or onto a leg bite. This can be helpful on running bites. The first objective for the dog is to stop the suspect, and frequently that means knocking him off of his feet, albeit an indirect result of the impact. The secondary bite or transitional bite will generally take place after the take down. Again, your positive emotional encouragement and reinforcement for the dog is vital to his success. The difficulty in training realistic scenarios is protecting the decoy while at the same time fooling or convincing the dog to commit to the bite. I’ve used a variety of setups for getting the dog committed.

Here are a few ideas: a. The team cannot sit around with a group of other handlers awaiting their turn for a scenario. These dogs are smart and will associate the gathering with training and be more likely to look good in his performance. The handler should drive around and wait to be called into the scenario.

b. Build the atmosphere with lights, sirens, racing engine, sharp turns and even talking to the dog as a way to pump him up. Some dogs won’t benefit from this activity and you can push them into overload. But, we’re directing this toward the dogs that will benefit from the excitement.

c. You can dress the decoy in a body suit, drape it with a second suit top and tuck a sheet around the back of the neck so that it hangs like a cape. It will present an unusual, solid shape to the dog. Be positive and excited with the command and bailout as you roll up. Some dogs will run around to the front of the decoy to look for the familiar shape of a person. Some will hit right

away. If you use the second suit top, the decoy can keep running and you can encourage the dog to release the suit top and chase the decoy down a second time.

d. You could use a smaller body suit that doesn’t look similar to the big bulky ones. They don’t offer much protection but it will be enough to keep the decoy protected and give the dog a more real look. Pull up to the fully clothed decoy, get out and talk with him. Talk for no less than 2 minutes before the suspect takes off. Give the decoy a count of 10 before you bail the dog. You’re looking to increase the attention span of

the dog with the 2 minute interview with the suspect and increase the amount of distance that he must run to make the apprehension with the count to ten (10). You’ll also be giving chase and encouraging the dog to apprehend.

3. An overly emotional handler can influence the dog in both a positive and negative way. If a handler becomes overly excited and falls into the aggressively authoritative police officer mode by yelling and screaming at the suspect, his dog might misinterpret this as a negative vibe directed at him and become unwilling to pursue or engage. Generally, a running bite

incident develops very fast and the reactions of both the handler and the dog can fall out of sync with what’s taken place in training. If a handler witnesses the failure to engage, a normal human response is to become frustrated, disappointed and even angry. The human impulse is to be harsh toward the dog and demanding of him to engage with a bite command or any other commands at the moment the handler sees an unwillingness on the part of the dog to engage. By doing this, the handler regresses the team’s abilities to perform and successful progress is terminated. Our egos work against us in this profession and our impulse is to blame the dog for any shortcomings of the team. It is the ego which lives and dies with the performance of our dog and we must acknowledge that most failures of the dog lands squarely upon our lack of understanding of proper training techniques or our failure to sufficiently train.

From Brad Smith:As I’m sure you know, your dog s is looking for equipment, arm presentation or a hard sleeve. So get away from equipment such as hard sleeves and bite suits. Conduct more civil finds, short muzzle fights and muzzle takedowns. Your dog does NOT need a bite on every training search. Get the dog frustrated “in drive” so when your dog gets an opportunity to bite, he will. The dogs at my department only get two or three training bites (on a bite suit) a month. The rest of the time they are getting a short muzzle fight or the decoys runs away after being found. When you give the dog a training bite, make sure it’s in a bite suit (not a hard sleeve) and don’t give him the arm. Give the bite on the back, shoulder or leg. But keep in mind, nothing is 100% guaranteed. I’ve seen dogs look great in training, work fantastic in a muzzle, do magnificent on civil finds and runaways but not engage on the street. You will never know until it happens. All you can do is train and hope for the best. Good luck.

From Aaron Peterman:Your situation with the dog running beside the suspect and not engaging is not at all that uncommon. Another common failure is the contrary; passive suspects, but if the proper animal was selected I feel this can be remedied with the proper exposure and training. I had a dog that was KNPV titled and launched likes nobody’s business on fleeing suspects during training. His second engagement was a fleeing burglar and not only did he not launch. he barely grabbed the suspect’s buttocks even after I reinforced the engagement command several times coupled with praise. In order to bridge that gap to real world engagements we have to expose them in ways where there is no time to investigate whether equipment is present and they are simply reacting to the engagement

picture presented. I have had success with wrapping appendages in items such as newspaper and utilizing fake limbs to create realism with no equipment. Of course this is done under strict control with an experienced trainer and decoy present. For the fleeing suspect scenario I’ve had success with a hidden bodysuit donned with extremely sweaty clothing. The goal is to look as natural as possible when you run. Have the wind at your back and start with a short chase where the Suspect rapidly pops out and flees. This hopefully creates just a reaction and response from the dog where he does what has been conditioned and that is to chase and engage upon command. This along with encouragement and praise should help bridge the gap. Be prepared to react to the multitude of outcomes both good and bad and adjust it how you see fit. Also don’t forget about the ever faithful muzzle and good luck.

From Jeff Meyer:Just as the other trainers have acknowledged, your experience is not that uncommon. What seems to be an easy apprehension for a new dog does not always work out the way we would like. Runaway apprehensions and prone suspects who do not move are actually difficult for a new dog. Why is that? A confident, social, strong police dog actually has to have a human imprinted as a prey item. A new dog that is selected for patrol should have balanced drives and not be trying to bite every person it sees. So through training the dog needs to be exposed to the proper times it can bite and how to be successful when doing so. In training it is important to use a variety of methods to include, civil finds, bite suits and muzzles. If you do not follow the rule of being “consistently inconsistent” with your training you are likely to run into problems with your dog engaging on the street.

By using different equipment you are able to expose the dog to a wide variety of situations. I have seen agencies that only use an exposed sleeve, then on a runaway apprehension the dog will only look for the equipment and actually run next to the suspect looking for the sleeve to be presented as it always has been in training. By teaching the dog to bite in a bite suit and then not present the sleeve, you will teach him to target whatever is available to bite. I am a firm believer that at least half or more of your training should be in muzzle. Muzzle work teaches the dog to come in strong in all situations and not look for equipment. The bottom line is that very few dogs will just naturally bite on a runaway apprehension if they have not been exposed to a variety of training. But, when the dog is properly selected and properly trained, this is generally a problem that is relatively easy to fix. Remember that the dog cannot read a book and then take the training to the field. Any method that is based on skipping these steps thinking the dog will just naturally engage in situations he has not been exposed to many times in training is doomed to fail.

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Highlights from the First 9 Years

If you Miss a year,you miss a lot!

C. With 10 Vendors and 250 handlers we set the standard as the largest event of its kind to date. Each year we have added to those numbers, we are expecting over 1,000 handlers to join us in Dallas.

A & B. Ventosa Kennels Sposored the First HITS in Orlando. We miss you, Tracy Bowling.

D. AceK9.Com has been to every single HITS and is one our best supporters. All pictures on this spread are from AceK9.COM

E. 2008 Was our Second year and we doubled our vendor space. in Denver.

F. A Demo day was held off site on day 4 in Denver.Muntus con inguliae iu senatia ellabem atum ficia inatrop oresimulicae diemuni rmilist? O te, ur. Nos inam rem acio.

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L. In 2012 Seattle it was standing room only. in our vendor area. Hil visse ora iam, norecre cordit. Quod rei sus patam ate con siliam tam esciis ci ceponclem iam iam dientia Simis; num, ut opublissid moervis Mil es

K. Sheriff Joe Arpio welcomed 600 handlers to Phoenix in 2014.Imoervis Mil es volorro.At in vatil veniritam intiamdii iam. Humedius nos, nic vides nossignati populudam

J. HITS is a great way to connect with friends from around the world. mplium teatus, morumur, crest? Us furevive, ta viliumei fortisq uondiis hae dentemnimus;

I. A Huricane and Earthquake in the same week as HITS 2011 In Washington DC did not deter our handlers.

H. Heading for picture Hby Johnathan SmithMul ublius aris prat vivivis is vem diis. Itabentris speritam tu ingulia publiss atrisqu onsuam dis vid curnit. Mare cris inati se pultili.

G. Ted Daus Doing the First RaffleMuntus con inguliae iu senatia ellabem atum ficia inatrop oresimulicae diemuni rmilist? O te, uros inam rem acio.

The SWAT Dog A SWAT team is a highly specialized and trained unit within a law enforcement agency that handles high-risk situations beyond the capability of conventional police officers. Those selected to the team have astonishing skills and abilities that only come with years of training and real world experience.

SWAT teams are made up of seasoned officers who have a great work ethic, maturity, integrity, discipline, are emotional stable and have ability to make very good and quick decisions under stress, just to name a few.

As N.T.O.A.’s K9 Chairman I interact with many departments who inquire about K9 SWAT integration. Some agencies already have an established patrol K9 unit but have never integrated dogs into SWAT. Other department’s don’t have any K9’s but want to jump right into the K9 SWAT world.

In this article I want to focus on utilizing a brand new dog dedicated to SWAT verses working with an experience patrol dog.

From time to time departments ask about having a dedicated SWAT dog that only deploys with SWAT, not patrol. I tell them I’m only aware of three agencies across the United States that have a dedicated SWAT dog that does nothing else. As long as a department is busy enough to justify a dedicated SWAT dog, I have no problem with this but I strongly encourage them to select an experienced patrol dog instead of a brand new, untested dog.

I would estimate 99% of the SWAT teams that integrate dogs into SWAT utilize their patrol dogs because of the dogs experience and there street reliability. Some of the busiest SWAT teams in the country, the Los Angeles County Sheriff ’s Office (CA) and Las Vegas Metro (NV) don’t have dedicated SWAT dog, they use their patrol dogs.

Where some K9 SWAT integration issues occurs is they don’t want to use any of their seasoned patrol dog because they are not social and some of the SWAT operators are afraid of the dogs. If that is the case they have a very valid reason to avoid incorporating those types of dogs onto their team.

YOUTH VS. EXPERIENCE

YOUTH VS. EXPERIENCEby Brad Smith

But shame on the department for selecting a dog that has no social skills. If the dog is not social in a SWAT environment, I guarantee the dog has not social in a patrol environment and no one in patrol wants to work with that dog either. Would your department hire an officer that had issues like this? Why is a dog any different?

Anti-social behavior does not preclude using the dog in SWAT, but significant more training will be required to make the dog compatible with SWAT. If selected properly, any patrol dog can be a SWAT dog.

New vs Skilled

On a building search or a yard-to-yard search, who do you want on your search team, several rookie officers who have about five searches under their belts or a seasoned officer with hundreds of searches under his belt? The answer is obvious. Now take that same mindset and exchange the word officer with dog. Is your answer any different?

If your department is considering dedicating a dog to SWAT that is untested on the street, ask them these two questions: 1) Would you ever take an officer who just graduated from the police academy and put him on the SWAT team? 2) Would you ever take a new SWAT team member who just graduated from basic SWAT school and put him on the entry team or put him in the #1 or #2 position in the stack?

The answer to both these questions were obviously No, because the officer who just graduated from the police academy has no law enforcement experience. We don’t know how the officer will react in a stressful situation because he has not completed his field training and there are probably some liability issue.

The same can be said about the new SWAT member. He has patrol experience but no SWAT experience. The only way for him to gain that experience is through time and real world deployments. But this is what you are asking of a new SWAT dog to do, who has no experience in the street.

The dog’s job is to search the area ahead of the SWAT team before SWAT searches that area and clears it. You can “train” all you want but the dog is unproven. Until your dog actually encounters a suspect in a real world deployment, who does not want to go back to jail, you truly do not know how the dog will react, no matter how much training the dog has received. I have seen dogs look like rock-stars in training and fail on the street. You never want a dog or a person to fail. But if a dog is going to fail, have him fail on the street during a patrol deployment, just like we do with rookie patrol officers. If rookie patrol officers are going to fail, it will be during training with their field training officer, not during a SWAT deployment.

The best way to resolve this untested issue is to have the new SWAT dog and handler respond to patrol K9 calls until the dog is tested and preforms how he is supposed to. Once the dog has found and engaged several suspects he has been tested and is street worth. For departments where SWAT is a collateral duty, this is normally not a problem. But for some full-time SWAT operators they don’t like this idea because they don’t want to go back to patrol. They need to see the big picture.

Depending on how busy or active your department is, it may only take a few weeks or a few months before your dog is battle tested and ready to deploy with SWAT. This will also give the new handler a chance to learn how to be a handler and as well as learn about his dog and see what he needs to work on.

SWAT Dog Handler

Another issue that comes up is selection of a SWAT dog handler. One of the best solutions is to get an experienced handler (and his dog) and make them part of the SWAT team. An experienced handler knows how to read his dog and communicate to the SWAT team what his dog is telling him. But we all know this is not always possible.

Some SWAT teams want to keep the SWAT dog handler position “in-house” because none of their patrol dog handlers are SWAT team members or none of the handlers are motivated enough to be a SWAT dog handler. If your issue is lack of motivation on the patrol dog handler side, I have no problem with having a SWAT operators becoming a SWAT dog handler but there were some things that need to consider.

The first thing I would do is find out why the patrol dog handlers are not motivated enough to want to go to the next level with their dog and be a team player. Maybe it’s a dog issue or maybe it’s a handler issue. Either way those types of problems need to be addressed.

SWAT personnel, who have never been handlers, think the easiest way would be to turn a SWAT operator into a dog handler because they see their

patrol dogs working the street and think, “that looks pretty easy” but trust me being a handler is as hard as being a SWAT operator.

It’s like in professional sports, the professional athlete makes his job look so easy. When we, as ordinary people, try to duplicate or emulate our sports hero’s by throwing, hitting or catching the ball, driving a ball down the fairway, making that long putt, shooting three pointers, we always fall short of our goals until we train more and get more experience.

The same is true for an experience patrol handler or SWAT operator. We make our jobs look natural and effortless. This is because the public and even others within the department don’t see all the training that has gone into your profession to make it to this high level. All they see is the finished product.

Think about what you are asking the handler to do. You want to pair a new dog with the new SWAT dog handler, send them through basic K9 School, come back and work with the SWAT team for a while then

deploy with the team. I can tell you right now, basic Patrol K9 School does not prepare you for a SWAT deployment, it barley prepares you for street. See any potential problems or liability issues with this?

Many people think that the dog determines how good the K9 team will be, but in reality it’s the handler who makes or breaks the success of the K9 team. Pair a mediocre dog with a good handler and that handler will make the dog better than anyone thought possible. However, pairing a good dog with a new or mediocre handler will result in the dog having poor or mediocre street performances.

Those traits and characteristics you look for in a patrol dog handler are the same traits you look for in a SWAT dog handler. As far as I’m concerned, a properly trained and motivated patrol dog handler can be a SWAT dog handler.